Labview video processing
 

Aloha!

I am currently working on an independent robotics project. The goal is to make a robot that uses two Apple iSight's connected to Macbook, the macbook will use the cameras to take a stereo image. It will update 3d map of where it is, and choose a drive path (the 3d map and drive path is done by another software). Now it gets really crazy, and there is a lot of work to be done. But I was thinking of using Labview to connect to this apple iSight and to take a snap shot. Is there any sort of driver or pre-made plugin for Labview that allows it to use a webcam that is connected to the computer? Also, does it require a video processing plugin? Can I apply video filters, or have it combine images into a stereo image? Is there a better software to use? (I know about OpenCV, and that is an option, but I want to use Labview)

Thanks!

Re: Labview video processing
 

There's an Image Acquisition and Machine Vision Module for Labview. It is, of course, excitingly expensive at retail prices. It supports blob detection and pattern recognition and etc, but if you want to do anything past that you'll need to start working out your own algorithms. Honestly, if you're really serious about this, I'd use OpenCV, if only for developing your algorithms. Labview is good for many things, but I've never much liked it for running in a desktop OS for anything where you care about processing speed and stability.

Re: Labview video processing
 

Yeah, I felt that this may not be the best tool. I have been trying to get opencv to work on this machine, but honestly I am having issues getting it to work :( It's not very easy to install, and when I was done installing, the test failed.

Re: Labview video processing
 

Yes, the IMAQ Vision tools are what you are looking for. You can take snapshots from pretty much any camera source, provided you have a way to get the images into the system, and perform complex operations on the image. Pretty much everything you mentioned, no problem. The Vision tools are also highly optimized, but you do need to consider the fact that you're doing *software* manipulation of images and not *hardware* manipulation so the speed of your system and available memory will be a factor.

I am not sure if we are willing to donate any copies of the Vision tools to teams, but if you're curious you can send a request to frc[at]ni.com and ask - I know we've done it in the past for various school projects for high schools and Universities and even once a couple years ago for a FIRST team, so it only hurts not to ask.

-Danny

Re: Labview video processing
 

Well it wouldn't hurt! :) I will send an email with my proposal as to what we are doing. This is completely nonprofit and is a research project between a colleague and me. We both attend college, and are doing this to get some experience with Labview and MATLAB (along with embedded electronics). Seeing how college student=poor, we plan to use a lower cost method of accomplishing our goals.