Camera - how to get out of B&W?

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by pgaston

The camera works great - we can see it fine on the dashboard. (That dashboard is nice!)

I set up the green light thing from the contest two years ago about 10 feet in front of the camera. (I'm guessing there is a camera needed this year, duh...) It showed up as white. In fact, the entire image was B&W. If I point the camera straight up at the ceiling lights a few colors start to emerge.

I played with a few settings via Labview but I couldn't change anything.

Any thoughts? i.e., how do I configure the camera to see in color?

You may want to take a look at this tutorial.

[pgaston]

(The reply that was deleted was almost perfect...)

I'm having trouble getting the camera to return RGB. Basically I find only two places to set RGB deep in the Labview bowels (not sure if U32 or U64 is right - I've tried them both).

Basically the camera will show color for about 5-10 seconds, and then it reverts to grayscale. It may last longer in color if it's pointed at least partially at a bright light. However, the ambient light in the room should be much more than adequate for normal operation.

Can you think of any other thoughts? Documentation on Labview/WPI camera vi's that will move me along?

Thanks!!!



While interesting, documentation on image processing is *not* the issue at this point. Need to get the camera working first...

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by pgaston

(The reply that was deleted was almost perfect...)

I'm having trouble getting the camera to return RGB. Basically I find only two places to set RGB deep in the Labview bowels (not sure if U32 or U64 is right - I've tried them both).

Basically the camera will show color for about 5-10 seconds, and then it reverts to grayscale. It may last longer in color if it's pointed at least partially at a bright light. However, the ambient light in the room should be much more than adequate for normal operation.

Can you think of any other thoughts? Documentation on Labview/WPI camera vi's that will move me along?

Thanks!!!



While interesting, documentation on image processing is *not* the issue at this point. Need to get the camera working first...

After reading this description of the problem, I agree that processing is not the issue. I also believe that configuration is not the problem either. My bottom line guess is that the camera is defective.
It may be a simple as a loose connection internally, or it could be a bad solder joint. Regardless, I believe it needs to be swapped out.

[pgaston]

(Hey, in my case it's usually operator error...)

We'll swap cameras - thanks!

[Greg McKaskle]

If you haven't done it already, you might try a hard reset of the camera. I think it involves pulling the plug, holding the black button on the back down, reinsert power and wait ~20 seconds until the lights on front blink red/green.

You may also want to check to see if the camera color setting is being modified. It defaults to 50. Smaller numbers move towards grayscale, higher numbers saturate the colors.

Greg McKaskle