Getting itchy project fingers.. OS advice..

NickK · 19 Sep 2006 at 22:49

Well being the 'geek' I am, I'm getting itchy project fingers again.

This time I'm considering a robotic arm and two webcams for a 'probe' home-brew project for computer vision.

The reason for a robotic arm is to give some degree of movement without having a roving rover.

The main issue is getting the interface for the webcam images (preferrably without compression). Now in Linux this would mean writing my own driver for the particular webcam.. and logitech is proprietary.. so that leaves the choice of windows HAL and logitect or going non-logitech.

Anyone have any comments/advice?

pinkegobox · 20 Sep 2006 at 00:37

well with lego mindstorms and .net it wouldbe a relatively simple project, but still probably fun to do.

yoda · 20 Sep 2006 at 18:57

hmmm, interesting....
however, why two web cams?

What would b fun is if you had a web interface to it and let jo public take turns in controlling it and viewing....
Just a thaught....

however, last time I re-compiled the kernel for linux, I'm sure their was lego mindstorm support in their.... I think it was under the IR devices....

NickK · 20 Sep 2006 at 21:31

I have in mind the following components:

Initially start with the webcams - reason is they're relatively cheap and can have all the outer casing removed for wieght saving..

Lynxmotion Robotic arm and here's some video footage

It has a SSC-32 servo controller so it can control more than just that arm servos. Max lift weight is 85g with the basic servos but it these could be beefed up.

I need to be able to move the webcams through the environment (although a rover is cool it's not as easy due to space constraints).

MrWhippy · 21 Sep 2006 at 09:55

so why do you want to use 2 cams?

i'm asking because the obvious answer is you want to process stereo vision, for depth of field information. now assuming you're a novice at computer vision, i'm just gonna suggest you forget it. really, stereo vision is a massively complex machine vision area. just getting the cameras calibrated is a minefield.

if you're still up for the challenge, there's a few papers here, might help.