Camera Issues -- So close yet so far.

[Will Hanashiro]

First off, I would like to commend team 66 for their fantastic autonomous mode. In my eyes, they had the best vision seeking auto mode in the nation. Wait, let me correct that.... best vision seeking auto mode in the world.

What I do not understand is why some people are blaming team 66 for this incident. Why is it their fault that the camera locked onto the button of a person on the sidelines??? Had FIRST kept their lighting the same from regional to reagional, day to day, even hour to hour, then team 66 would not have had to program it so that the camera picked up all shades of green. Had the lighting been consistant, I am confident that this never would have happened, and I believe that they would have CAPPED THE CENTER GOAL ON A REGULAR BASIS. Thats how good they were.

66- I feel your pain, and all I can say is that things just arent fair sometimes. You guys did a fantastic job this year, and I'm glad that I was able to see your autonomous mode cap a goal in actual competition.

[Dave Scheck]

Let me preface this by saying -
To team 66 (and to others that attempted vision): Congratulations on your successes and near successes. Using the vision system this year was a huge leap of faith and to get it to work is commendable.

Originally Posted by Will Hanashiro

What I do not understand is why some people are blaming team 66 for this incident.

I don't think that anyone is blaming them. I think that people are just pointing out that the environment was what it was and that it should have been taken into account.

Why is it their fault that the camera locked onto the button of a person on the sidelines???

In all honesty, there was no reason that the camera should have been looking 5 feet off the ground for a vision tetra.
As has been mentioned above, there are ways that this could've been avoided.

Had FIRST kept their lighting the same from regional to reagional, day to day, even hour to hour, then team 66 would not have had to program it so that the camera picked up all shades of green.

That's a really absurd statement. Did you happen to notice that the entire roof of the Georgia Dome was blacked out? That probably cost them a pretty penny so that they could at least give teams that were using the vision system a fighting chance. That seems like a lot of money so that a few could show their stuff.

Granted the lighting was very different between the practice field and the dome, which was different from the regionals, but FIRST at least tried to help by giving us calibration values.

all I can say is that things just arent fair sometimes.

Really? I thought that they were perfectly fair. Each team had the same opportunity to get the vision system to work. I didn't see one team having an advantage over another at all.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Will Hanashiro

Had FIRST kept their lighting the same from regional to reagional, day to day, even hour to hour, then team 66 would not have had to program it so that the camera picked up all shades of green. Had the lighting been consistant, I am confident that this never would have happened, and I believe that they would have CAPPED THE CENTER GOAL ON A REGULAR BASIS.

Let's be honest, you really don't know anything about lighting. It is impossible to give exact lighting at the same event hour by hour. Lights run at different temperatures which provide different colors. Different venues, different light sources, different bulbs all lead to a not so perfect world. FIRST had certain set lighting points that had to be met at a minimum. As far as I know those were met a t every regional (they were at the 5 I attended).

Should everything be perfect? It would be nice. However every floor at every venue was different. Did this stop people from running? No. Are football fields perfectly level, hockey rinks ice the same, baseball diamonds the same dimensions? No they are not but they are still used and the game goes on. Let's not put FIRST down on things that they cannot control. The lighting in the dome changed from last year because of an event before we arrived. The lighting people had to come up with lighting that would meet FIRST's minimum requirements. They did a good job. I deal with lighting at our church and know through training seminars and hands on experience that lighting is not an exact science. What works today may not be the same tomorrow. Let's try to improve things not always be tearing them down especially when they are things that are tough to control anyway

[JoeXIII'007]

Since lighting is inconsistent by nature, and the calibration numbers given never really worked, I have a little suggestion. If the camera system is used next year, I hate to say this, but let's try and go analog on some of the components used in the camera. Perhaps some knobs to configure and calibrate RGB or YGR (whatever cam config FIRST decides on) intensity, so that when the robot is placed on the field, calibration can be done match by match. How? Turn the knob, and when the camera gets a good reading on that particular color in its opinion, it will signal with a green light, otherwise it would stay red and request calibration. Do that for each color.

In programming, it would just return a 1 for something or 0 for nothing, and the calibration wouldn't have to be handled by the computer. (How many times did our team have to reload the program due to just a simple change in calibration?) Quite frankly, the Java application provided was too slow, and not very dependable in my opinion. This way I suggested, turn knobs, and you're on the way, that's it. Not saying that I want the easy way out, I just want a more logical and practical way to handle calibration.

-Joe

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

and the calibration numbers given never really worked

People keep saying this and I don't understand why. I'm surprised that other teams' experience was so different than ours. We used the calibration values provided at 2 different regionals and the Championship event and the camera tracked the specified colors perfectly every time, from both sides of the field, all day long.

Can you explain how you are certain that the calibration numbers didn't work? Are you basing this assumption simply off the fact that your robot didn't go where you wanted it to? If so then you may be jumping to conclusions, which will not help this situation for next year. Instead, this situation needs to be examined carefully to really determine the root cause of your problem or else when FIRST does somehow manage to provide perfect lighting next year and precise calibration values your robot will still drive into a wall.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

Can you explain how you are certain that the calibration numbers didn't work? Are you basing this assumption simply off the fact that your robot didn't go where you wanted it to? If so then you may be jumping to conclusions, which will not help this situation for next year. Instead, this situation needs to be examined carefully to really determine the root cause of your problem or else when FIRST does somehow manage to provide perfect lighting next year and precise calibration values your robot will still drive into a wall.

We are VERY certain that some of the provided numbers didn't work. #1. We didn't use some of the provided numbers. We experimented around. #2. If we did use the provided numbers, and they didn't work, the robot would halt in the middle of autonomous, signifying that it didn't recognize or find the color. Sure, it didn't go where we wanted it to sometimes, but our team was testing that camera pretty much after every match, at every regional, and at nationals. There was no assuming as far as I'm concerned.

Did you change any of the numbers in the code other than the exposure values?

No.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

#1. We didn't use some of the provided numbers. We experimented around.

Did you change any of the numbers in the code other than the exposure values?