Hello all,
I have a number questions regarding a project I am working on. First how do I convert a jpg. file into a file that Arduino will process. Secondly how do I import the files into the board to make the movement I have imported. Lastly how to wire the servos and the code needed to communicate with them to create that movement?
Thank you for your time
strenks:
I have a number questions regarding a project I am working on. First how do I convert a jpg. file into a file that Arduino will process. Secondly how do I import the files into the board to make the movement I have imported. Lastly how to wire the servos and the code needed to communicate with them to create that movement?
You are not giving us much information.
What format do you want to convert the JPG into?
What board do you want to import the files into?
And, regarding your last sentence, I'm almost speechless. Have you studied the servo examples that come with the Arduino IDE.
I have no idea what you have in mind for "create that movement".
Overall it sounds like you want to do something rather complex (and maybe not possible on an Arduino without assistance from a PC) but have no idea what is involved or where to start.
At the very least it would help if you describe the mechanical system you are thinking of using.
...R
Hello there, thank you for the response, my apologies for the lack of clarity and inexperience.
I'm an artist and became fascinated with Arduino and what it could do. However I am very inexperienced with some of the terms, and processes. I'm currently building a kinetic sculpture that I call a "mobile still-life drawing machine". I would like to make a machine function when a button is pressed it will draw a simple object on a piece of paper then stop. I found a series of websites that have machines like this, however I cannot seem to figure out how to put it all together. Maybe this is over my head, but I appreciate the advice.
What board do you want to import the files into? I'm working with Arduino Uno
I hope that was a little bit clearer.
I suspect the major obstacle will be the inability of the Arduino to process image data because of its low memory and slow speed.
You can use a PC to produce data that an Arduino can use to make a drawing. The simplest idea would probably be for the PC to send the data while the drawing is being made. Or you could save the data to an SDCard that the Arduino can read. (A Raspberry PI could substitute for a PC, and maybe you could use an Arduino Yun which combines a small Linux PC and a Leonardo).
The next major obstacle will be creating a machine that can move accurately enough to make a drawing.
The best way to do that would be to make something like an XY plotter that moves a pen N-S and E-W.
People have made little robots that drive over a page and draw as they go. I don't know how accurate or repeatable they can be.
I think you need to use Google to find some examples of the sorts of machine that are possible and then settle on the type that you think meets your requirements, your computer and mechanical skills and your budget.
This is not something you will put together in 2 weeks of evenings.
...R
Thank you very much for your time and advice. I have some work to do!
Find an existing documented drawing robot or too to study...
You clearly want line-art not raster file, so you need some software that can generate
paths from images, and you'll need to think about the representation of those paths,
you probably want a simple list of line segments as CSV.
Uncompressed BMP images are easily readable with an Arduino. That's how most of the TFT displays show pretty pictures for the product photo. Most paint programs (even MS Paint) will save uncompressed BMP. You will probably need an SD card to store the images as they're too big for Arduino memory.
I've seen some great drawing robots that use two pieces of string. They look really simple to set up and the pictures they produce are surprisingly good for two bits of string.