Test camera off robot?

[Eric Reed]

Hello,

Is there an easy way to play with the camera and robot code without actually using the cRIO? Something like a virtual robot so I can see how the code reacts to processed images.

Thanks,

Eric.

[Fletch1373]

This is something a lot of people have been looking for since the release of the cRio as the new controller 2 years ago. I think I remember seeing some posts on here recently about somebody developing an emulator, but I seriously doubt it has vision support.

In short, the answer is no.

[SuperS_5]

Originally Posted by Eric Reed

Something like a virtual robot ...

There is nothing that "simulates" the cRIO without a tone of programming. Usually, simulation code is written separately.

Originally Posted by Eric Reed

so I can see how the code reacts to processed images.

It is possible to access the axis camera without the cRIO. It is a network camera, so your IP would have to be on the same subnet for anything to work. I just had a look at the WPI camera library, and it looks like it is written almost completely in G code. This means that using on the PC should be really easy. Just make sure the you specify the right IP, (If you changed the camera's IP) and your VI is targeted to your PC and not the cRIO. (Open new vi, making sure it is not under the cRIO in the project tree. It can be dragged to the right location)

Edit: Even if you cannot get the axis camera working, a static picture will work with the Vision VIs on the PC. The NI-IMAQdx utility can handle most USB web cameras. If you can install this module, (from the NI website) it would allow you to test the vision logic without the axis camera.

[Greg McKaskle]

The way I do it is to use NI Vision Assistant. If not installed, you can find it on the LabVIEW DVD.

If you place the camera and PC on the same subnet, or otherwise routable network, the vision asst allows you to acquire images form the camera, make measurements, process the images with vision scripts, save images, and even generate code.

With this networking setup, you can also do basic settings with a web browser by opening the camera IP address.

Greg McKaskle

[michael714]

Are you able to process live images from the Axis Cam? We're having a problem where we can process image snapshots from the Axis Cam, but we can't process live images. When we try to grab live images, we get a prompt to install NI-IMAQdx.

[sometimestommy]

Yes! it is possible! We did it just a couple of days ago with our axis camera. All you have to do is go to the Support tab of labview and click on "Find FRC examples and go to vision, then "Rectangle Tracking.VI"

Once open, you simply just type in your camera's IP and you can view the original image and then the processed image with tracking overlayed.

EDIT: You can alternatively change the size and frame rate of the image stream to test what settings work best for the actual code (usually the smaller the better for processing speed)