web camera or else ? 15-30 fps processing of camera videos.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Kap'n Salty]

Newbie wrote:
> I am doing some robotics projects but my main area of interest is
> trying out several algorithms for the processing of the stream of data
> coming from the video.
> 
> I am wondering what type of camera I should invest in. Either I could
> buy a web cam and hope I can find a driver I could either modify or
> use. i.e. every frame is somehow stored on the computer automagically
> or I could buy a camera not unlike the AVRcam
> (http://www.jrobot.net/Projects/AVRcam.html) or the CMUcam and try to
> do the processing once the data has been streamed to the nearest
> computer ? or should I use an expensive video card, some CCTV camera
> and a frame grabber to digitize photos so they can be processed
> afterwards. I expect my processing algorithms to handle at least 15
> frames per second framerate once they are working ont the final set-up.
> 
> My constraints are that I would like to avoid as much as possible
> complex set-ups even if that means buying a more expensive camera
> set-up. For the prototyping, I would like to try my algorithms out
> using a combination of python and matlab (all very slow) and then
> expect the same architecture (image files location and flow) with
> speedier set-up like python+psyco or C. All the processing would be
> done on a computer dedicated for that. Windows or Linux are possible.
> 

An easy approach to this is to use a wireless camera on your robot, with 
the receiver attached to a frame grabber on a remote host. This allows 
you your choice of camera (stand alone video transmitters are widely 
available), and you are not limited to only processing hardware you can 
carry on board your robot. You also get full FPS. Frame-grabber cards 
are inexpensive and widely available for both Windows and Linux.

Hope that helps -- tAfkaks



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