I wrote about Jevois-A33 computer vision camera based on Allwinner A33 quad core Cortex A7 processor last week, and today, I’ve come across OpenMV Cam M7 open source computer vision board based on a much less powerful STMicro STM32F7 ARM Cortex M7 micro-controller, but with the advantage of consuming less power, and exposing some extra I/Os.
OpenMV Cam M7 board specifications & features:
- MCU – STMicro STM32F765VI ARM Cortex M7 @ up to 216 MHz with 512KB RAM, 2 MB flash.
- External Storage – micro SD slot
- Camera
- Omnivision OV7725 image sensor supporting 640×480 8-bit grayscale images or 320×240 16-bit RGB565 images at 30 FPS
- 2.8mm lens on a standard M12 lens mount
- USB – 1x micro USB port (Virtual COM Port and a USB Flash Drive)
- Expansion – 2x 8-pin headers with SPI, I2C CAN bus, asynchronous serial bus (Tx/Rx), 12-bit ADC, 12-bit DAC, 3x I/Os for servo control; interrupts and PWM on all I/O pins; 3.3V (5V tolerant)
- Misc – RGB LED and 2x 850nm IR LEDs
- Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port, 3.6 to 5V via VIN pin
- Power Consumption (@ 3.3V) – Idle: 110mA; active no μSD Card: 190mA; active with μSD Card: 200mA
- Dimensions – 45 x 36 x 30 (H) mm
- Weight – 16 grams
The camera board supports frame differencing (motion detection), marker tracking, face detection, eye tracking, color tracking (up to 32 colors at the same time), optical flow, edge/line detection, template matching, image capture (BMP/JPG/PPM/PGM), and video recording (MJPEG/GIF). Programming is done in OpenMV IDE using MicroPython language. You’ll find more details in OpenMV Cam’s documentation, and watch a description of the board and a QR code detection demo in the video below.
The computer vision board can be pre-ordered now for $55 on the product page with shipping scheduled for March 2017.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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It’s a nice board but I keep asking myself why would I use this more expensive and limited beast instead of a Raspberry Pi + OpenCV + Python? Is is just the power savings?
For example QR code reading on the Pi is a doodle with zbar library.
i was thinking the same thing. not that i have compared power ratings.. but often when you got vision systems, you want more cpu/ram as well..
The OpenMV IDE looks pretty cool! Is there any reason why this IDE couldn’t be used on other platforms, like the Jevois-A33?
I imagine micropython would need to be ported in order to execute the IDE python scripts via serial, the big question would be the difficulty in porting the OpenMV CV engine.
Similar to the Pixy, it seems the CV algorithms are hardcoded for the camera/cpu and the tweaking parameters is what’s exposed.. unlike the Jevois-A33 which runs standard OpenCV.
It’s listing @ 75 bucks now. Where is the $55 version? Looks like they still have a ways to full funding as well, not a product yet.
It does look a bit more interesting than the other one with the small display and proto board system. But would like to get it for 55 if possible.
thanks
Jim
@jim st
It still shows $55 for me, but I have not checked shipping.
Edit: You must have scrolled down their page, and found “OpenMV Cam” (the first version) instead of “OpenMV Cam M7”
You’re right. I found the M7 option with some more scrolling. The page is hash in the Chrome browser with things covering up the top of the page.