CMUCam long distance tracking

moo2

Does anyone know how far away an object can be from the CMUCam and still be tracked? I looked in both the CMUCam Manual and the Image Sensor Manual, and the only info I could find says that the camera is set to focus on close objects out of the box, but if you need to adjust the focus you can do so.

I'm trying to figure out if the CMUCam would be suitable for tracking a moving object at up to roughly 150 feet away. I'm trying to make a autonomous pan / tilt system for a camcorder. The camcorder will primarily be used to capture video of cyclists riding on a velodrome, so the tracked object (a cyclist) would never be more than roughly 150 feet from the camera as he rides on a circular path.

I know that I'm not going to get video from the CMUCam. I only want to use it to aim the camcorder.

If the CMUCam will not work for this, can anyone recommend an alternative?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

paulc22

I don't know for sure, but I believe the CMUCAM will not do this for you.· Mine has a somewhat close-up lens, which can be focused, but I don't think it will reliably identify and track things past 10 or 15 feet.· I suppose it depends on how big the objects are, but you're aiming it at bikers in a velodrome, so I·imagine the subjects can get pretty small.· I have only played around w/mine indoors in close range, but the lens is very small.· You can focus it, though.

Also, I was recently at the Star Wars museum in Fort Worth.· They had a version of C3PO using a CMUCam for his vision.· It seemed we needed to be just about right in front of him before he recognized us, but he recognized several heads simultaneously.·

It's a neat vision processing board, and I hope to really get going on it in the future.· Good luck.

Paul C

Safe Cracker

Would it be possible to use a somewht telescopic lense and constrain the tracking of the home position so it would have a larger image of a rider to process?

kelvin james

This is just a concept, so i don't know if it is possible. Expanding on the idea of another lense, i wonder if the cmucam can track objects as well from the lcd viewfinder of the video cam. Then serial controlling the zoom of the video cam depending on the pan angle, the pan angle would determine the closest and furthest distance as to where the camera is located. This would keep the field of view basically the same for the cmucam over the course of the track. It looks like the amount of contrast between the tracked object and the background is a major issue, so i am not sure it would work in your application at all.

Bryan K.

I have successfully gotten about 20 feet or so, but that was outdoors. The CMUCAM I believe should track at further distances, as long as the color you are tracking stays within the preset tolerances.