ZED X - GMSL2

If you recently purchased a ZED X or ZED X Mini camera, congratulations! This guide aims to help you become acquainted with the ZED X camera and to give you the essential information you need to begin utilizing its 3D depth sensing capabilities to their full potential. How do I connect my ZED X camera? How do I use the GMSL2 capture card? How can I develop on my local PC with the ZED X? If you are currently asking yourself these questions, this guide is here to help you.

About ZED X and ZED X Mini #

The ZED X camera is a professional-grade camera designed specifically for robotic applications in production environments. With its IP66-rated Global Shutter and high-performance IMU, it is built to withstand harsh conditions and provide reliable performance.

The camera’s advanced Neural Depth Engine 2 technology produces highly accurate depth maps, even in challenging lighting and untextured environments. Additionally, its secure GMSL2 connection allows for low-latency video transmission without EMI interference, making it ideal to integrate into robotics platforms.

Setting up your system for ZED X and ZED X Mini #

If you are planning to use the ZED X or ZED X Mini cameras, it is essential you have the proper hardware in place to support the camera’s GMSL2 connection.

The ZED X and ZED X Mini cameras use a GMSL2 connection, which is not compatible with USB. To process video at high bandwidth and low latency in a reliable manner, specific hardware is required, and therefore the ZED X and ZED X Mini are not compatible with all host machines.

Before proceeding, please ensure that you have followed the “Get Started with ZED Link” guide to correctly configure your NVIDIA® Jetson™ device for the GMSL2 camera.

Developing with ZED X on a PC #

When working on projects for embedded platforms such as Jetsons, there may be situations where you prefer to perform development tasks on a Desktop machine. The ZED SDK LocalStreaming function enables developers to use the ZED X on their local PC as if it were connected directly to the computer. To set up this capability, follow the guide below to stream ZED X data to your computer.

• Developing with ZED X on a PC with ZED SDK Streaming

Using ZED X with a Virtual Display #

For remote access to your ZED X system, running on an NVIDIA® Jetson™ device, a virtual display lets you run GUI applications and development tools without a physical monitor or HDMI dongle. This is ideal for headless robotic setups where you need to use the ZED SDK remotely through VNC, NoMachine, or X11 forwarding.

Read more about setting up a virtual display for your ZED X system in our dedicated guide:

• Virtual Display on NVIDIA® Jetson™

Advanced: Raw NV12 Buffer Access #

For performance-critical applications like GStreamer pipelines or NVIDIA DeepStream, the ZED SDK offers a zero-copy API to access raw NV12 buffers directly from the capture pipeline. This allows low-latency integration with NVIDIA multimedia frameworks by avoiding unnecessary memory copies.

Read more in our dedicated guide on how to access raw NV12 buffers from the ZED X camera:

• Raw NV12 Buffer Access Guide

Troubleshooting #

If you have any issues while setting up your ZED X, please refer to our Troubleshooting guide.

Docker #

You can find a guide to use the ZED X and ZED X Mini in Docker on this page.