Interfacing with a camera

Is it possible for an Arduino to interface with this camera? As in dump the picture to some external EEPROM? Also, would I be able to render the current image without storing it anywhere?

Most importantly, how do I pump 12v and 150mA into it?

Chicken325:
Is it possible for an Arduino to interface with this camera? As in dump the picture to some external EEPROM? Also, would I be able to render the current image without storing it anywhere?

Most importantly, how do I pump 12v and 150mA into it?

The camera you linked to outputs a composite video signal (the same you'd get out of a VCR, except black and white); you can't directly interface to it with the Arduino. You could, however, use Nootropic Design's Video Experimenter shield to capture a low-resolution image from it, then store that to an EEPROM. See these links:

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,56049.0.html
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,63284.0.html

:slight_smile:

Cool! How low resolution? Would the shield itself be able to directly output to a screen without going through the Arduino, too?

Chicken325:
Cool! How low resolution? Would the shield itself be able to directly output to a screen without going through the Arduino, too?

Technically, it's all thru the Arduino, since it is making use of a modified version of the TVOut library; the image data itself is stored in a RAM array on the Arduino itself (which means your program can only be so complex - it would be a better bet to have one Arduino acting as the video processor, and a second communicating with it over a serial link to act as the main processing system).

As far as resolution - I can't recall exactly, but if you research those links (and/or contact Nootropic directly - send him a PM, he's on this forum all the time), you should figure it out (192 x 128 or less, 1 bit-per-pixel, something like that - its modifiable in the software library, IIRC).

:slight_smile:

Cool! I might make an Arduino-based edge detector that simply find the edges between black and white, then draw it via marker.

Chicken325:
Cool! I might make an Arduino-based edge detector that simply find the edges between black and white, then draw it via marker.

Should be do-able; one of those links though mentions it taking about a second to capture an image (not sure at what resolution, though)...