Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

Is there anything in the rules preventing us from doing our rectangle recognition on the driver station laptop rather the cRIO? Even in Hybrid mode?

Just want to make sure..

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

I don't see anything in the rules that prevents processing the camera image on the computer running the Driver Station.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

I think it's legal as long as you keep in mind the ports that are available on the field.

If you look at one of the more recent team updates:

We took this to mean that we could freely use ports 1130 and 1140 to communicate data via UDP from our Dashboard to our robot and back.

In fact, this is how we're implementing our vision tracking algorithms right now. Our PC receives the Image, processes it and generates a list of targets, then that list of targets is prioritized and sent back to the robot for tracking.

-Andy

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

I've been looking for a definitive rule in the manual and other docs without success.

Are the Driver Station and Dashboard permitted to be separate laptops?
Are two laptops permitted to be used during the contest?

I'm wondering how a team would make use of the web services interface otherwise.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

Quick followup to refine my question.

I've read about the $400 component limit that COTS laptops appear to be subject to.
The location of the laptop would be in the pit, next to the provided netbook drivers station. I seem to remember some teams having two laptops in the pit with them in our rookie year 2011.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

|-> See my post above about port #'s I think that's pretty definitive at least on the network level.

?
|-> That's a good question. Maybe you should make a post at a higher level in the forum about this. I'd guess that it's okay, because you're still restricted as to what ports you can use and how the robot must be controlled, etc.

At the same time however, It's possible that the Field system is designed to disallow traffic from any IP address not 10.xx.yy.6 , in which case the second laptop (whichever one does not have the *.6) wouldn't be able to communicate, that's just me throwing a possibility out there. I've got no way to back that one up.

Edit:
You're not restricted to any number of laptops in the pit. You're only restricted on the playing field, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong there. I sure hope not.... we bought ourselves a ~$350 laptop with a nice big display to use for our DS/Dashboard

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

Edit:
You're not restricted to any number of laptops in the pit. You're only restricted on the playing field, anyone please correct me if I'm wrong there. I sure hope not.... we bought ourselves a ~$350 laptop with a nice big display to use for our DS/Dashboard[/quote]

Just to be painfully clear:)
So if we're in the pit with the KOP netbook and also a COTS $350 laptop we are not going to commit a foul on that basis alone.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

No. You're fine in the pit; I don't know if that is OK on the field though.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

Thanks!

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

The rule about the usable ports should be last years. This year, there seems to be no restrictions.

Also note that last year's enumerated ports weren't necessarily the only ones open on the field in practice, but I wouldn't've relied on it.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

you mean to say that we're restricted to a computer for our driver's station that cost less than $400?

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

just answered my own question: rule 13 says that the operator console is excluded from the $3500 maximum to spend on the robot.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

Andy --

Are you using Labview? It looks to me like UDP Port 1130 is the only UDP port one can definitely depend on being open from the Driver Station to the robot. If that's the case and you're sending your own custom packet with the list of targets, how do you get the robot code to distinguish it from the normal driver station control packet?

If you're not using UDP Port 1130, how can we be sure that any other port will actually be open at the competition?

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

oh? http://frc-manual.usfirst.org/viewSingleItemMap/694

Make sure to update your manual for the team updates.

Re: Image processing on the driver station laptop
 

cbf -
Yep, we're using labView.

The robot code doesn't have to distinguish anything here. The Driver station packets are being transmitted over a different port (1165 I believe). I'm not sure how familiar you are with networking but since they're different ports you can think of them as disjoint channels. A UDP receive on port 1130 will never see a packet from port 1165 and vice versa (sp? I never get that one right)

So in a nutshell, we just open a new socket on 1130 on the Dashboard, and pack the data and ship it out to the robot IP address; and in the Robot code We create a new socket to listen for data on 1130, and do a UDP receive followed by some error checking and an unflatten.

-Andy