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Virtual IP Camera?
Danh from United States [79 posts] |
15 year
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Steve,
I built a WinXP controlled robot with some webcams on it. However, because the motherboard I used doesn't have a lot of processing power I would like to off load the image processing to a desktop computer through WiFi. Is there a way to make the USB cameras on my robot look like IP cameras that can be accessed from RoboRealm running on a remote desktop computer? Here's an instructable of my robot:
http://www.instructables.com/id/iRobot-Create-Personal-Home-Robot/
Thanks
Danh
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Anonymous |
15 year
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Way cool robot! Some super mods to the Create! I'm very surprised it can handle the additional weight.
Yes, if you are willing to also run RoboRealm on the robot.
We have a Distributor_Server and Distributor_Client module. You run the Distributor_Server module on the robot and run the Distributor_Client module on your desktop. It also uses UDP to broadcast the robot name to the client in case you don't remember the IP address. Also note that you can specify if you want the resulting variable values to be sent back to the robot and even the transformed image.
We use this often for presentations in order to pipe the image from the robot over to a laptop that is connected to a projector ... then the audience can see what the robot sees.
http://www.roborealm.com/help/Distributor.php
If you don't get enough frames through trying using just Grayscale or 555 packed mode as the video format.
Looks like Braintech's software running as the plant detector? Are we correct or is this something of your own design? Very cool regardless!
STeven.
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Danh from United States [79 posts] |
15 year
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Thanks for the server/client info.
For my object recognition I used software that came with my ER-1 robot from Evolution robotics. The software had a server mode much like RoboRealm that allowed me to get object recognition information. I won the IRobot contest and as a bonus got some really good development software from Evolution Robotics:
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071130005180&newsLang=en
Evolution Robotics uses the Sift algorithm for image recognition. Works pretty well but it's patented. I'm sure you know of the Surf algorithm and hopefully you guys will implement it in a future version of RoboRealm. I know that OpenCV has a demo of Surf but it's just raw code that lacks the ease of use found in RoboRealm. A lot of people don't have a CS background like you do so it's nice that some one like you has made image processing available to the masses.
The Create platform was a good starting point but like you eluded it was a bit small for all of my added electronics. The good news is that I am working on a next gen robot that can support over a hundred pounds and will be capable of interacting with full size appliances in the home. I will need object recognition, OCR, and SLAM functionality in order to make the bot semi autonomous so I'm hoping that you'll will add these soon. I'm really looking forward to an OCR function since I already have object recognition and SLAM from the Evolution development system. My bot will be able to take a frozen diner from the fridge and nuke it in the microwave. I need the OCR to confirm that the cooking time is entered properly. There's also many more uses I have for the OCR. You can think of this bot as a poor mans version of the PR2 bot from Willow Garage.
By the way, I sat in front of you during one of the sessions at Robobusiness 2008 in Pittsburgh. Maybe I'll see you at the next one in Boston.
Thanks,
Danh
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Anonymous |
15 year
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Danh,
Thanks for the description about your robot! Yes, we are familiar with it as we saw that you won the Create Challenge. Congratulations on that! It is quite an impressive accomplishment to get all those parts to work together and do something useful.
We'll be releasing an OCR module in the next couple of weeks so hopefully that will work for you. We've not tried in on LED based text like Microwave timing but that's an easy test to do! We'll see if we can get that out ASAP.
Yes, I will be at the Boston show. If you see me again go ahead and say hi! I'm sure we have a lot we can talk about!!
Again, congrats on your accomplishment and keep up the great work. Give the PR2 a run for its money! :-)
STeven.
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