So whats the catch? Well there are two.
Firstly TeensyCam doesn’t exist YET. After years of playing around with micro based cameras I believe Ive finally come across something that should work properly. For the past 20 years I have been involved in instrumentation for measuring things with essentially a microscope and a USB camera on a PC (for which I wasnt involved in PC software). There have been many occassions when not being tied to a PC would have been good, so I have been looking for a micro solution. I have tried Arducam, Maix, ESP32 OpenMV, FPGA Pi etc they all have their own issues. Having played with Teensy for a few days I can see the potential and have decided to give Teensy a go. I am brand new to Teensy and am primarily a systems man not too involved with programming, so please forgive any stupid questions or comments.
My idea is to build a carrier board for the T41 with the following main features
1. Support a wide range of camera boards including Arducam modules up to say 5MP. (MIPI with adapter until 1070 comes along!.) Starting with OV2640/5640 and MTV9032 global shutter aptina)as I have quite a few lying around both Mono and colour.
2. Support for 24Bit Display. (Mono is rubbish on a 65K display!!), An SSD1963 based display board should make that easier. Eg https://www.buydisplay.com/lcd-5-ssd1963-tft-module-touch-screen-display-800x480-mcu-arduino
Use 8bit Display setting and take advantage of the inbuilt 2D graphic processor.
3. Read RAW data option. For colour use simple ‘Superpixel ‘ Debayering for display purposes,
See also LibRaw.org for PC. For Mono Just clone for RGB (this will probably require gamma correction later)
4. Use display primarily for targeting/windowing and transfer RAW data to PC if required or process on board. I am not talking about High Video frame rates for motion detection etc
5. Use Dual USB for data transfer/control (if required) What is the impact on transfer speed with dual-channel if one is used for control only??
6. Such systems usually require LED control ( usually I2C or SPI), servo/motor for focus etc so some expansion ports possibly Mikroe Click board.
7. Keep it around the size of a 3.5 inch display
The above is only an outline of what is intended. Part of the reason for this posting is to see if there is anyone else out there with similar interest, and to establish an alternative to existing micro camera solutions. There is of course nothing to stop this board being used with OpenMV , ML etc and 65K colour.
So back to the offer. I shall make an initial batch of 10 boards, 8 of which I would be happy to give away to those people who have inspired me to start this project ie those people who have posted code on the forum or github, or can provide a compelling argument why they should be included. After which I shall make a batch of boards as donate ware, at least to cover cost of post and packaging from the UK. So the second catch, not entirely free)
One specific question for Kurt ( or anyone who’s done it – place on my short list!!!) if I may. In your Micromod git page you have a Processing sketch for reading 565 data, but nowhere can I find an example of sending it. Any chance you could post a sample sketch for the OV7670?
I would also be interested to see if we could get some samples (at least on a PC) for reading serial data on various programming platforms eg VB, B4X, Python VS C# C++ etc and what the performance is like.
Thanks for your time
Stevewidg
Firstly TeensyCam doesn’t exist YET. After years of playing around with micro based cameras I believe Ive finally come across something that should work properly. For the past 20 years I have been involved in instrumentation for measuring things with essentially a microscope and a USB camera on a PC (for which I wasnt involved in PC software). There have been many occassions when not being tied to a PC would have been good, so I have been looking for a micro solution. I have tried Arducam, Maix, ESP32 OpenMV, FPGA Pi etc they all have their own issues. Having played with Teensy for a few days I can see the potential and have decided to give Teensy a go. I am brand new to Teensy and am primarily a systems man not too involved with programming, so please forgive any stupid questions or comments.
My idea is to build a carrier board for the T41 with the following main features
1. Support a wide range of camera boards including Arducam modules up to say 5MP. (MIPI with adapter until 1070 comes along!.) Starting with OV2640/5640 and MTV9032 global shutter aptina)as I have quite a few lying around both Mono and colour.
2. Support for 24Bit Display. (Mono is rubbish on a 65K display!!), An SSD1963 based display board should make that easier. Eg https://www.buydisplay.com/lcd-5-ssd1963-tft-module-touch-screen-display-800x480-mcu-arduino
Use 8bit Display setting and take advantage of the inbuilt 2D graphic processor.
3. Read RAW data option. For colour use simple ‘Superpixel ‘ Debayering for display purposes,
See also LibRaw.org for PC. For Mono Just clone for RGB (this will probably require gamma correction later)
4. Use display primarily for targeting/windowing and transfer RAW data to PC if required or process on board. I am not talking about High Video frame rates for motion detection etc
5. Use Dual USB for data transfer/control (if required) What is the impact on transfer speed with dual-channel if one is used for control only??
6. Such systems usually require LED control ( usually I2C or SPI), servo/motor for focus etc so some expansion ports possibly Mikroe Click board.
7. Keep it around the size of a 3.5 inch display
The above is only an outline of what is intended. Part of the reason for this posting is to see if there is anyone else out there with similar interest, and to establish an alternative to existing micro camera solutions. There is of course nothing to stop this board being used with OpenMV , ML etc and 65K colour.
So back to the offer. I shall make an initial batch of 10 boards, 8 of which I would be happy to give away to those people who have inspired me to start this project ie those people who have posted code on the forum or github, or can provide a compelling argument why they should be included. After which I shall make a batch of boards as donate ware, at least to cover cost of post and packaging from the UK. So the second catch, not entirely free)
One specific question for Kurt ( or anyone who’s done it – place on my short list!!!) if I may. In your Micromod git page you have a Processing sketch for reading 565 data, but nowhere can I find an example of sending it. Any chance you could post a sample sketch for the OV7670?
I would also be interested to see if we could get some samples (at least on a PC) for reading serial data on various programming platforms eg VB, B4X, Python VS C# C++ etc and what the performance is like.
Thanks for your time
Stevewidg