Quote:
Originally Posted by matan129
Thank for the detailed info! But in this case, I guess I can just use a stripped-down classmate (we have 2 of those), or just any other mini laptop in order to do so (I guess that the Atom Processor is more then powerful enough in terms of computing power). Also, what platform did you use to develop the image processing code?
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We started off testing this idea when the COTS rules would allow a computing device several years ago (more than 3 years ago).
Our first tests were conducted on Dell Mini 9's running Ubuntu Linux LTS version 8 which I had loaded on mine while doing development work on another unrelated project. The Dell Mini 9 is a single core Atom processor.
Using Video4Linux and OpenJDK (Java) the programming captain crafted his own recognition code. I believe that helped get him into college. It was very interesting.
We then tried a dual core Atom classmate and it worked better when his code was designed to use that extra resource.
Between years I slammed together a vision system using 2 cameras on a Lego MindStorm PTZ and used OpenCV with Python. With that you could locate yourself on the field using geometry not parallax.
Other students have since worked on other Java based and Python based solutions using custom and OpenCV code.
I have stripped parts out of OpenCV and loaded them into ARM processors to create a camera with vision processing within it. It was mentioned in the proposal I helped to submit to FIRST. I think using an old phone is probably more cost effective (they make lots of a single model of phone and when they are old they plummet in price).
OpenCV wraps Video4Linux so the real upside of OpenCV from the 'use a USB camera perspective' is that it will remove things like detecting the camera being attached and setting the modes. Still Video4Linux is pretty well documented and the only grey area you will find is if you pick a random camera. Every company that tries to USB interface a CMOS or CCD camera does their own little thing with the configuration values. So I suggest finding a camera you can understand (Logitech or PS3-Eye) and not worrying about the other choices. A random cheapo camera off Amazon or eBay might be a huge pain when you can buy a used PS3-Eye at GameStop.