Watching the World is a Peaceful Evolution of Vision

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Sensors extend our perception. The extension of perception does not improve us any more than computers make us smarter. The extension of perception is a tool that can bring us more fully into this world, like a white cane tapping us through the same environment, allowing us to see in a new way.

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4Cam

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Embedded Vision for Microcontrollers

1. Purchase 4Cam
2. Develop vision apps on your PC
3. Run the apps on your microcontroller

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Aptina + Arrow + ChipSight = Lighting Control Demo

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Occupancy sensor and luminance measurement for sunlight harvesting.

Use case: Ignore security guard flashlight.
Use case: Maintain light level even if reflective surfaces are covered with a black sheet.

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Color Space for Embedded Vision, Part 2

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I really did rush into the luminance options in Part 1. I’ll take this opportunity to try to gain amnesty for when I make the same mistake again.

But as for embedded vision, it will succeed when it delivers useful vision functions at a cost appropriate to the application.

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Semi-Conscious: The consumer vision market is more real than you are.

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Seriously does anyone really think we will have a breakthrough in consumer vision products using general purpose processors alone?

Not breakthrough in the sense of “more people will have to buy our big hot chip.”

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Color Space for Embedded Vision

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The components of a color space let us specify the reproduction of an image pixel by pixel.

The quality of appearance each component describes–and how well it describes that quality–can determine the complexity, cost, and performance of our embedded vision system.

Which color space is best for embedded vision?

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Easy Eye: SiLabs 8051 + Camera

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Image capture and 60fps color object targeting with an 8-bit microprocessor and a CMOS camera.

The C8051F360 syncs to video from a digital camera, reads pixel values, makes decisions about objects in the scene, communicates by serial port, and drives displays or servos by GPIO.

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Semi-Conscious: Consumer Vision

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Sensor networks with cameras. $2 vision systems. Roombas that avoid dog poop.

Machine vision people ask me “what do you want, object recognition with a PIC?”

Yes. Why not?

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RAW Pixel Diet

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What type of input does a vision application need?

Can we use pixel data straight from the camera’s image sensor?

Or does the application need pixel data processed by an image sensor pipeline (ISP) with color transformations and denoising?

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Semi-Conscious: Hot FPGA Pixels = Surveillance?

Has not one seat in the circle of vision research been left vacant for a new approach?

Come winter we enjoy the heat of FPGAs stuffed with cranky algorithms grinding through pixels to make …. the same pixels come out the other end.

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Microchip – Let my robot see!

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Computer Vision, Laser Ranging, and Servo Control on a Single-Wire Network

A Microchip PIC directly sampling a video signal. 8 pins well used.

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Semi-Conscious: GPU – Now you’re just mashing it.

CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC.

General purpose processors that do everything slowly vs. specialized functions that do some things quickly.

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Computer Vision for Everyone

The purpose of this website is to extend computer vision to anyone who builds embedded systems.

Embedded vision architecture tutorial.

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Semi-Conscious: 30 years and no computer vision?

Awesome giant algorithms stuffed into awesome giant hardware!

Lusty venturists, myopic academics, and single-crop semiconductor farmers conspiring for the last of your gas money.

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Vision for Vision

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What happens when computer vision is suddenly available as a platform for applications?

Stellaris computer vision…

Lattice MachXO2 CPLDs are perfect…

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