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Real-time access to camera data

Pixy Software
#1

Hello,

I’m interested in this product for a facial motion/expression capture project - i.e. not just facial tracking, but full expression capture.

I like that the pixy has a 50fps option (but as I understand it this is at reduced spatial resolution).

Questions:

1. Can the image data be made available to other vision processing applications in ‘real-time’? (is there an API?)

2. (related to Q1) Even though new information is presented every 20ms what would be the delay at which the information is received from the camera to a PC?

3. What frame rates/delays can the full 720p sensor output be accessed at (elementary math suggest 12.5fps) - are there any intermediate options?

I’ve seen the product used in a real-time robotics application and was impressed, however I think the group taking advantage of the on-board processing. My project would preferably be markerless, hence the interest in accessing the image directly.

Thanks for any input!
Lamars Javelin

#2

Hi Lamar,

  1. Not as of now. You’d have to add that functionality yourself. Right now Pixy is meant for detecting objects, not sending video data.
  2. I would think the largest delays would be in the transfer to/from memory and transfer over USB. The rest is fairly negligible.
  3. The sensor sends frames at 50fps, so you can scale that down and sample the data at a slower rate: 50/X. This sample rate is set in the firmware, so you can modify it there.

Good luck!

Scott