Camera Works Well with the Balls!

[JHale]

I have followed all of the troubleshooting tips and instructions given by Kevin and IFI. I can confirm all of the initialization on the camera easily, and it does initialize, however tracking is where the majority of the problem is.

At the moment I have some custom code working the camera quite nicely. It can track the red ball (the only one we have) pretty well. The code only works to ensure that the camera is in tracking mode (not just idiling). Tomarrow I hope to add functionality for searching, register changes on the fly, and manual control.

I will post the code sometime next week. The main difference is turning over servo control to the camera, instead of the controller. In collecting output, I had noticed that the camera would tell the controller that it had sufficient confidence to start tracking, however, if the next packet denies this (perhaps the ball has moved and the confidence is slightly decreased) the code restarts.

Thanks all for the suggestions, but I have struggled with this camera for 2 years, and in 2 days I was able to get it working. Hasta!

[Tytus Gerrish]

using the camera on the big balls makes sense. they look the same shape from any direction and they're enormus. you can't miss them. with all the hussle and bussle of 6 robots zipping arround having an auto aim for picking up balls even would be an advantage

[RyanCahoon]

Originally Posted by JHale

The main difference is turning over servo control to the camera, instead of the controller.

As has been stated previously, you can't have the camera control servos, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by JHale

In collecting output, I had noticed that the camera would tell the controller that it had sufficient confidence to start tracking, however, if the next packet denies this (perhaps the ball has moved and the confidence is slightly decreased) the code restarts.

If you're willing to give Kevin's code another, slightly different, go, try the drop-in replacement for tracking.c here. It's a modification I did last year that deals with just the problem you stated by not dropping the camera lock unless it loses the target for several consecutive frames. Success rate was over 80% (I don't have specific numbers at the moment) tracking last year's lighted targets with no recalibration ever needed, even between venues, so give it a try if you want.

--Ryan

[JHale]

Hey all,

The camera is working great when we hand servos to the board (the way the CMU guys made it to work). Newer boards can do this by getting the servo angle that the camera is desiring and then sending that to the appropriate PWM. We however are using an older board that still has the PWM outs.

Cant post the code because it uses Kevin's serial code. Snippits on the way!

Hasta!

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by JHale

We however are using an older board that still has the PWM outs.

The older camera board is illegal. You have to use RevA of the CMUCam2 board since it is COTS (sold at IFI).