Install dependencies with the command lines below.

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install libgstreamer1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-x gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-gl gstreamer1.0-gtk3 gstreamer1.0-qt5 gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio

In a terminal, go to the 'receive_theta/dependency/libuvc-theta' folder and install 'libuvc-theta'.

  mkdir build && cd build
  cmake ..
  make && sudo make install
  sudo /sbin/ldconfig -v

In a terminal, go to the 'receive_theta/dependency/gstthetauvc/thetauvc' folder and install 'gstthetauvc'. After installation, use 'gst-inspect-1.0 thetauvcsrc' to check if the gstreamer plugin is valid.

  make && sudo make install

Plug the camera into the computer with a USB cable, turn on the camera, and set it to live video mode (click the 'Mode' button until you see 'LIVE' under the camera icon on the screen). Now, use the command line below to view images.

  gst-launch-1.0 -v thetauvcsrc ! h264parse ! decodebin ! autovideosink

Copy the 'receive_theta' folder to a ROS workspace, in a terminal, go to the ROS workspace folder and compile.

  colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Source the ROS workspace and launch the driver (make sure the camera is on/active and in live video mode).

  source install/setup.sh
  ros2 launch receive_theta receive_theta.launch

The image messages are published on the '/camera/image' topic. To show images in a window, set 'showImage = true' in 'receive_theta.launch'. The top and bottom margin is set to 'TopBottonMargin = 160', cropping from 960 pixels/180 degs to 640 pixels/120 degs vertically. Set 'imageLatency' to adjust image message timestamps if needed.

Notes:

If using the driver on ARM computers, change line 65 in 'receiveTheta.cpp' to 'VideoCapture video("thetauvcsrc ! h264parse ! decodebin ! nvvidconv ! video/x-raw, format=(string)BGRx ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw, format=(string)BGR ! appsink");'.

The image framerate is set to 10Hz (skipFrameNum = 2) in 'gstthetauvcsrc.c'. It can be set up to 30Hz. The image resolution is set to FHD (1920 * 960) by default in 'thetauvc.h'. It can be set to UHD (3840 * 1920). Make sure to remake and reinstall 'gstthetauvc'.

On some computers, you may need to change the installation directory from '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gstreamer-1.0' to '/usr/lib/gstreamer-1.0' in the makefile of 'gstthetauvc'.

'libuvc-theta' is downloaded from 'https://github.com/ricohapi/libuvc-theta'.

'gstthetauvc' is downloaded from 'https://github.com/nickel110/gstthetauvc'.