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Pixy in daylight conditions

Pixy Hardware
#1

Image seems to wash out in daylight conditions. Can anything be done about this?

Wayne

#2

Hi Wayne,

Try adjusting the camera settings. A list of adjustable parameters can be found “here”:https://github.com/charmedlabs/pixy/blob/5cd4c6ba4b8080c1381af82c8dce89063687465e/device/libpixy/camera.cpp. You might want to try setting AWB, WBV, AEC, ECV, brightness, or light mode. Adjusting the light mode will probably provide the best results.

Hope this helps.

Scott

#3

Is that something I can do via Pixymon?

#4

Try adjusting the “Brightness” parameter on the config page from Pixymon. When changing this parameter, it will be saved into flash for next time. Let me know if it’s still too bright, there are other things we can add to make this easier.

thanks!
–rich

#5

OK. I’ll take a look at that and see what I can do. I’m also going to experiment with adding a neutral density filter in front of the lens but, ultimately, it would be great if the Pixy could have an autobrightness control that would handle a greater range of light (I assume it currently has some kind of automatic exposure control?) My particular application is outdoor robotics, so I really need a sensor that can adapt to the bot moving between bright sunlight and shaded, or overcast conditions.

#6

For sure, Pixy has both auto exposure correction and auto gain to mitigate brightness changes. The sensor has a special mode each for high and low lighting conditions. Automatically transitioning between these modes should be possible, but I’m not sure if it’s necessary. We’ll put it on our list of things to look into.

thanks!
–rich

#7

I also have an issue with outdoor use. I can’t find any brightness setting in pixymon that does not completely washout the image. Any ideas?

#8

Try this— go to PixyMon, press the stop button and type “cam_setLightMode 2” then press return. Then press the Raw video button to get the raw video streaming again. Does this help?

thanks!
–rich

#9

I tried “cam_setLightMode 2” and didn’t see much difference. It did give me a response 5: 0 (0x0). There may have been slightly less washout, but outdoors in bright sunlight mostly everything is washed out. If it’s overcast I get some detail, but even then things that are not completely in shadow are washed out.

#10

Thanks for trying-- we’ll look into this.

#11

Any updates on this issue? I really need to find a way to get usable tracking in outdoor lighting conditions.

Wayne

#12

Popping stuff off the stack— gonna try to get to it this week.

Wayne Holder wrote:

Any updates on this issue? I really need to find a way to get usable tracking in outdoor lighting conditions.

Wayne

#13

It’s been over a week. Any results on this, yet?

#14

The latest firmware seems to help some (firmware-0.1.44.hex), but doesn’t completely solve the problem.

#15

Dude! Don’t forget about the “Brightness” parameter. Try decreasing it if it’s too bright!

#16

I have found good results since the FW update by setting the cam_setBrightness to 50 or lower, setting cam_setMode to 1, and
setting cam_LightMode to 2. (Even in a darker or subdued lighting room), for some reason it seems to make the Auto Brightness
respond faster.

It also seems to make any “hue rich” object (blues, reds, greens) stand out better for signature capture. (At least it does for me)

Regards,
Dan

#17

Cool. But I suspect that the cam_setMode, cam_setLightMode are not having much effect. These are updated automatically now. Setting the “Brightness” parameter in the configure dialog saves the brightness value to flash (and restores the next time you power up), whereas setting cam_setBrightness from the command prompt will only set the current value (and not save to flash).

#18

Here is a sample with brightness set to 50. (See example Nowashout.jpg)

The white is SNOW, and there is complete, direct sunlight shining down on it. The image is not washing out.
I could have gone to 60 or possibly higher with the brightness.

There is an unfortunate side effect though. I took a bright green object outside to test signature recognition,
and in the sunlight (without washout), the camera had an almost impossible time capturing the Color Saturation.

When it finally did capture a signature, it interpreted everything that was not black (or very dark) to being the green hue.
This time of year up where I am, the only thing outside that was bright green, was the ball I was holding…:slight_smile:

I also tried adjusting the Min saturation up to 50 in increments of 5, no help.
I took the saturation spread down to .005 in small increments as well to no avail.

Regards,
Dan Thimm

#19

The white snow reflecting the sun causes the rest of the image (the parts that aren’t white snow reflecting the sun) to be underexposed (because the snow is so bright). It’s probably the most challenging scenario imaginable. Photographers hate this situation too because it’s too “contrasty”.

A possible way to deal with this is to crank up the brightness so that the underexposed parts are less underexposed. Training on objects that appear dark in PixyMon is not going to work.

#20

Just to be clear, if I can adjust the brightness using Pixymon, will it say set to the last brightness setting when I plug my Pixy into an Arduino?

Wayne