Interfacing USB webcams in ROS

We can start interfacing with an ordinary webcam or a laptop cam in ROS. Overall, there are no ROS-specific packages to install and use web cameras. If the camera is working in Ubuntu/Linux, it may be supported by the ROS driver too. After plugging in the camera, check whether a /dev/videoX device file has been created, or check with some application such as Cheese, VLC, or similar others. The guide to check whether the webcam is supported on Ubuntu is available at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam.

We can find the video devices present on the system using the following command:

$ ls /dev/ | grep video    

If you get an output of video, you can confirm a USB cam is available for use.

After ensuring the webcam ...

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