Hello Marius,

Elphel cameras through the history used multiple different sensors from 
different manufacturers, and the cameras are designed to be flexible and being 
able to accommodate new sensors as well. Currently off the shelf we have 5 Mpix 
sensors that we consider to be a good balance between sensitivity and 
resolution - OnSemi/Aptina MT9P006 with 2.2umx2.2um pixels as well as (still 
only partially supported by the software drivers) smaller pixel 14MPix. For the 
book scanning project we used huge 35mm format Kodak CCDs connected to the same 
system boards. At that time our system board 10313, but all the later ones 
(10333, 10353 and the current 10393) are backward compatible - just some 
software for the older sensors is missing.

All our code is under GNU GPLv3+, excluding Linux kernel drivers that have to 
be GNU GPLv2(+), hardware designs are under CERN OHL. Mechanical parts are 
documented on Elphel Wiki, most parts are also viewable with x3d using our 
FreeCAD-based converter from STEP files libraries into x3d assemblies , like 
here: https://www.elphel.com/wiki/Elphel_camera_assemblies .  All FPGA code is 
GPLv3.

We support FSF and Richard Stallman in not using term "IP", so we do not have 
or develop any of it. But we have both plenty of the Verilog code in our git 
repository (all our code is there without any exclusions), the main one is  
https://git.elphel.com/Elphel/x393/tree/dct (there is a block diagram if you 
scroll down the page). This code is really free software, it does not rely on 
any "black boxes" or "IP" and can be completely simulated with Icarus Verilog 
(GNU GPLv2)

For FPGA development we also provide advanced tools based on Eclipse IDE that 
support Xilinx Vivado (and older ISE) , Intel/Altera Quartus and can 
accommodate other architectures. It Integrates modified version of Veditor, 
Icarus Verilog and Cocotb (for simulation with Python - 
https://blog.elphel.com/2016/07/i-will-not-have-to-learn-systemverilog/ ) and 
interacts with Xilinx proprietary tools over ssh/rsync :
https://git.elphel.com/Elphel/vdt-plugin
https://blog.elphel.com/2016/05/tutorial-02-eclipse-based-fpga-development-environment-for-elphel-cameras/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g8udf_nhZE

3d camera - no it is not https://www3.elphel.com/stereo_setup , it is something 
much more advanced, based on both the new hardware and the new software and is 
targeted to do most of the job directly in the camera FPGA. I hope to  post 
some demo links to the intermediate results soon.

And self driving cars is one of the target applications for this project. Mars 
rovers can probably benefit from it too - long rage passive 3d reconstruction 
requires less valuable power than lasers.

Andrey








  Hi Andrey,
 Thank you for getting back to me!
 I'm trying to figure out what FPGAs and components I should get to build smart 
cameras that supports 1-4 x 1080P 60FPS (or better) low light (2+um pixel) 
sensors, for open source robotics and self driving car development.
 
 I understand these solutions may not be cheap or easy to approach, I'm trying 
to see what can be used best and relatively future proof as starting point for 
open source development in this area. OSSDC being a global community driven 
project, I'm also looking at affordable solutions that I can promote to be used 
for development and testing of SDC algorithms all around the world, as OSSDC 
target is global full autonomy (not only applicable in certain areas).
 Would be great if you could give me some ideas of what configurations I should 
try (my budget is very limited for now), and which IPs may help get started 
faster.
 I'll post soon more details about the OSSDC platform architecture and Smart 
Camera, here are some things we collected, more discussions happed on OSSDC 
Slack (ossdc.org):
     https://github.com/OSSDC/OSSDC-SmartCamera/issues/1
     
https://medium.com/@mslavescu/what-about-putting-a-computer-vision-processor-on-the-camera-or-sensor-platform-itself-d0622b24f5c
 I'm also looking into HDMI capture solutions (for both cameras and gaming 
consoles/PCs):
     
https://medium.com/@mslavescu/hdmi-capture-and-analysis-on-fpga-for-just-150-8b34652b0b0c
     
https://medium.com/@mslavescu/get-ready-to-race-ai-with-us-at-ossdc-org-b741e266e362
 
 I assume this is the 3D camera you mention, would be possible to use a 
different sensor to increase the frame rate and also is it possible to get 
uncompressed video to the PC (to do further processing on raw data using Nvidia 
GPUs):
 
     https://www3.elphel.com/stereo_setup
 Stereo (multi) camera with dense depth maps would perfect for SDC, that what I 
think is necessary to achieve full autonomy at relatively low cost.
 
 Thank you,
 Marius
 





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