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Signature data being lost

Pixy Software
#1

Hi everyone,

Pixy resets the signature data every time I plug it off the laptop. I went through two other topics discussing this issue (http://www.cmucam.org/boards/9/topics/5078 and http://www.cmucam.org/boards/8/topics/4056) and updated pixymon and pixy firmware to the latest versions, but still getting the same problem. Tried multiple times with both pixymon and arduino serial monitor, does not detect anything.

The thing is that when I view the cooked video, Pixy seems to be abel to detect some blocks, but not all.

Say I have a red square module and after I disconnect and connect pixy again it detects red only at outer sides of the square.
I am running on Win 10 and using Pixy with Arduino Micro. I have set 4 signatures.

Cheers…

#2

Hello Max,
There have been issues with lost parameter data in the past, but these issues have been resolved.

Max Key wrote:

The thing is that when I view the cooked video, Pixy seems to be abel to detect some blocks, but not all.

If this is the case, that is, you are still getting some detection between power cycles, it sounds like a signature issue or possibly a white balance issue. But you aren’t losing parameter memory.

Note, that for the first 5 seconds that Pixy powers up it performs an auto-white-balance. Sometimes if you hold your hand in front of Pixy when you power it up, or some other object it will affect the white balance and the rest of your signatures will cease to work, because the white balance has been biased. You might try pointing Pixy at a white(ish) object upon power up, or try disabling auto-white-balance upon power up:

http://cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/Camera_Pane

and see if this helps.

Let me know what you find.

Edward

#3

Hey Edward,

Yes, can confirm, that signatures are not lost between power cycles, my bad. However, when disabling auto white balance upon power up results in pixy becoming unable to see anything, that is cooked video outputs just a black screen.

Your other advice makes a bit more difference. I tried holding a piece of white paper in front of the lens for 5 seconds (auto balance upon power up is on) and pixy seems recognise signatures, but not consistently, that is you’d need to make a couple of trials setting signatures, unpluging and plugging it back and checking.
Other thing I noticed, is the difference in brightness between power ups, even though all the settings and light sources remain unchanged, see snaps attached. Check the last snap, how cold the colours are.

#4

Eventually pixy is back to life! what I did is I turned the auto white balance on power up off, and manually (via button) assigned signatures and it seems to work well by far…