What's New

Maker Faire - RoboRealm is used in many ways; from robot navigation to art exhibits to quality assurance on pieces of bread! Come join us in celebrating this immense diversity at the "Do-It-Yourself" Maker Faire on May 4th & 5th in San Francisco and see what ideas you can create! We're in the main Expo hall and will be ready to answer your questions.

Apr 3, 2008 - Filters » Flatten In the constant struggle against bad lighting the flatten module helps to even out lighting across the image. This is akin to an edge detection but one that preserves the finer elements of the image in order to create a more visually recognizable image in contrast to a pure edge detection. The flatten module is useful in reducing the effects of shadows and highlights.

Apr 3, 2008 - Extensions » OSC_Send_Variables Adding yet another way for RoboRealm to communicate with other applications opens up applications that understand the OSC protocol. This protocol is most often used in Music type applications to communicate bits of status information from one device or application to another.

Apr 3, 2008 - Control » Other » LED_Wiz Because you always want to control more LEDs the LED-Wiz module provides an interface to the IDVT LED-Wiz controller board. This device allows your robot projects to express themselves better by putting on their own LED light show!

Mar 17, 2008 - Other » 3D Viewer Robots often need to understand the 3D world around them. In order to help us get a better understanding of the possibilities of 3D the 3D Viewer module provides a way to experience 3D images from your computer. This is a first step into stereoscopic vision that helps you understand the limitations and setup of a stereo based camera system.

Mar 17, 2008 - Blobs » Blob Colorize Often during processing of images a segmented blob needs to regain its original color to allow for further processing based on an average or mean color that best represents the blob. The Blob Colorize does just that.

Mar 17, 2008 - Point Features » Point Cloud Many robotic sensors provide a wide range of single point samples for the area they are sensing. Such devices include LIDAR or Sonar type systems. Whilst very different in origin from color pixel values they can be processed in fundamentally the same way as camera pixels. The Point Cloud module provides a way to create a graphic image of your point samples which then allows all other RoboRealm modules to process that data as if it were a graphic image captured from a webcam.

Mar 17, 2008 - Loading/Saving » Read Variables Adding yet another way to read information back into RoboRealm, the Read Variables module provides a way to read in configuration information or data points from text files into RoboRealm for further processing or module configuration.

Mar 12, 2008 - Adjust » Camera Properties (DirectX) A lot can be done to digitally correct images with bad lighting, contrast, etc. but nothing beats having the camera change its internal capture configuration to yield a better image. The Camera Properties module provides a way to change the internal DirectX supported camera properties using RoboRealm variables instead of having to manually pull up the camera capture dialog to change the capture parameters. In this way your robot can better adapt how the camera should function in a particular circumstance.

Mar 10, 2008 - Control » Robot » IRobot Roomba If you are interested in extending the capability of your IRobot Roomba vacuum then have a look at the RoboRealm Roomba control module for both the 400 and 500 Roomba robot series. This module allows you to control your vacuum to be more than just a vacuum. By adding an onboard camera or even using a stationary one you could provide better navigation for your Roomba by using the processing power of your PC.

Feb 18, 2008 - Control » Other » USB HID Interface With the popularity of the serial module that allows creation of custom communication protocols to certain devices the USB HID module provides a similar amount of flexible control of USB devices that utilize the Human Interface Device standard of communication. This style of device driver is often used in popular desktop products such as the Dream Cheeky USB Missile Launcher (of which we already have a module). The USB HID module gives you the ability to communicate to these types of devices which RoboRealm has not yet had a chance to create a custom module for or is simply unaware of.

Feb 11, 2008 - Options » Kiosk Mode As more and more of you are using RoboRealm in live settings to control your robot we are happy to announce the availability of a Kiosk mode. The Kiosk mode is meant to help you reduce the RoboRealm interface to the bare minimum to prevent accidental reconfiguration of the currently running RoboRealm application. Using the Kiosk mode you can lock the RoboRealm application into a reduced interface to ensure simpler user operation.

Feb 11, 2008 - Display » Display Triangle, Circle and Rectangle modules were added to provide you the ability to draw those shapes based on coordinates within RoboRealm. While very basic these modules are very useful in cleaning up shapes by redrawing them based just on their appropriate coordinates.

Feb 11, 2008 - Control » Cameras » Firewire (The Imaging Source) RoboRealm continues its camera integrations by welcoming The Imaging Source as a new RoboRealm partner. Their gracious loan of a DBX-21BF04-Z firewire camera has allowed the creation of a new Firewire camera module that allows the RoboRealm application to be used with firewire cameras such as those provided by The Imaging Source.

Feb 11, 2008 - Matching » Shape Matching tutorial using the DBX-21BF04-Z camera for part identification as objects move along a conveyor belt.

Jan 11, 2008 - profmason.com In a fashion that continues to amaze us, profmason continues to create truly inspiring vision based projects. Check out the integration of RoboRealm and the VexExplorer for can grabbing in Integrating the VEXplorer with Roborealm with a video of the robot in action. More how he hooked up the robot under PC control in Programming VEXplorer for Computer control and Decoding VExplorer Remote. This isn't the only robot to fall under his oscilloscope. The RoboSapien also fell prey at 39.2 KHz signal modulated at 1200baud for Robosapien with some final usage with RoboRealm in Controlling Robosapien from Roborealm. Likewise with the RoboQuad in Voice Controlled RoboQuad. Naturally with all these robots you do need quite a bit of power to keep them running. No worries, in Using Roborealm to identify a power outlet the robots can now find it themselves! If you want to check out all his projects in one shot have a look at his Robotics category and see if you agree with us that he just doesn't sleep!

Dec 3, 2007 - Control » Other » DC Car - The DC Car module provides control over the Dream Cheeky USB Car. The Dream Cheeky USB Car is an inexpensive device that is controlled by your computer. The DC Car module allows RoboRealm to automatically control the movement of the car using an overhead camera or a very small camera attached to the car. The USB Car is a fun way to get started with controlling devices using vision.

Nov 26, 2007 - Colors » Color Balance - Processing images for color is one of the easiest ways to identify an object within an image. However, color is never constant and can change drastically based on the illumination (sunshine, incandescent bulb, etc.) and even on the type of camera used. In an effort to reduce these effects the Color Balance module was added to provide you both a manual and automatic way of adjusting the overall colors within an image. If you're trying to detect color be sure to try the automatic mode of the Color Balancer which may help your values to be more consistent from frame to frame.

Nov 26, 2007 - Loading/Saving » Email - Email has become one of the most prominent and popular forms of communication in the Internet lifestyle today. Leveraging this communication, the new Email module allows you to send an email from RoboRealm that contains both text and an image. See the example in the notes to learn how you can create a configuration that emails you once movement is detected. Now you can be even more informed by receiving emails that contain processed images from RoboRealm.

Nov 18, 2007 - Control » Robots » Surveyor SRV1 Blackfin - The newest 802.11 Blackfin based Surveyor Robot is now out and RoboRealm is very pleased to announce a new module that supports that new robot configuration. With increased wireless speed using 802.11 and sporting the powerful Blackfin DSP onboard processor the SRV-1b is one of the nicest robots to use for your vision related experiments. A special thanks to the folks at Surveyor for getting us the very first production version of the SRV-1b for use at the RoboDevelopment show and for testing the new RoboRealm module.

Nov 18, 2007 - Tutorial » Trail Follower - This tutorial shows you how to make the Surveyor robot following a trail of orange squares. The goal of this tutorial is introduce different techniques for segmenting/identifying orange squares in a variety of lighting conditions. The robot should follow the trail and turn around to continue back over the trail looping from end to end. Note that no encoders or other sensors other than vision are used in this scenario. This tutorial also introduces the newest release of the Surveyor SRV1b that uses the Blackfin DSP and 802.11 wireless connectivity.

Nov 18, 2007 - Tutorial » Digital Reader - This tutorial shows you how to read information from your temperature gauge, water heater, barbecue temperature, coke machine, laundry timer, etc. from your PC. While most modern sensors today have the ability to interface to PC based systems at lot of older devices do not. They do, however, offer a digital display that can be read by humans. You can use RoboRealm to read these digits from those devices and use that information in new ways on your PC.

Nov 18, 2007 - Transforms » Polar Transform - Joining the updated Radial Transform the Polar Transform adds additional capabilities when using omnidirectional 360 panoramic type cameras in unwrapping the images into something more consumable by us and by standard vision algorithms. Using omnidirectional cameras a robot can instantaneously capture images in all directions which is a requirement for situations where fast moving objects like soccer balls need to be tracked.

Nov 01, 2007 - Filters » Bayer Filter - For those of you using a Bayer CCD camera the Bayer module will demosaic the pixel values into an RGB color approximation.

Oct 16, 2007 - Other » Path Planning - The Path Planning module is used with an overhead camera looking down at an arena to control a robot along a path designated by waypoints. Be sure to check out our new Path Planning Tutorial to see how the Boe-Bot is controlled along a path.

Oct 16, 2007 - Interface » Button Interface - The Button Interface module provides a quick way to create a simple GUI interface that links a couple buttons to RoboRealm variables. It is a great way to control your robot using custom buttons.

Oct 16, 2007 - Delta Frequency - The Delta Frequency module provides a way to detect oscillating objects at a specified frequency. For example, waving at your computer's camera is one such an action.

Oct 15, 2007 - Virtual Camera Driver - In our continued efforts to provide additional integration points with other applications we now introduce the RoboRealm Virtual Camera Driver. The VCam driver allows other applications that manipulate or analyze images to access the processed results of RoboRealm as if RoboRealm were just another webcam in your system. The VCam driver adds a new Video Capture device to your system that RoboRealm will update as it processes images. You can also use the VCam driver to provide the webcam source image to another application to process. This allows more than one application to access a webcam's image in succession.

Sep 24, 2007 - RoboDevelopment - Thanks to the helpful folks over at RoboDevelopment we will be exhibiting at that show in San Jose on Oct 25 & 26th. Come see us at booth #114. Should be a fun show!

Sep 24, 2007 - New user interface parts added to the main RoboRealm interface including an index tab and search tab to better help you find modules you need.

Sep 10, 2007 - Colors » Sample Color - The Sample Color module provides a way to compare a specific image area with known colors to determine which color is most representative of the area. The module performs an averaging over the specified image area and compares this resulting value with color values entered into the Nearest Color list.

Sep 10, 2007 - Edges » Sample Edge - The Sample Edge module provides a way to detect edges along a specified path. The path is a single line that you can manually place on the image or control the position using variables.

Aug 20, 2007 - Point Features » Vanishing Point - Vanishing points are wonderful side effects of depth that robots can use to guide them down hallways. The Vanishing Point module identifies the vanishing point location within the current image and provides you a way to control devices with respect to that point.

Aug 20, 2007 - Edges » Straight Line - The Straight Line module identifies straight lines within the image. Using edge contours the module can merge line segments into straight line much faster than the Hough transform. In addition, filters for the slope, size and proximity provide better control over filtering lines within images.

Aug 20, 2007 - Point Features » Line Corner - The Line Corner module identifies corners based on an edge detected image. Using contours to guide its search the module identifies corners created by line intersections to identify corners that may not actually exist but are implied from line segments.

Aug 20, 2007 - Point Features » Ring Corner - Similar to Edward Rosten's FAST corner detector the ring corner detector module provides another way to identify corners. Corners are great features to detect as they are scale, translation and rotationally invariant which hopefully make them more repeatable in successive frames.

Aug 07, 2007 - Transforms » Visual Anchor - In RoboRealm's continued investigation of image stabilization the Visual Anchor module has been added. This module allows a robot to know how far it has moved with regards to a known scene. This module uses a technique classified under Visual Odometry. Visual odometry uses vision to calculate how far you have traveled instead of using encoders. This has the advantage of being more accurate in situations where wheel slippage is expected (such as traveling on the sandy Martian surface!).

Aug 07, 2007 - Point Features » Sample Line - The Sample Line module does just what you would expect. Given one or more lines in a image it "samples" the edge created by objects or edges. This line sampling can then be used to perform your own analysis or saved to disk to be used by other applications.

Jul 30, 2007 - Control » Robots » RoboticsConnection Traxster Robot - The RobConn_Traxster module provides an interface from RoboRealm to the RoboticsConnection Traxster Robot. The Traxster Robot Kit was designed to be used as an indoor educational robotics kit and works very well over carpet using its injection molded tracks powered by two DC gear head motors. The kit provides a lot of room ontop of the robot for enhancements such as pan/tilt head, cameras, and for additional sensors such as infrared and sonar. The RoboRealm RobConn_Traxster module provides an interface to the robot to provide control of the robot based on machine vision.

Jul 30, 2007 - Transforms » Stabilize - Video stabilization is an important part of video processing. Many routines require stationary cameras in order work correctly. Knowing how the image has changed helps to understand how your robot may be moving. The video stabilization module is the first in a line of visual odomotry modules that will allow you robot to better understand how it is moving within the environment. The video stabilization module shows how to stabilize shaky video and exposes those parameters as variables to be used in understanding the robots movement.

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If you don't find what you need in RoboRealm, then check other OpenSource/FreeWare Vision Packages. If you're looking to buy a robot have a look at some robot stores.

About

Using RoboRealm you can create a low cost vision software solution with a standard webcam that allows you to explore the very complex world of image analysis and image processing. Through an easy to use analysis pipeline you can add image processing filters to translate an image into robotic movements or computer actions for your vision-guided robotic projects.

Image and/or video processing can be technically difficult. Home robots are continuously moving towards high powered PC based systems that are capable of supporting complex image processing functions. Sometimes you just need a testbed of current image processing applications to test potential ideas that you want your robot or computer + webcam application to perform. We've compiled several image processing functions into a freely available windows based application that you can use with your computer's webcam. You can use it to test out your machine vision ideas and see what may be possible or not ... have fun! We did!

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Check out our getting started guide to machine vision, vision software, computer vision, and image processing or our Introduction to Servos to get you started.