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Camera Interface? — Parallax Forums

Camera Interface?

Circuitbuilder9Circuitbuilder9 Posts: 85
edited 2012-03-11 16:10 in Propeller 1
Hey, people.
I was wondering if you guys knew any good camera interface on the propeller chip, whether it be an OBX or completely new code, is it possible that i could know how to do that? Stuff like capturing video from a camera or other type of video hardware, such as Hanno's video hardware, is hard to find. Creating code for video interface and facial recognition is very hard to find. I cannot find any examples in archive files on Semiconductor. Plz help! Thnx.

Comments

  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2012-03-07 09:10
    Check out the machine vision section (post #4) of my index (see signature).

    You ought to check out Ragtop's camera project too.
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,844
    edited 2012-03-08 06:04
    I've been thinking of how to best capture a photo with the Prop for a long time...

    I think there are a few approaches:
    1. Phil Pilgrim's analog capture from NTSC camera. This is probably the lowest cost option.
    2. USB camera interface using VNC2. Possible on paper, haven't seen it demonstrated. Also fairly low cost.
    3. Digital stream capture from cmos sensor. I think Parallax's laser range finder does this. Maybe that code could be used to capture an image.
    That would also be fairly low cost.
    4. Use a serial interface camera. I think there's one around again for ~$50 or so.
    5. Use a Solomon SSD1928 graphics chip to capture digital video. This is my plan :)
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2012-03-08 07:14
    Rayman wrote: »
    3. Digital stream capture from cmos sensor. I think Parallax's laser range finder does this. Maybe that code could be used to capture an image.

    The range finder just ignores most of the color image the camera outputs. It shouldn't be hard to get a full color image from the sensor, the problem is what to do with all that data. I've worked on and off on using stacks of SRAM to store and image. I haven't gotten very far with the project.
    Rayman wrote: »
    5. Use a Solomon SSD1928 graphics chip to capture digital video. This is my plan :)

    I look forward to seeing what you do.

    I also like Hanno's method of using an ADC08100 chip to capture NTSC video. I think the 8-bit bus of the ACD08100 lets the Prop capture a higher resolution image than Phil's capture methods. Hanno's method only capture's B&W images and the ACD08100 chip isn't cheap (~$14 IIRC). You can also use the ACD08100 for other high speed ADC uses. I think one reason I like it is because I got it to work. I also displayed a low res capture on my 12 x 10 LED array which I thought was pretty cool.
  • HannoHanno Posts: 1,130
    edited 2012-03-11 13:22
    I was very impressed with the grayscale image I got with Phil's method, had a bit less luck with color. I do have a prototype of it nicely integrated into ViewPort to stream realtime bw/color video to HUB/ViewPort. Once video is inside ViewPort (using USB Webcam, my ADC technique, or hopefully soon Phil's method) you can use the integrated OpenCV to find faces/circles/colored blobs etc...
    Hanno
  • RaymanRayman Posts: 14,844
    edited 2012-03-11 16:10
    I just picked up a $5.99 USB2.0 camera at a computer store, so I might be rethinking my plan...
    If I find time, I'm going to connect this to the VNC2 and see if I can get anywhere that way...
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