Microcontrollers with Image Sensor interfaces

[M. Adam Davis-2]

Microchip doesn't yet have an image sensor interface.  Atmel has a few
parts, but they all require external memory, and are in the $10-$25
range, rather than $5 - $10.

What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV 8, RGB 8/10,
parallel cmos image sensor)

Is there a chip with onboard flash and ram (32k or more of each,
ideally, but I can deal with lower ram and flash as long as I don't
have to buy external memory)?

Should I look at FPGA/CPLD (ie, is the cost of a small FPGA + pic32
going to be lower than an atmel + memory, for example)?

What other options should I look at?

I'm essentially trying to take pictures as cheaply as possible.  Right
now I'm using this:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9334
for $50 each

But would like to interface to this:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8668
for $10 + microcontroller + support circuitry

-Adam
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[M.L.-2]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:33 AM, M. Adam Davis <stienman@...> wrote:

> What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV 8, RGB 8/10,
> parallel cmos image sensor)
>
...
> But would like to interface to this:
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8668
> for $10 + microcontroller + support circuitry
>
> -Adam

If you want to interface to that camera chip I don't understand why
you need a special image sensor interface.
It would appear (I haven't read the entire datasheet..) that it has an
internal buffer since it has a JPEG encoder built-in so you don't have
to worry about reading the sensor chip directly.

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[M. Adam Davis-2]

Like many image sensors of this kind, the data comes out as a parallel
stream running between 5 and 75MHz.  I'm looking at using a PIC32 with
the parallel interface, but there are chips available with a specific
port that is meant to interface with this relatively high data rate
stream.

This particular sensor will not do the jpeg encoding unless the clock
is 17MHz or higher, so even a PIC32 running at 80MHz may have problems
or at minimum require very tightly coupled code to read the data off.

-Adam

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 10:31 AM, M.L. <m@...> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 8:33 AM, M. Adam Davis <stienman@...> wrote:
>
>> What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV 8, RGB 8/10,
>> parallel cmos image sensor)
>>
> ...
>> But would like to interface to this:
>> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8668
>> for $10 + microcontroller + support circuitry
>>
>> -Adam
>
> If you want to interface to that camera chip I don't understand why
> you need a special image sensor interface.
> It would appear (I haven't read the entire datasheet..) that it has an
> internal buffer since it has a JPEG encoder built-in so you don't have
> to worry about reading the sensor chip directly.
>
> --
> --
> Martin K.
>
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[Harold Hallikainen-2]

> Microchip doesn't yet have an image sensor interface.  Atmel has a few
> parts, but they all require external memory, and are in the $10-$25
> range, rather than $5 - $10.
>
> What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV 8, RGB 8/10,
> parallel cmos image sensor)
>
> Is there a chip with onboard flash and ram (32k or more of each,
> ideally, but I can deal with lower ram and flash as long as I don't
> have to buy external memory)?
>
> Should I look at FPGA/CPLD (ie, is the cost of a small FPGA + pic32
> going to be lower than an atmel + memory, for example)?
>
> What other options should I look at?
>
> I'm essentially trying to take pictures as cheaply as possible.  Right
> now I'm using this:
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9334
> for $50 each
>
> But would like to interface to this:
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8668
> for $10 + microcontroller + support circuitry
>
> -Adam

Those are interesting parts, especially with the on-board JPEG
compression. I did a project using a Micron image sensor (now made by
someone else). In this particular application (movie screen illumination
analysis), I was only interested in certain pixels, so I did not need
memory for the whole image. Using a 24H chip, I bit banged the interface
to the camera chip. All pixels were passed to an LCD display (that had
on-board controller and RAM so I didn't have to continuously refresh that
too). When I got to a pixel that I wanted to keep for analysis, I kept
that in internal RAM in the PIC. Running the sensor in "snap shot mode"
(take a picture, then clock out the data, as opposed to simultaneous
taking picture and clocking out the last frame's data), I got about 12
frames per second with a 24H running at 40MIPS.

It seems that there will be RAM shortage issues in any application using a
microcontroller for image manipulation. I did another project where we
needed to update a large graphic LCD. For that, we hung a large static RAM
on a CPLD. The CPLD handled the refresh of the LCD and also made the RAM
visible to the PIC (stuffed PIC requests between RAM accesses for display
refresh).

In several projects, I've needed to drive graphic displays with Unicode
characters. One current project (closed captioning for movie theaters)
uses an OLED display. I had to go to external flash (M25P16) to hold the
character bitmap. At least that's just an 8 pin part and runs fast.

It would be great to see a microcontroller with "video RAM" in it that
would automatically handle image capture and/or display while also
allowing the micro to address it on a pixel by pixel basis. But, that's a
lot of RAM to stick in the chip. In another project (more closed
captioning, but not the display side), I added a 1MB static RAM outside a
24H chip to hold XML files I'm getting from a remote server and for
several large FIFOs for outgoing data.

Let me know what you find!

Harold


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[Mike Harrison]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:33:59 -0400, you wrote:

>Microchip doesn't yet have an image sensor interface.  Atmel has a few
>parts, but they all require external memory, and are in the $10-$25
>range, rather than $5 - $10.
>
>What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV 8, RGB 8/10,
>parallel cmos image sensor)
>
>Is there a chip with onboard flash and ram (32k or more of each,
>ideally, but I can deal with lower ram and flash as long as I don't
>have to buy external memory)?

I looked at this in detail a while ago.
External memory is pretty much inevitable due to the amount of data you need to store.
If you look at SRAM pricing you will generally find that it is a lot cheaper than the cost adder of
a micro with large on-board RAM. For image sensing you don't necessarily need a true external bus.

I started off using a LPC2136 ARM, and getting pixels in via FIQs. I could get about 4Mpixels/sec ut
the limit was the 32K RAM available. Looking further I figured a LPC2131 with external 1mbit SRAM
worked out cheaper and gave a lot more available  RAM.

A micro + CPLD+SRAM is probably going to be the cheapest option overall - the CPLD just handles
high-speed timing and address generation, and can probably be a sub $1 part in the 64/72 macrocell
range, e.g. Xilinx XC95 series. You may even be able to do it as just a CPLD+SRAM depending on how
much help you can get from a host micro.

If you want to store more than a few frames, the cheapest SDRAM is comparable in cost to the
cheapest SRAM, but with approx 64x the capacity, however the control is somewhat more complex and
you will probably be looking at low-end FPGA instead of CPLD. With SDRAM you often need a small SRAM
buffer to smooth out the data throughput to SDRAM - FPGAs, even cheap ones like the Lattice EC1 have
sufficient RAM to handle this easily.



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[William "Chops" Westfield]

>> What other chips have image sensor interfaces?

I went to a recent TI "MCU Day" presentation, where the mentioned the  
"leopard Board" for playing with image/video sensing.  This is an open  
source (like BeagleBoard) system based on TI's arm8 OMAP applications  
processors.  While it seems incredibly cheap for what you get, it's  
well above the price tag you're trying to hit.  But it might have some  
useful ideas...

http://designsomething.org/leopardboard/default.aspx

BillW

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[Alan Smith-10]

Check out the Analog Devices BlackFin.  There are several commercial companies (Logitech is one) that uses this for the camera interface, and if I recall, ADI might even have a dev kit for this.

--- On Fri, 10/23/09, M. Adam Davis <stienman@...> wrote:

> From: M. Adam Davis <stienman@...>
> Subject: [EE]: Microcontrollers with Image Sensor interfaces
> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@...>
> Date: Friday, October 23, 2009, 5:33 AM
> Microchip doesn't yet have an image
> sensor interface.  Atmel has a few
> parts, but they all require external memory, and are in the
> $10-$25
> range, rather than $5 - $10.
>
> What other chips have image sensor interfaces?  (YUV
> 8, RGB 8/10,
> parallel cmos image sensor)
>
> Is there a chip with onboard flash and ram (32k or more of
> each,
> ideally, but I can deal with lower ram and flash as long as
> I don't
> have to buy external memory)?
>
> Should I look at FPGA/CPLD (ie, is the cost of a small FPGA
> + pic32
> going to be lower than an atmel + memory, for example)?
>
> What other options should I look at?
>
> I'm essentially trying to take pictures as cheaply as
> possible.  Right
> now I'm using this:
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9334
> for $50 each
>
> But would like to interface to this:
> http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8668
> for $10 + microcontroller + support circuitry
>
> -Adam
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> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>

     

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[Giles Honeycutt]

Has anyone worked with or know of a ladder logic compiler or interface
for PICs?
Ladder logic as in the relay rungs used in PLC programming.  I am
interested in just the basics, like relay contacts, coils, counters, and
timers.

Best regards,
Giles Honeycutt

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[Nicola Perotto]

Hi,

Giles Honeycutt wrote:
> Has anyone worked with or know of a ladder logic compiler or interface
> for PICs?
>  
http://www.matrixmultimedia.com/Flowcode3a-X.php

>
>
>     What does it do?
>
> Flowcode 4 is one of the world's most advanced graphical programming
> languages for microcontrollers. The great advantage of Flowcode is
> that it allows those with little to no programming experience to
> create complex electronic systems in minutes. Flowcode is available in
> more than twenty languages and currently supports the PICmicro, AVR
> and ARM series of microcontrollers.
>

Never tried, just found in a publicity.

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[Wouter van Ooijen]

Giles Honeycutt wrote:
> Has anyone worked with or know of a ladder logic compiler or interface
> for PICs?

never. but google produces http://www.cq.cx/ladder.pl , so give it a try?

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[Giles Honeycutt]

Wouter,
Thanks, that looks like what I am looking for.
I will post something about it after I check it out.
Best regards,
Giles Honeycutt

Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
> Giles Honeycutt wrote:
>  
>> Has anyone worked with or know of a ladder logic compiler or interface
>> for PICs?
>>    
>
> never. but google produces http://www.cq.cx/ladder.pl , so give it a try?
>
>  

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[Barry Gershenfeld-2]

I recall a discussion about ladder logic on this list, several years ago.
Maybe a search on piclist.com will find it.
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[CDB-3]

:: Has anyone worked with or know of a ladder logic compiler or
:: interface
:: for PICs?

I think MatrixMultimedia have a basic one as part of their 'Flow Code'
environment.

Colin
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[Alan Smith-10]

This was posted Jan of 2005  (wow...almost 5 years ago now)

Link still appears active

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Ladder logic is a graphical programming language often used with
PLCs. Instead of writing a list of statements you draw a stylized
electric circuit. For example, in the example given below, Xa, Xb,
and Xc are digital inputs; Yout is a digital output.

   ||       Xa               Xb              Yout       ||
1 ||-------] [------+-------] [------+-------( )-------||
   ||                |                |                 ||
   ||                |       Xc       |                 ||
   ||                +-------]/[------+                 ||
(please view in a fixed-width font)

This is a boolean expression: Yout = (Xa and (Xb or (not Xc))). This
makes sense if you think of Xa and Xb as normally-open relay contacts,
Xc as normally-closed relay contacts, and Yout as a relay coil. (Imagine
that there is some voltage across the left and right `bus bars'.) There
are additional instructions for time delays, arithmetic, counters, and
so on. It is a Turing-complete programming language; you can write any
kind of program in ladder logic, though you probably wouldn't want to.

I have written a ladder logic compiler for PIC16 and AVR platforms. You
use a graphical editor to draw a diagram like the one above. Then you
bind input and output variables to GPIO pins, and the compiler will
generate an IHEX (.hex) file to program into the micro.

The ATmega128 and PIC16F877 are supported and tested; a few more parts
are supported but not tested. I believe that the compiler is fairly
stable. Consider it an early beta. I developed the compiler under Windows
XP. I would appreciate any bug reports; I would also appreciate success
reports if it works with any of the untested parts or with other versions
of Windows.

More information at:

    http://cq.cx/ladder.pl

There is a manual.

--- On Tue, 10/27/09, Giles Honeycutt <giles-pl@...> wrote:

> From: Giles Honeycutt <giles-pl@...>
> Subject: [PIC]: Ladder Logic on a PIC
> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@...>
> Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 8:42 AM
> Has anyone worked with or know of a
> ladder logic compiler or interface
> for PICs?
> Ladder logic as in the relay rungs used in PLC
> programming.  I am
> interested in just the basics, like relay contacts, coils,
> counters, and
> timers.
>
> Best regards,
> Giles Honeycutt
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>

     

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[Bob Ammerman]

I developed a ladder logic compiler for a PC environment that used EAGLE as
the editor for the ladder "schematic". I parsed the exported netlist to
create a 'p-code' representation of the ladder, which was then 'compiled'
into X86 instructions to 'execute' the ladder. It optimized the p-code
sequences so that, for example, a complete subtree driven by an open contact
would not have to be evaluated on every iteration of the ladder.

A similar scheme could certainly be used to generate PIC assembly language
to execute the ladder.

-- Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems



----- Original Message -----
From: "alan smith" <micro_eng2@...>
To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@...>
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [PIC]: Ladder Logic on a PIC


This was posted Jan of 2005  (wow...almost 5 years ago now)

Link still appears active

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Ladder logic is a graphical programming language often used with
PLCs. Instead of writing a list of statements you draw a stylized
electric circuit. For example, in the example given below, Xa, Xb,
and Xc are digital inputs; Yout is a digital output.

   ||       Xa               Xb              Yout       ||
1 ||-------] [------+-------] [------+-------( )-------||
   ||                |                |                 ||
   ||                |       Xc       |                 ||
   ||                +-------]/[------+                 ||
(please view in a fixed-width font)

This is a boolean expression: Yout = (Xa and (Xb or (not Xc))). This
makes sense if you think of Xa and Xb as normally-open relay contacts,
Xc as normally-closed relay contacts, and Yout as a relay coil. (Imagine
that there is some voltage across the left and right `bus bars'.) There
are additional instructions for time delays, arithmetic, counters, and
so on. It is a Turing-complete programming language; you can write any
kind of program in ladder logic, though you probably wouldn't want to.

I have written a ladder logic compiler for PIC16 and AVR platforms. You
use a graphical editor to draw a diagram like the one above. Then you
bind input and output variables to GPIO pins, and the compiler will
generate an IHEX (.hex) file to program into the micro.

The ATmega128 and PIC16F877 are supported and tested; a few more parts
are supported but not tested. I believe that the compiler is fairly
stable. Consider it an early beta. I developed the compiler under Windows
XP. I would appreciate any bug reports; I would also appreciate success
reports if it works with any of the untested parts or with other versions
of Windows.

More information at:

    http://cq.cx/ladder.pl

There is a manual.

--- On Tue, 10/27/09, Giles Honeycutt <giles-pl@...> wrote:

> From: Giles Honeycutt <giles-pl@...>
> Subject: [PIC]: Ladder Logic on a PIC
> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@...>
> Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 8:42 AM
> Has anyone worked with or know of a
> ladder logic compiler or interface
> for PICs?
> Ladder logic as in the relay rungs used in PLC
> programming. I am
> interested in just the basics, like relay contacts, coils,
> counters, and
> timers.
>
> Best regards,
> Giles Honeycutt
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>

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[Wouter van Ooijen]

Bob Ammerman wrote:
> I developed a ladder logic compiler for a PC environment that used EAGLE as
> the editor for the ladder "schematic". I parsed the exported netlist to
> create a 'p-code' representation of the ladder,

What kind of error messages did you generate? I think it would be
difficult to relate a problem with the netlist back to a locvation on
the screen. Or could you generate a problem list like the DRC does?

--

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[Bob Ammerman]

> Bob Ammerman wrote:
>> I developed a ladder logic compiler for a PC environment that used EAGLE
>> as
>> the editor for the ladder "schematic". I parsed the exported netlist to
>> create a 'p-code' representation of the ladder,
>
> What kind of error messages did you generate? I think it would be
> difficult to relate a problem with the netlist back to a locvation on
> the screen. Or could you generate a problem list like the DRC does?
>
> --
>
> Wouter van Ooijen

This goes back a few years, so I don't remember all the details, but I
believe that I was able to include "reference designators" in the error
messages, which made it pretty easy to figure out what was going on.

This scheme was used to create some pretty big ladders. One of the neatest
things about it is that the Eagle drawing served both as the 'source code'
for the ladder and as a required document (drawing) for the project.

-- Bob Ammerman
RAm Systems

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