Getting 1000 FPS Out Of The Raspberry Pi Camera

March 11, 2020 by Lewin Day 35 Comments

The Raspberry Pi camera has become a de facto standard for many maker projects, making things like object recognition and remote streaming a breeze. However, the Sony IMX219 camera module used is capable of much more, and [Gaurav Singh] set out to unlock its capabilities.

After investigating the IMX219 datasheet, it became clear that it could work at higher bandwidths when configured to use all four of its MIPI CSI lanes. In the Raspberry Pi module, only two MIPI lanes are used, limiting the camera’s framerate. Instead, [Gaurav] developed a custom IMX219 breakout module allowing the camera to be connected to an FPGA using all four lanes for greater throughput.

With this in place, it became possible to use the camera at framerates up to 1,000 fps. This was achieved by wiring the IMX219 direct to an FPGA and then to a USB 3.0 interface to a host computer, rather than using the original Raspberry Pi interface. While 1,000 fps is only available at a low resolution of 640 x 80, it’s also possible to shoot at 60 fps at 1080p, and even 15 fps at 3280 x 2464.

While it’s probably outside the realm of performance required for the average user, [Gaurav] ably demonstrates that there’s often capability left on the table if you really need it. Resources are available on Github for those eager to delve deeper. We’ve seen others use advanced techniques to up the frame rate of the IMX219, too. Video after the break.

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Divvy Out The Crypto With This Physical Bitcoin Faucet

March 9, 2020 by Tom Nardi 3 Comments

For those unfamiliar with the term, a “Bitcoin Faucet” is usually used as an incentive in software that wants your attention. Complete a captcha or look at and advertisement and you get one millionth of a BTC, that sort of thing. You’re never going to get rich off of one of them, but most people aren’t going to turn down free money either. The latest project from [TJ Bruno] follows that same concept and brings it into the physical world. But you still aren’t going to get rich off of it.

The hardware used for this corporeal Bitcoin Faucet is pretty simple. All you need is a Raspberry Pi, a camera module, and a 2.8″ touch LCD. Naturally you could use a larger screen if you wanted, but then it wouldn’t fit inside of the very slick 3D printed stand that [TJ] developed. We might consider upgrading to a slightly speedier Pi though, in the demonstration video it looks like the Zero is struggling pretty hard to handle the GUI.

Using the Faucet is straightforward enough. You tap the screen and place a QR code representing your Bitcoin wallet on the device’s tray, where it’s scanned by the camera. In a few seconds the Faucet shows a QR code on its own screen that will point your phone’s browser to the transaction details so you can verify your digital coinage is on the way.

You might be wondering why you’d want to have a device that sits there waiting to pay out fractions of a BTC to anyone who’s willing to flash their wallet at it. We’re not entirely sure, though it might make for an interesting way to raise awareness about cryptocurrency. In this particular case though, [TJ] says he was just looking for a project that would give him an excuse to hone his Python skills. Nothing wrong with that around these parts.

Watching the growth of cryptocurrency from our unique vantage point, we can see how the hacker’s interest in Bitcoin as changed over the years. Where we once saw people excited about building custom mining rigs, we now see counters that tick down as the last coins are put into circulation. Looking at projects like this, it seems hackers are happy enough to just give the things away in an interesting way.

Using IR LEDs To Hide In Plain Sight

February 28, 2020 by Sharon Lin 88 Comments

Getting by without falling under the gaze of surveillance cameras doesn’t seem possible nowadays – from malls to street corners, it’s getting more common for organizations to use surveillance cameras to keep patrons in check. While the freedom of assembly is considered a basic human right in documents such as the US Condition and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is not a right that is respected everywhere in the world. Often times, governments enforcing order will identify individuals using image recognition programs, preventing them from assembling or demonstrating against their government.

Freedom Shield built by engineer [Nick Bild] is an attempt at breaking away from the status quo and giving people a choice on whether they want to be seen or not. The spectrum of radiation visible to humans maxes out around 740nm, allowing the IR waves to remain undetected by normal observers.

The project uses 940nm infrared (IR) LEDs embedded in clothes to overwhelm photo diodes in IR-sensitive cameras used for surveillance. Since the wavelength of the lights are not visible to humans, they don’t obstruct normal behavior, making it an ideal way to hide in plain sight. Of course, using SMD LEDs rather than the larger sizes would also help with making the lights even less visible to the naked eye.

The result doesn’t perfectly obscure your face from cameras, but for a proof-of-concept it’s certainly a example of how to avoid being tracked.

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ESP32-Cam Does Time Lapse

January 28, 2020 by Al Williams 21 Comments

Just a few years ago, had someone asked you how much a digital camera with WiFi would cost, you probably wouldn’t have said $6. But that’s about how much [Bitluni] paid for an ESP32-CAM. He wanted to try making the little camera do time lapse, and it turns out that’s pretty easy to do.

Of course, the devil is in the details. The camera starts out needing configuration on the USB interface and that enables the set up of Arduino integration and WiFi configuration. Because it stores each frame of the image on an SD card, the board can’t take rapid-fire pictures. [Bitluni] reports a 3-second delay was about the shortest he could manage, but for most purposes, he was using at least ten seconds.

The program has a live preview window to help you set up the shot, but before your recordings start that should be turned off so as not to overload the little processor and the I/O buses. The result is a bunch of JPG images that you can easily convert to a video on a PC if you wish.

This might be a good way to fit a camera on a 3D printer, especially if the time lapse effect was desired. Otherwise, you might sync to a layer change. Now all [bitluni] needs is an orbital rig.

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Add-On Makes ESP32 Camera Board Easier To Program

January 9, 2020 by Dan Maloney 16 Comments

Don’t you just hate it when dev boards have some annoying little quirk that makes them harder to use than they should be? Take the ESP32-CAM, a board that started appearing on the market in early 2019. On paper, the thing is amazing: an ESP32 with support for a camera and an SD card, all for less than $10. The trouble is that programming it can be a bit of a pain, requiring extra equipment and a spare finger.

Not being one to take such challenges lying down, [Bitluni] has come up with a nice programming board for the ESP32-CAM that you might want to check out. The problem stems from the lack of a USB port on the ESP32-CAM. That design decision leaves users in need of a USB-to-serial adapter that has to be wired to the GPIO pins of the camera board so that programs can be uploaded from the Arduino IDE when the reset button is pressed. None of that is terribly complex, but it is inconvenient. His solution is called cam-prog, and it takes care of not only the USB conversion but also resetting the board. It does that by simply power cycling the camera, allowing sketches to be uploaded via USB. It looks to be a pretty handy board, which will be available on his Tindie store.

To demonstrate the add-on, he programmed his ESP32-CAM and connected it to his enormous ping pong ball video wall. The video quality is about what you’d expect from a 1,200 pixel display at 40 mm per pixel, but it’s still pretty smooth – smooth enough to make his interpretive dance moves in the last few minutes of the video pretty interesting.

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A New High-Performance Camera That Detects Single Photons

January 1, 2020 by Sharon Lin 15 Comments

There may soon be breakthroughs in the search for dark matter. A new publication in Optics Express reveals a camera consisting of superconducting nanowires capable of detecting single photons, a useful feature for detecting light at the furthest ends of the infrared band. The high-performance camera, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), boasts some of the best performing photon counters in the world in terms of speed, efficiency, and color detection. The detectors also have some of the lowest dark count rates of any photon sensor, resisting false signals from noise.

The size of the detectors comes out to 1.6mm on each side, packed with 1024 sensors for high resolution imagery and fabricated from silicon wafers cut into chips. The nanowires are made from tungsten and silicon alloy with leads made from superconducting niobium.

In order to prevent the sensors from overheating, a readout architecture was used based on a previous demonstration on a smaller camera with 64 sensors adding data from rows and columns. The research has been in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which seeks to include the camera in the Origins Space Telescope project.

The eventual goal is to use the arrays to analyze chemical compositions of planets outside of our solar system. By observing the absorption spectra of light passing through an exoplanet’s atmosphere, information can be gathered on the elements in the atmosphere. Currently, large-area single-photon counting detector arrays don’t exist for measuring the mid- to far-infrared signatures, the spectrum range for elements that may indicate signs of life. While fabrication success is high, the efficiency of the detectors remains quite low, although there are plans to extend the current project into an even bigger camera with millions of sensors.

In addition to searching for chemical life on other planets, future applications may include recording measurements to confirm the existence of dark matter.

[Thanks Qes for the tip!]

Focus Stacking For Tiny Subjects

December 30, 2019 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

Focus stacking is a photographic technique in which multiple exposures are taken of a subject, with the focus distance set to different lengths. These images are then composited together to create a final image with a greater depth of field than is possible with a single exposure. [Peter Lin] built a rig for accurate focus stacking with very small subjects.

The heart of the rig is a motion platform consisting of a tiny stepper motor fitted with a linear slide screw. This is connected to an Arduino or PIC with a basic stepper driver board. While the motor does not respond well to microstepping or other advanced techniques, simply driving it properly can give a resolution of 15 μm per step.

The motor/slide combination is not particularly powerful, and thus cannot readily be used to move the camera or optics. Instead, the rig is designed for photography of very small objects, in which the rail will move the subject itself.

It’s a tidy build that would serve well for anyone regularly doing macro focus stack photography. If you’ve been trying to better photograph your insect collection, this one is for you. It’s a valuable technique and one that applies to microscopy too. Video after the break.

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