PIC32MX795F512L Image Processing with Webcam?

[Espsi776]

It is possible to do image processing with PIC32MX795F512L using USB OTG as the host to host a USB Webcam? If possible i need guidance to do it.

[Brian Griffin]

It is a very complicated task, and can be very time consuming. You might be better off using Raspberry Pi and write a program inside instead, with OpenCV libraries.

[yonghui]

agree with Brian, PIC32 is not fast enough

[robosang]

My concern is more at the USB driver, not sure have Microchip release driver for Webcam.... I know they have release some USB class such as HID and Mass storage, but din know they have Webcam.

[Brian Griffin]

My concern is more at the USB driver, not sure have Microchip release driver for Webcam.... I know they have release some USB class such as HID and Mass storage, but din know they have Webcam.

It's a lot of layers for the webcam drivers.

Even if it gets implemented, the PIC32 doesn't have much of the horsepower to process the graphics frame by frame.

The most difficult part is, the PIC32 doesn't have any SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) instructions, which means to use one instruction to process a few variables at one go. Higher-end ARM microprocessors (Cortex A series) have them and these are very ideal for processing video frame in a very short time possible.

It is why Intel kept on talking about MMX (Matrix Math Extensions) back in 1997, and claimed that these facilitates the playing of movies on the PC. It is one of the earlier form of SIMD in consumer PCs. Looks like Intel is living up to its name back then. A year or three later, AMD's 3DNow! extensions are a good complement to the MMX instructions as well.

[Espsi776]

Thank you all for the advice. If i want to process a low resolution video without a microcomputer, which micro-controller you all will suggest?

[Brian Griffin]

Thank you all for the advice. If i want to process a low resolution video without a microcomputer, which micro-controller you all will suggest?

Anything with a video, and to process it with a decent framerate, you can't use general purpose microcontroller. They are never designed to work on these at the first place.

You may need to try BeagleBoard or Raspberry Pi. These are single board computers, and works very well with Linux and OpenCV.

[robosang]

Thanks brian for the explanation, learn something new today

Low resolution image? You might consider the new CMUcamV4, I just notice Cytron carrying it now. It uses microcontroller from Parallax, the propeller. 8 core (they called it cog) which can do some serious parallel task. I think the code and hardware is open source, should check it out.

[Brian Griffin]

Thanks brian for the explanation, learn something new today

Low resolution image? You might consider the new CMUcamV4, I just notice Cytron carrying it now. It uses microcontroller from Parallax, the propeller. 8 core (they called it cog) which can do some serious parallel task. I think the code and hardware is open source, should check it out.

Thanks for pointing out the CMUCamV4. I didn't know it has the Parallax Prop.

And talking about that, I have a few of them in my drawer, but not used much.