What's New

June 30, 2009 - Probes - Probes For those working in part alignment, quality assurance, etc., (i.e. the meat of industrial Machine Vision) RoboRealm now includes many new probes that provide you with the additional tools for such tasks. Probes are tools that look for certain features within a specific location in an image. The results of which can help determine the quality or characteristics of parts in order to know if they meet manufacturing guidelines. The Edge Probe looks for edges in a specified area, the Line Probe looks for lines, the Circle Probe looks for circles, and the Thickness Probe analyses the thickness of objects. Using these tools assumes that the image has been sufficiently aligned in a known position perhaps using the Orient Image module.

June 10, 2009 - Tutorial - Fun with Surveyor Surveyor and RoboRealm have teamed up to introduce a powerful combination of hardware and software by bundling the RoboRealm machine vision application along with every purchased SRV Surveyor robot. With an onboard camera and WiFi connectivity the computing capabilities of the SRV are extended by using RoboRealm running on a regular desktop PC to perform more advanced image processing tasks. Using this combination of hardware and software provides the ability to extend a low power, compact, and mobile hardware platform with significant computing power without compromising the attractiveness of the platform. Order your new Surveyor robot now packaged with RoboRealm at the Surveyor Store.

May 15, 2009 - Modules - Matching » Fiducial The Fiducial module will track barcode like fiducials in the camera's view. This is very useful for localization and navigation as it creates known beacons that a robot can detect and use to find its way. Fiducials are markers that can be easily detected, recognized and associated with additional information such as mapping, direction or other commands.

May 15, 2009 - Modules - Other » Skyline It is often useful to know what is sky and what is ground. The skyline module provides a suggestion as to how the image might be split in two to effectively divide the image into two most likely parts. Turns out that this is a nice way to separate ground from sky!

Apr 23, 2009 - Modules - Blobs » Blob Tracking The Blob Tracking module provides a way to track a blob from one image to another in order to better understand the path an object has taken over time. In any movement tracker project you need to relate a current blob with a blob in the previous image to know how an object has moved. The Blob Tracking module provides you with several features that can be used in combination to define how blobs can be related from image to image.

Apr 08, 2009 - Modules - Variables » Chart Variables The Chart Variables module provides a way to better view the changes that occur for a given variable over time by plotting a variable's value on a moving graph.

Apr 08, 2009 - Modules - Variables » Filter Variables The Filter Variables module provides a way to filter a variable's value over time in order to remove noise generated in a given image.

Mar 13, 2009 - Modules - Point Features » Cluster Points The cluster points module provides a way to group pixels into larger objects that may not be connected or might not be separated correctly.

Feb 18, 2009 - Modules - Control » Cameras » Linksys Internet Camera The Linksys module provides an interface to the Linksys internet camera such that the images can be processed by RoboRealm and pan/tilt commands can be issued automatically to the camera.

Feb 18, 2009 - Modules - Control » Servos » SOR_Axon The SOR_Axon provides a module interface to the Axon MCU created and sold by the folks over at Society of Robots. With 55+ I/O channels, 16 analog ports, 3 UARTs, and 16 MIPS ATmega640 throughput at 16 MHz it's quite a hefty MCU which has received considerable interest by the robotic community.

Feb 10, 2009 - Modules - Transform » Transform Image It is not always possible to position a camera just right such that the scene under investigation is appropriate for analysis. The Transform Image module provides a more comprehensive way to transform an image using a homogenous matrix into a desired rotation, scale, etc. The Transform Image module allows for rotation in the X and Y plane as most images in robotics do come from a 3D World. The parameterized values that represent the homogenous matrix are also kept up to sync as best as possible so if you've every wondered what each value in a homogenous matrix actually does to an image ... you can finally find that out!

Feb 5, 2009 - Modules - Control » Other » USB-UIRT One of the biggest issues with Roboticists is being able to control hardware devices under computer control. Many IR devices are not applicable to control from a PC since they do not provide any means of communication to a PC. That's where the USB-UIRT becomes valuable. The USB-UIRT is an IR recording and playback device that allows you to record any IR signal from a remote that can then be played back to control the hardware device. The USB-UIRT plugs into your computer using a USB cable and now with the new USB-UIRT module in RoboRealm can be controlled within your robotic machine vision projects!

Feb 5, 2009 - Modules - Colors » Lab_Channel The Lab_Channel module has been added to provide conversion to and from the RGB color space to the CIE-Lab color space.

Feb 4, 2009 - API - MATLAB API MATLAB is a powerful numerical processing application. By popular request we have just released an example of how to integrate MATLAB and RoboRealm through the use of MATLAB's Mex programming. You can now access both images and variables in RoboRealm from MATLAB. The example DLL along with the source to the Mex file is now included in the RoboRealm API download.

Jan 15, 2009 - Modules - Transform » Orient Image Rotation of an image is often undesirable when attempting to match the image against a known database or for further processing. The Orient Image module provides a way to orient an image into a canonical orientation. Note that not all images have an intrinsic orientation and thus some will be unstable when determining this standard orientation. Nevertheless, for images that contain a large amount of straight lines (such as images of doorways, furniture, etc.) this module is yet another way of orientating the image for further processing. One should note that many human man scenes exhibit a large degree of vertical lines (buildings, doorways, rooftops, windows, etc.) that can be used to determine the orientation of the image. The Orient Image module can determine to a limited degree if a photo is in landscape or portrait view based on this principal.

Jan 9, 2009 - Modules - Robots » WowWee Rovio Joining the Spykee, the Rovio module adds another robotic webcam under the control of RoboRealm. Like the Spykee robot the Rovio sends images over 802.11 (WiFi) to a PC running RoboRealm. With the omnidirectional wheels the Rovio adds an interesting twist to moving the robot around as you can now move in any direction you want. Keep in mind that the Rovio's camera appears to need quite a bit of light so be sure to keep that in mind when using this platform. Which one do we like better between the Rovio and the Spykee? That's something you'll have to found out for yourselves as each has some advantages in certain situations. As in most cases the nature of your project will favor one robot over the other.

Jan 1, 2009 - Welcome to the new year! We're excited about the possibilities of what this new year will bring in terms of new technology and innovation in a time where the world really needs hope for the future. To support our continuing efforts to provide robotic machine vision software we're undergoing some license changes for commercial users. To mark the addition of a $499.00 fee for commercial users we are updating the application version to 2.0 to mark this event. Please note that this fee is only required for commercial users. We look forward to providing you with many more amazing modules in the coming year. Happy new year!

Dec 28, 2008 - Modules - Robots » Erector Spykee The Spykee module provides an interface from RoboRealm to the Erector Spykee robot. Using the module you can command the robot to respond to images processed from the Spykee robot. The robot sends images over 802.11 (WiFi) to a PC running RoboRealm which provides a great mobile robot vision platform.

Dec 05, 2008 - User Projects - Owen Sound Real-time Weather Conditions - This is, perhaps, the only autonomous real-time snow gauge currently operating on the internet. It employs a Linksys WVC200 network camera pointed at a length of 2½-inch PVC pipe painted fluorescent orange. The pipe is held upright by an outdoor umbrella stand with its sleeve painted orange to match the PVC pipe.

Nov 25, 2008 - Tutorial - The Lego PC Bot tutorial shows how to use machine vision onboard a Lego NXT based PC robot. The robot can move around a carpeted environment using a camera to determine the difference between the carpet and obstacles.

Nov 21, 2008 - Tutorial - The Obstacle Avoidance tutorial shows how to use machine vision to avoid objects that are within the cameras view. The tutorial starts off with some basic techniques that are easy to understand and can be used around the home environment followed by more advanced techniques that are more generally applicable.

Nov 10, 2008 - Link - Q&A with RoboRealm Want to know more about RoboRealm? Check out the "Machine Vision 4 Users" blog where Steven answers a couple questions posed by Brian about RoboRealm and machine vision in general.

Oct 16, 2008 - Link - RoboDevelopment - Visual Obstacle Avoidance If you're in the San Francisco area next month be sure to stop by the RoboDevelopment conference in San Jose where Steven will be giving a talk on how to use machine vision on mobile robots for obstacle avoidance and navigation. The talk will use RoboRealm running on mobile PC based robots to demonstrate several techniques that you can try in your own projects! This should be a great show and we're very excited about being a part of presenting at RoboDevelopment.

Oct 16, 2008 - Module - Colors » Segment Colors The Segment Colors module is functionally similar to the Flood Fill module but provides more stable blobs when viewed as video and is also a faster module than the flood fill. The purpose behind both the Segment Colors and Flood Fill module is to reduce the image into collections of pixels called blobs that can be further processed based on shape, size, etc. by the Blob Filter or other such modules.

Oct 15, 2008 - Module - Transforms » Optical Flow Optical flow is a great tool to investigate the motion of objects. While it has its limitations Optical flow can be used for motion segmentation, object detection, and object tracking.

Oct 15, 2008 - Module - Other » Laser Line Lasers are just plain fun! They are also useful for robots using machine vision to actively modify the environment in a way that is easier to sample and understand. The Laser Line module does exactly that by detecting a red laser line in from of the robot in order to avoid obstacles in its path. Combined with the Laser Spot detector RoboRealm now has some straightforward ways to start using lasers in your next project. But be careful, lasers can be harmful to your eyes!

Sept 19, 2008 - Tutorial - Tutorial » Marble Maze The Marble Maze tutorial shows how to use image processing and custom path planning to solve rolling a marble from a start point to and end point within the maze.

Sept 09, 2008 - Module - Loading/Saving » Ftp Images The Ftp Images module provides a way to transmit images from RoboRealm to an FTP server. This module can be used to update remote sites with images based on a specific frequency or time criteria.

Sept 09, 2008 - Module - Transforms » Bottle Unwrap The Bottle Unwrap module transforms an image that is wrapped around a bottle surface into a flat surface. This module is often used as a precursor to an OCR module in order to correct for curve distortion when imaging a curved surface.

Sept 09, 2008 - Module - Extensions » Modbus The Modbus protocol is a well established simple data transmission protocol often used to transmit signals between PCs and PLC type devices. The Modbus slave module accepts modbus master requests over TCP/IP and provides a way for PLC modbus compliant devices to access RoboRealm variables.

June 09, 2008 - Module - Control » Servos » Endurance Servo The Endurance Servo module allows you to interface RoboRealm to servos using a controller made by Endurance R/C The USB based servo controller supports up to 25 servos and provides for an external servo power supply in order to run 5v, 6v, or 9v servos.

June 09, 2008 - Module - Interface » Keyboard Send The Keyboard Send module creates a way to simulate keypresses as if you were typing into a different application other than RoboRealm. This method provides a way to integrate the results processed by RoboRealm into other applications without requiring any custom integration between the two applications.

June 09, 2008 - Module - Loading/Saving » Screen Capture The screen capture module provides you with the ability to capture the video output of any application that has a display on your computer screen and process that output within RoboRealm as if it were just another webcam video stream. For example, the very popular virtual environment Second Life can be used as a simulator to test out computer vision algorithms without needing a robot or scenery to physically exist.

June 03, 2008 - Module - Transforms » Perspective The Perspective Correction module provides an image transform that corrects for the effects of perspective depth. Perspective will distort objects to appear larger the closer they are to the camera source and smaller when further away.

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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 easily accessable 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!

If you don't find what you need in RoboRealm, then visit other OpenSource/FreeWare Vision Packages.

If you're interested in buying a robot have a look at our list of Robot Stores.

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Check out our Getting started with Machine Vision, Vision Software, Computer Vision, and Image Processing or our Introduction to Servos to help get you started.