After playing around with the JeVois camera, writing a Whitepaper, creating and publishing code, I’ve started to look at some of the other features that are part of it’s core software.
One thing that has piqued my curiosity is the ArUco demo. I did a very quick test with it using the demo code and following the user’s guide information. Without any editing or tweaking, it identifies and tracks ArUco markers with ease. In addition, and I haven’t played with this yet, it appears that pose estimation is very easily accessible with the 2D markers.
Searching CD, I didn’t find a single mention of ArUco. So, the question I have to ask is, will we see the use of ArUco in FRC any time in the near future?
Additionally, I would love to hear from others of their experience with ArUco.
I was playing with them with the Jevois yesterday as well. It was surprisingly good at identifying them. I’m not sure how useful they would be unless they were placed on the field as part of the game or robots “wore” them to be used for video-based scouting, but I don’t see either of these being the case any time soon. I have a feeling for some reason we’d see them in FTC before FRC.
I could see them being added to field elements in addition to the retro tape. It would allow target acquisition with a camera running in auto exposure mode. That way the camera could provide both useful visual information as well as target location and pose information simultaneously.
That way teams could choose to just use the retro tape targets, or the ArUco targets, or both. They could also use the streaming video to assist the driver when visibility is impaired, like picking up gears across the field. To me, that would be a 2 for 1 bonus!
We’ve toyed around with these a few times. We haven’t found a great usage for them yet but we’ll keep looking.
Would be cool to see these implemented on the field as markers but I’m definitely willing to bet a lot of crypto currency that they won’t be this year. I suspect we are going to see our beloved retroreflective tape disappear before too long. Just a matter of time. But hey, what do I know? I can barely read the rules.