I made this thread so that everyone could discuss what they know about the camera and its uses. The more we work together, the better the chances of the vision working correctly.
Sincerely,
Phreakuency
Here are some of the notes that I have gathered so far:
The default centered values for the camera are
- Vertical: 120
- Horizontal: 120
The maximum I believe is 255
When manually rotating the camera through either a telnet program or the GUI, the command is sv (SerVo) and then the servo you want (either 1 or 0) and the point value of the rotation
It does not add, so 150 is ALWAYS going to be the same
The camera automatically initializes on the boot, so you don’t have to worry about that
For the best results, I turn on auto white gain
if you want the camera to move faster, you should change the step of the pan and tilt, which is in the GUI under Servo
I know that there is another version of the lens which will allow almost double the resolution, so I will try to get my hands on one and see if that could help with the tracking.
Truthfully, don’t start by tracking the green. From what I’ve learned from using Lab View on last years robot, it is very hard to get the color green without some kind of filter, so try with someones shirt.
(you don’t understand the feeling of getting it to finally work until it does, then its a rush)
And by the way, If you think this thread is useful, lets try to make it sticky, K?
Hope this helps some people
Sincerely,
Phreakuency
If your camera has been possessed by a demon, or is just being arrogent and you have no idea why, you should try using the jumpers to reverse the axis.
The jumpers to do this are at the bottem. I have an image of them Here.
The jumper that is in Pink is for if your camera has a horizontal spaz problem.
The jumper that is in blue is for if your camera is tweaking up and down.
These should solve some problems you guys have!
Any questions, email me at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Phreakuency
A few camera control commands you might want to know:
“CR 18 8” to set RGB mode.
“CR 18 0” to set YCrCb mode.
“CR 3 saturation” to set the saturation value. With the illuminated target, a good value is 2.
In the CMUCam GUI, if you type in a number next to the “Track Yellow” button, then click the button, the saturation control register will be loaded with that value. Click stop and grab a frame to see what effect changing the saturation register has, and to get correct calibration numbers.
That was all I needed to get it running… 
I made this thread so that everyone could help everyone else. I would love it if people tell us what they know about the camera.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Phreakuency
Well, I have yet to touch the camera this year (Yeah I know… I should probably get on that)
Last year, however, we set up the camera, calibrated it and brought over a freshly painted green target. One problem, the camera kept running away from it! It was like it was scared of it. We later found out that there was an inverse tracking bit that was set. So, if you have this problem, check for a setting called “Inverse Tracking” or something of that sort.
This year, if you’re modifying Kevin Watson’s excellent tracking code to suit your needs, you need to edit tracking.h and change PAN_ROTATION_SIGN_DEFAULT or TILT_ROTATION_SIGN_DEFAULT if the servos are turning the wrong way.
EDIT:
Sorry, to clearify, that’s only if you’re using his streamlined code. If you’re using the bells and whistles version, you should go to the tracking menu and edit it there.
i dont know how much this helps but the range on the camera is AMAZING! we were able to sucessfully find is at 143ft away!
http://nutrons.dbrl.net/kevin/
that is a link to some vids and a pic of how powerful this camera really is