Vision Tracking the Hot Goal LEDs

[engunneer]

shouldn't need a ring light, but the reflective tape (with a ring light) will be easier to detect.

Keep in mind the hot goal is yellow (not team colored like the animation), and switches sides after 5 seconds.

[jhellr13]

Originally Posted by engunneer

shouldn't need a ring light, but the reflective tape (with a ring light) will be easier to detect.

Keep in mind the hot goal is yellow (not team colored like the animation), and switches sides after 5 seconds.

I'm just curious as to if it was possible to have your camera take a picture at the very start of auton. With that image, look at the led lights and determine if they shine yellow or not. If they do, proceed to shooting sequence. If not, wait 5 seconds and then go.

Possible?

[engunneer]

absolutely possible.

The reflective target will be easier to see only because the contrast to the surroundings will be higher. The yellow lights will be detectable, but your field of view has to be wider (if you are looking for the whole ring), or you need to think about how to filter the image for "only yellow" with some fudge room. and detect the two horizontal lines made by the lights.

[jhellr13]

Originally Posted by engunneer

absolutely possible.

The reflective target will be easier to see only because the contrast to the surroundings will be higher. The yellow lights will be detectable, but your field of view has to be wider (if you are looking for the whole ring), or you need to think about how to filter the image for "only yellow" with some fudge room. and detect the two horizontal lines made by the lights.

I'll take that stuff into consideration. Thanks

[bvisness]

My overall experience with the vision system is that looking for individual colors can be extremely finicky, depending on the lighting on the field and whether your robot feels helpful on a given day. Also, it can be hard to correctly analyze an area of color that does not have a well-defined shape.

Bright green LED's tend to be picked up well under most lighting circumstances, though - our team has successfully used a bright green ring light the last couple years. I would recommend using the dynamic vision targets with a bright light of some sort.

[Greg McKaskle]

Since the LEDs are very bright and very small, the auto-exposure algorithms tend to overlook them and collect too much light in those areas. The result is that the LEDs that look yellow to your eyes will appear white on the computer screen. You can adjust the exposure by lowering the brightness parameter or manually calibrating the exposure. You may then be able to see the yellow LEDs using the camera, but at that point the rest of the image will be quite dark.

If you can set the exposure low enough, you can process it based on the color of yellow detected by the camera. Another approach is to process it using the brightness and ignore color.

As mentioned, this is certainly a valid way to look for the target. It doesn't require a ring light, but since you don't provide the light, you will likely find it to be less robust. But by all means, experiment.

Greg McKaskle

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

Since the LEDs are very bright and very small, the auto-exposure algorithms tend to overlook them and collect too much light in those areas. The result is that the LEDs that look yellow to your eyes will appear white on the computer screen. You can adjust the exposure by lowering the brightness parameter or manually calibrating the exposure. You may then be able to see the yellow LEDs using the camera, but at that point the rest of the image will be quite dark.

There are some pictures posted here with both the vision target lit up and the LEDs on here: http://firstforge.wpi.edu/sf/frs/do/..._vision_images