Good hobbyist VGA camera module?

[larwe]

Can someone suggest a reasonably-priced monochrome camera module (I
can live with color but don't need it), VGA-resolution camera module
with some kind of buffer and low-speed interface; SPI, I2C, RS232,
etc. SPI would be my preference.

I need two of them, and perhaps two spares, to build a demo platform
for a student to work with very simple stereoscopic machine vision.
Currently he is working with a PC and two USB webcams but he wants a
smaller system to go in a vehicle without requiring huge batteries,
plus he doesn't want the overhead of a USB stack. We've put together a
general block diagram for his circuit and have good candidates for
most of the components, but the cameras are a sticky point.

I really want uncompressed or lossless data (preferably de-Bayerized
if color) - we don't really want to deal with JPEG artifacts. 0.5-1fps
is fine.

All the cellphone camera modules I've looked at appear to be bare
image sensors requiring a real-time DMA port to acquire the data. The
Ovis-based hobbyist solutions like the C328R from <http://
www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2027/.f?sc=8&category=241> are
pretty much what I want, except for the unavoidable JPEG compression.

A $50 price point @ qty 5 is fairly sweet - obviously cheaper would be
better.

Thoughts?

Gracias.

 

[Mike Harrison]

Can someone suggest a reasonably-priced monochrome camera module (I
can live with color but don't need it), VGA-resolution camera module
with some kind of buffer and low-speed interface; SPI, I2C, RS232,
etc. SPI would be my preference.

I need two of them, and perhaps two spares, to build a demo platform
for a student to work with very simple stereoscopic machine vision.
Currently he is working with a PC and two USB webcams but he wants a
smaller system to go in a vehicle without requiring huge batteries,
plus he doesn't want the overhead of a USB stack. We've put together a
general block diagram for his circuit and have good candidates for
most of the components, but the cameras are a sticky point.

I really want uncompressed or lossless data (preferably de-Bayerized
if color) - we don't really want to deal with JPEG artifacts. 0.5-1fps
is fine.

All the cellphone camera modules I've looked at appear to be bare
image sensors requiring a real-time DMA port to acquire the data. The
Ovis-based hobbyist solutions like the C328R from <http://
www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2027/.f?sc=8&category=241> are
pretty much what I want, except for the unavoidable JPEG compression.

A $50 price point @ qty 5 is fairly sweet - obviously cheaper would be
better.

Thoughts?

Gracias.

There are almost no serial interface cams out there - The CMUCam and the one listed above appear to
be all that's available.
I needed one for a forthcoming project & ended up designing my own using a low-res sensor and some
carefully crafted assembler code to catch the data on an ARM processor.
I'm planning on turning this into a product in case there might be a small market out there -
provisional details here :
www.whitewing.co.uk/imager
May not be enough resolution for your app though.

 

[Rich Webb]

All the cellphone camera modules I've looked at appear to be bare
image sensors requiring a real-time DMA port to acquire the data. The
Ovis-based hobbyist solutions like the C328R from <http://
www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id.2027/.f?sc=8&category=241> are
pretty much what I want, except for the unavoidable JPEG compression.

I've played a bit with that module. Take a look at the command set in
the user manual and you'll find that the imaging mode can be set to 2-,
4-, and 8-bit grayscale as well as to 12- and 16-bit color and to JPEG.

Not quite at your price point, or preferred interface, and there is a
bit of song and dance through their protocol to contend with but it
really does work.

 

[larwe]

I needed one for a forthcoming project & ended up designing my own using a low-res sensor and some
carefully crafted assembler code to catch the data on an ARM processor.
I'm planning on turning this into a product in case there might be a small market out there -

I was hoping for VGA resolution, since we're currently using QCIF
webcams and wanting an upgrade... the 30K buffer is a bit limiting,
too. Can your device be configured to acquire a 2bpp grayscale image
and send it to me verbatim, preferably over SPI? What's the price
likely to be?