TTL Serial Camera

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srnet
 
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TTL Serial Camera

Post by srnet »

I have a question relating to the download of images from the TTL serial camera. I have been through the tutorial and taken a look at the code, but I cannot find a ready answer to my questuion.

Once you have taken a picture, in what form is the data from the camera buffer downloaded, is it one continuous stream of data start to finish, or can you request the data in a particular block size ?

If you can request it in blocks, can you request specific blocks, say block1, block2, blockn etc ?

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

It's just a serial stream. No block orientation at all.

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srnet
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by srnet »

Thanks for the prompt reply.

That is what I wanted to know.

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marcelops
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by marcelops »

I know the Adafruit camera (product ID #397, listed on https://www.adafruit.com/products/397 ) can operate at 30 fps.

My questions are:

1) Can Arduino handle that amount of data?
2) If Arduino can't do that, what would be the alternative?

I am planning on using a camera like this one to capture videos and save it (the frames) to a SD card. What would be the fastest rate (in fps) that Arduino would be able to handle?

Thanks,
Marcelo

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Not a chance of it. You simply can't write to an SD that fast. The camera does 30fps video, but it takes maybe 10-15 seconds to download an image via serial.

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marcelops
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by marcelops »

Would it be better (faster) if I used a 32-bit chip, like the one in the Anduino Due, or the Zero?

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srnet
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by srnet »

I would think you could write the data first to an SPI RAM (23LC1024 or similar) or maybe a FRAM, these will run at 16Mhz clock.

Then copy from there to a SD card at your leisure.

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

The problem is that the camera downloads images over serial. It's just not that fast. You can't do video with it.

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marcelops
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by marcelops »

Hi Rick,

Thanks for replying.

I understand that communication over serial isn't fast, but sometimes it is "fast enough" for some applications.

That said, considering I use a 32-bit chip (as the Arduino Due) and the Adafruit camera (product ID #397), how fast (in fps) would I be able to transfer images over serial, from the camera to a SD card? Is there a number (in fps) we could rely on? 1 fps? 2fps? 0.5 fps? With that number, we can assess whether it would be enough or not for a certain application.

Thanks,
Marcelo

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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

It's on the order of 10-15 seconds, regardless of processor.

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marcelops
 
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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by marcelops »

Alright!! At least now I know!! ;-)

In that case, the next question is: "Is there an alternative for this task?"

I would need to save snapshots in the order of 15 fps (or faster) to a SD card. Is there a non-serial camera, or any device, or anything we could use to save the pictures faster? Any suggestion is appreciated!

Thanks,
Marcelo

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Re: TTL Serial Camera

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

You would need a computer with video capture hardware to sample the video stream.
I believe there are video capture modules you can get for the Raspberry Pi. I don't know anything about them, though:
https://www.google.com/search?client=sa ... 8&oe=UTF-8

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