video processing

Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which aims
to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
feed)..

Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is very
much a matter of price :)

It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..

Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
requirements..

We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
(with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..

Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
would be greatly appreciated! hehe

I also apologize in advance if this post is way out of line in this forum -
I can't seem to find any posting guidelines (in fact there wasn't any posts
to download at all from my isps newserver ;-/)..

Cheers,
  Kyle

"Kyle" <kylemob@blerk.org> wrote in message
news:ohvdc.1290$ED.378@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which
aims
> to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
> feed)..
>
> Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is
very
> much a matter of price :)
>
> It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
> processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
>
> Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> requirements..
>
> We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
> has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
>
> Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> would be greatly appreciated! hehe

Have a look at the ADI Blackfin. The EZ-Kit comes with video inputs.

Leon

"Kyle" <kylemob@blerk.org> wrote in message news:<ohvdc.1290$ED.378@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which aims
> to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
> feed)..
> 
> Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is very
> much a matter of price :)
> 
> It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
> processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
> 
> Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> requirements..
> 
> We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
> has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
> 
> Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> would be greatly appreciated! hehe
> 
> I also apologize in advance if this post is way out of line in this forum -
> I can't seem to find any posting guidelines (in fact there wasn't any posts
> to download at all from my isps newserver ;-/)..
> 
> Cheers,
>   Kyle

ADSP-BF533-EZLITE or the newer, dual core ADSP-BF561-EZLITE. Try to
find information about it in www.analog.com/processors, under the
Blackfin family. I'm pretty sure this is what you need.

Regards,

JaaC

"Kyle" <kylemob@blerk.org> wrote in message news:<ohvdc.1290$ED.378@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which aims
> to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
> feed)..
> 
> Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is very
> much a matter of price :)
> 
> It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
> processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
> 
> Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> requirements..
> 
> We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
> has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
> 
> Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> would be greatly appreciated! hehe
> 
> I also apologize in advance if this post is way out of line in this forum -
> I can't seem to find any posting guidelines (in fact there wasn't any posts
> to download at all from my isps newserver ;-/)..
> 
> Cheers,
>   Kyle


Have a look at these links:

http://www.analog.com/processors/epProductPage/0,2542,BF533%252DHARDWARE,00.html

http://www.analog.com/processors/epProductPage/0,2542,BF561%252DHARDWARE,00.html

JaaC

Kyle wrote:

> Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which aims
> to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
> feed)..
> 
> Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is very
> much a matter of price :)
> 
> It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
> processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
> 
> Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> requirements..
> 
> We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
> has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
> 
> Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> would be greatly appreciated! hehe
> 
> I also apologize in advance if this post is way out of line in this forum -
> I can't seem to find any posting guidelines (in fact there wasn't any posts
> to download at all from my isps newserver ;-/)..
> 
> Cheers,
>   Kyle
> 
> 

Don't ignore that Pentium on your desktop, particularly if you can throw 
it into MMX mode.  As long as you can stand potentially unpredictable 
delays due to the non-real time OS it's not a bad platform.

-- 

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

"Kyle" <kylemob@blerk.org> wrote in message
news:ohvdc.1290$ED.378@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which
aims
> to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL video
> feed)..
>
> Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is
very
> much a matter of price :)
>
> It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards audio
> processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
>
> Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> requirements..
>
> We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame and
> has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
>
> Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> would be greatly appreciated! hehe

You might try sci.image.processing as a more likely newsgroup.

The suggestion to use a modern PC, especially with something like MMX or the
equivalent is a good one.  Then all you need is a frame grabber which can
start with something as simple / inexpensive as a Snappy - if you can find
one.  I don't recall if a Snappy will do PAL.  But, maybe a Snappy isn't
fast enough for your application.  You didn't say the frame rate but I
assume it's around 2-3 fps from the pixel rate and mention of PAL.

Maybe you can find an old PCI frame grabber that's suitable for your
application.  They have been around since the mid-90's.  Just be sure to use
a driver and OS that will support one another.  Many of them support
reasonable frame rates.  Then process the images on the PC.  Then, it's only
a "small matter of software"!

I would stay away from plug-in processor boards unless that's what you want
to learn about.  Such a learning objective does make sense!  If you do,
you'll have to write or acquire code for both the processor and the PC -
which could be tough if the board driver isn't what you'd hope for.  Usually
a frame grabber board doesn't have to be "programmed" like a processor
board - so it can be a simpler integration job - all things being equal
(which they won't be).

Fred

"Jaime Andres Aranguren Cardona" <jaime.aranguren@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:14a86f87.0404090754.242c9854@posting.google.com...
> "Kyle" <kylemob@blerk.org> wrote in message
news:<ohvdc.1290$ED.378@news-server.bigpond.net.au>...
> > Hi I'm a final year engineering student who has a design project which
aims
> > to do some low-level video processing for purposes of controlling a
> > mechanical system (template matching in a low res monochromatic PAL
video
> > feed)..
> >
> > Since it's a student project, getting access to appropriate hardware is
very
> > much a matter of price :)
> >
> > It would seem that DSP development boards are either geared towards
audio
> > processing (too slow for our purposes, but cheap) or high end video (eg
> > HDTV, MPEG, etc expensive and very much overpowered for our purposes)..
> >
> > Being completely new to the wonderful world of DSPs, I was wondering if
> > anyone had any suggestions for a development board that may fit our
> > requirements..
> >
> > We're looking at a DSP that can process maybe 1-2million pixels a second
> > (with a couple of muls/adds per pixel), possibly from a grabbed frame
and
> > has some support circuitry for sampling a PAL video signal..
> >
> > Any pointers in any direction (urls, companies, boards, chips, books :)
> > would be greatly appreciated! hehe
> >
> > I also apologize in advance if this post is way out of line in this
forum -
> > I can't seem to find any posting guidelines (in fact there wasn't any
posts
> > to download at all from my isps newserver ;-/)..
> >
> > Cheers,
> >   Kyle
>
>
> Have a look at these links:
>
>
http://www.analog.com/processors/epProductPage/0,2542,BF533%252DHARDWARE,00.html
>
>
http://www.analog.com/processors/epProductPage/0,2542,BF561%252DHARDWARE,00.html
>
> JaaC

local Australian analog distributors are memec

ADSP-BF533-EZLITE is around Aus$150 + p&h

 Tony Newnham
Unique Technology Components
DDI:  61 3 9760 4264
Fax:  61 3 9760 4280
Email: tnewnham@memec.com.au
www.unique-technology.com.




Alex Gibson