Turrets and cameras

[Lil' Lavery]

1712 used the given calibration time during Lunch on Thursday to work with the NI representative at DC to calibrate our camera. I don't know the specifics on the settings (was working on other items at the time), but we managed to get our tracking code working succesfully.
We would sometimes lose targets at a longer range, but that may have been due to their movement and the presence of multiple targets (when we lost a target, we would almost always lock onto another almost immediately) in the camera's vision.
We did notice some difference between when the camera was aimed at the black curtain background and when it was aimed anywhere else. It wasn't a massive difference, but it may be enough at some venues to impact your results.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

1712 used the given calibration time during Lunch on Thursday to work with the NI representative at DC to calibrate our camera. I don't know the specifics on the settings (was working on other items at the time), but we managed to get our tracking code working succesfully.
We would sometimes lose targets at a longer range, but that may have been due to their movement and the presence of multiple targets (when we lost a target, we would almost always lock onto another almost immediately) in the camera's vision.
We did notice some difference between when the camera was aimed at the black curtain background and when it was aimed anywhere else. It wasn't a massive difference, but it may be enough at some venues to impact your results.

Yep, one of our software engineers, Paul Gehman, worked with Greg from NI at lunch to get the 1712 settings right. I'll see if I can get Paul to post our values here - maybe I can get some screen shots from the programming laptop to post., but I'd suggest on field calibration on Thursday if/when it might be allowed. Bob Bellini, our other engineer helped to refine our target code on Sat, but since the lighting on the field was so bright and different, we really couldn't test a lot in the pits and never went to the practice field because of the difference. We just tried to learn through Thursday and things really worked out well for our autonomous routine using the camera and target size only with no other sensors.

[Rich Kressly]

Attached are the cam values we used from calibrating with Greg from NI at lunch on Thurs. to score in autonomous in DC. I'll see if I can get Paul Gehman to comment here since he is the one that worked with Greg.

It's also important to note that it's possible that some slightly different values might be optimal for red/blue alliance as we always have had a harder time identifying green as opposed to pink and with the "other" color on top and the position of our camera the same values may not be as good in both cases. Nontheless, the lunchtime calibration on Thursday is what allowed us to consistently track and score on targets in auto.

[Paul Gehman]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Attached are the cam values we used from calibrating with Greg from NI at lunch on Thurs. to score in autonomous in DC...the lunchtime calibration on Thursday is what allowed us to consistently track and score on targets in auto.

I am going to expand on comments from Team 1712 Mentor Rick Kressly, Sean Lavery, and National Instrument's Greg McKaskle, as posted above.

Greg/NI was available during lunch on Thursday, at the DC Regional, to assist Teams who wanted to calibrate their cameras, and adjust parameters in their softwares. We jumped at the opportunity to field test our camera settings and vision VIs (LabView). For Team 1712, that meant varying key settings in our implementation of the "two-color camera servo" example code. Read Greg's reply carefully and take a good look at his posted images and masks.

The field's lighting at DC was much brighter than the lighting back at Lower Merion High School, or in the DC Regional pit areas or on the practice field. For an extreme example of what the bright lights could do to a target, as viewed by the camera and software, look at Greg's image labeled "Default West" - read front glare.

On a related point, the DC field's lighting consisted of 2 high-mounted banks of can lights aligned with the long sides of the Arena, aka the Crater. This could create bright sides on the pink/green target - read side-glare - leaving a "shadow" down the center. For a somewhat similar mask to what we were experiencing in DC initially, albeit a more extreme example, look at Greg's image labeled "Default SW Corner mask."

Prior to lunch on Thursday - Team 1712's first autonomous run indicated that the camera/two-color tracking software locked on nothing - even when targets were directly in front. On analysis = green was never recognized - in essence, our hue settings were too high. With Greg's general guidance, and the sample pictures similar to what was posted above, Team 1712's coding crew talked over our proposed adjustments, played with lowering the brightness value, lowering the green hue's upper and lower range values, adjusted the lower red saturation value, and adjusted the servo speed/ranges. All this activity took one busy lunch hour. Part of Team 1712 then spent the rest of Thursday watching the Dawgma Team's robot "Alice" begin to hone in during the next several matches, as we tested and refined our approach. Tom Line, also in this thread, lists the key tuning steps that Team 1712 also utilized to refine "Alice's" vision.

I can definitely agree with Greg and Rich on a couple of interesting issues. When "Alice's" camera stared at the black background behind the big-screen TV - we believe the camera adjusted enough to void out one Thursday match. And what eventually worked for "Alice" in autonomous mode on Friday and Saturday might not apply elsewhere. Best advice -- grab a hold of any available time to test on the real field. Using Greg's/NI's snapshots of targets and masks for ideas, and understanding how the brighter lights, the darker backgrounds, and the software settings were interacting and affecting "Alice" in DC -- we eventually developed better and better masks for "Alice" to use in tracking and scoring in autonomous mode.

[Doug Leppard]

Originally Posted by Paul Gehman

we eventually developed better and better masks for "Alice" to use in tracking and scoring in autonomous mode.

Did you score int autonomous mode in official games? If so how often and what precentage of the balls went in?

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Doug Leppard

Did you score int autonomous mode in official games? If so how often and what precentage of the balls went in?

They did, quite a few times.

Here's a quote from Sean in another thread

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

1712 scored four times in auto in DC. Three times it was 7/7, and the fourth it was 3/7. Two or three other occasions the bot would line up but not score, and 1712 would dump in the first second or two of tele-op.

[Greg McKaskle]

I saw a handful of video posts on the general forum about autonomous scoring. The attached video will give you an idea of the glare and how much the camera is shifting the exposure to keep colors from over saturating. It also shows why it is good to not overreact when a frame doesn't contain the target. Glare, a hit, all sorts of things can cause small glitches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnq-...eature=channel

Greg McKaskle