Roborealm vision software for Roboard

[altwolf]

I have seen postings about using Intel's vision software (OpenCV?) but haven't seen anyone using Roborealm.

Roborealm is easy to use right from the get go. I use it with my Spykee robot to make it chase after red colors. It was crazy, I just started roborealm, selected the spykee module and suddenly Spykee went running around my living room looking for red things.

At any rate, they now have a Roboard module!

http://www.roborealm.com/help/DMP_RoBoard.php

The RoboRealm module provides easier access to the boards capabilities by exposing the pin configuration in an easy to use GUI format that is run right on the board itself. The module allows for vision processing to directly affect the robots motors, servors, etc.

If you are thinking of using Roborealm, please make note of a few things:

1.You need to have WinXp installed on Roboard

2.Roborealm isn't free, it's 89$ (US), however, in the latest issue of "Robot" magazine, there is a code for $50 OFF that price

Also, this, from the website:

Notes
1. It is worth mentioning a couple tricks when working with the RoBoard. First, you will need the VGA card for the initial installation of the operating system, but after this you can remove the card and just use Remote Desktop to connect to the board. This just requires an Ethernet card (or wireless communication) in order to work with the RoBoard. Note that applications like VNC require the card to remain inserted as they are screen scrapers of which Remote Desktop is NOT. To enable Remote Desktop right click on the My Computer icon, select the Remote tab and check the "Allow uses to connect remotely ...".

2. Be VERY careful when changing values for the min/max for the servos. It is possible to change the values and send a very low or high value to the servos. The RoBoard is capable of sending a position value of 1 (much less than the 500 boundary) which can ruin a servo (this based on experience!).

3. The black or negative PWM wire is of the outside side of the board with the signal (white or yellow) being towards the middle.

4. As the RoBoard is a regular PC all the other modules within RoboRealm such as the Play Wave File and Speech Recognition will work with the appropriate attachment of speakers, mic, etc.

5. As apposed to just turning the RoBoard off use the Windows Start button->Run and type in 'shutdown -t 1' which will cause the board to shutdown normally.

6. The RoBoard is currently (March 8th, 2010) the SMALLEST PC based board that we are aware of but along with that comes some performance issues. It is recommended that you use as small an image as possible (80x60 or 160x120) as the USB speed of the board is not like that of your laptop or desktop. Keeping the image small will allow a capture rate of about 15fps with the appropriate lighting. In our tests an image size of 320x240 slows this down to about 10fps.