External cameras for augmented reality on DK2

You may want to be careful with this, since a camera mounted on the front of DK2 will block the LEDs and thus you may lose positional tracking.

I agree with Cyber. have you thought about perhaps adding some IR's to make up for any you cover. I am having some luck with a build I have internal, adding functionality for extra IR LED's, but I cannot share until I have permission, and we can't really ask yet as it isn't done lol, but as long as funding keeps well keep you posted if you want;O)

The LEDs on the front of the DK2 are synced to the scan-rate of the camera, so you can't just add your own LEDs. If anything, that would damage the tracking more, since you're basically adding a heap of IR interference.

You could probably get away with putting two cameras onto the front of the DK2 if you were careful about the placement and ensured that you placed only the camera and breakout board on the front, minimising the number of LEDs you're occluding.

In terms of requirements, it's really up to you - the more money you spend on the cameras, the better the experience will be. I think you'll want to go at least 60FPS, preferably higher, and as high a resolution as you can afford.
For a random example, this camera (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11745) outputs 728x488 video at 60fps, and cost about $30. You'd probably want to go a little higher than that, but I'm not going to do the googling for you. ;)
If I were you, I'd sacrifice resolution for framerate - I'd personally be quite happy with a low-res image so long as it was responsive. A nice crystal clear image that stutters as I move my head is going to suck.

One more thing that you might want to keep in mind is the field-of-view. Ideally, you're going to want the field of view of your cameras to match the human-eye. this will help deal with wide-angle distortion / not being able to see anything. But that's a little less in your control.

If I was you, I'd send an email to a few suppliers of image sensors with your requirements (75+ fps, preferably >1.0Mp resolution, preferably matching human-eye FOV), since they'll be able to help you out.

Thank you all for your input! I'll update this thread with my progress.