To address the issue of setting and saving the camera device on PCs with the ARC Runtime installed, you can follow these steps to ensure that your camera settings are retained:

1. Use ARC Pro for Initial Setup:

   • First, use the full version of ARC Pro to configure your camera settings. This includes selecting the correct camera device, setting the resolution, and any other specific configurations you need.

2. Save the Project:

   • Once you have configured the camera settings in ARC Pro, save your project. This will store all your settings, including the camera configuration, within the project file.

3. Transfer the Project File:

   • Transfer the saved project file to the PC with ARC Runtime installed. Ensure that the project file is placed in a location where ARC Runtime can access it.

4. Open the Project in ARC Runtime:

   • Open the saved project file in ARC Runtime. The settings you configured in ARC Pro, including the camera settings, should be retained.

5. Consistent USB Port Usage:

   • Try to consistently use the same USB port for your camera. This can help prevent the need to reconfigure the camera settings if the system recognizes the camera as the same device each time.

6. Check for Updates:

   • Ensure that both ARC Pro and ARC Runtime are updated to the latest versions. Updates may include improvements or fixes related to device settings and configurations.

By following these steps, you should be able to set and save your camera device settings, minimizing the need to reconfigure them each time you start ARC Runtime. If you continue to experience issues, consider checking the USB port configuration on your PC to ensure it is not causing the camera to be recognized as a different device.

Unfortunately it is not possible to be consistent with port usage. My development laptop will always have different port configurations to the robot's USB hub. So installing ARC Pro and then re-installing Run-time seems to be the only way to go. This can be a real pain if Tokens have to be temporarily swapped around as well.

This update will accept an index as a parameter for the StartCamera to choose the camera device: https://synthiam.com/Products/ARC/Releases/ARC-2025-01-21-00-Pro-and-Runtime-22607

For example, if you want to start the camera with the 3rd device listed in the dropdown, you'd pass the value of 2, because it starts at 0.

ControlCommand("Camera Device", "CameraStart", 2);

I'll add to this - because i think @afcorson is looking to have the value selected between development and runtime installations.

What i'd suggest is having a file on the runtime computer which lets the project know what computer it is running on. This is a popular technique uses for server software, where a file lets the software know what environment it's running (staging, qa, development, production).

So if you wanted during Init, you could do this...

• Place a file called C:\temp\runtime.txt. It can be an empty file, it just needs to exist. Put that file only on the runtime PC. And in your "Connection Script", have this script run...

if (File.exists("c:\\temp\\runtime.txt")) {

  // We are on the runtime computer. Set a global variable so other scripts know this
  setVar("$environment", "runtime");

  // start the camera 
  ControlCommand("Camera Device", "CameraStart", 2);
} else {

  // We are on the dev computer. Set a global variable so other scripts know this
  setVar("$environment", "dev");
  
  // start the camera 
  ControlCommand("Camera Device", "CameraStart", 1);
}

This will solve my issue nicely. Thanks.