robots.net blog for motters

27 Feb 2010

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 23:08:57 GMT

The current plan is to attempt to construct a 2D map based upon the features from omnidirectional stereo vision. I can locate edge features close to the ground plane quite well, but the trouble with edges is that they're not very unique. I could use the edge data, projected into cartesian coordinates, to begin building a local map, but after a short time the map would begin to degenerate.

So what's needed are more unique features rather than edges. These could be tracked between frames (data association), and I could then use an off-the-shelf graph based SLAM algorithm, such as TORO to build a map. At first I thought of using SIFT, which would be the obvious choice if I were an academic researcher, but there are software patent issues associated with that method that I'd rather not have to deal with. FAST corners would be nice, but the relatively low resolution caused by the mirror distortion means that this algorithm doesn't work well. But I can use the Harris corner features from "good features to track" which is already built into OpenCV. Having been an OpenCV refusenick for quite a number of years I'm now slowly growing to like it. Harris corners seem to work quite reliably, despite the low resolution.

16 Feb 2010

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:31:09 GMT

Detecting the ground using an omnidirectional stereo vision system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhNotSaBmnA

The green features in the centre mirror have been identified as being close to the ground plane.

Edge features close to the ground plane are detected by projecting all features from the centre mirror to the ground plane (the height of the camera is known), then reprojecting the ground features back into the image plane of the four peripheral mirrors. The reverse operation is then applied, and features within the centre mirror are compared. Features with small reprojection error must belong somewhere close to the ground plane.

This provides a convenient and general way of locating the ground, which does not depend upon unreliable texture, colour histogram or image segmentation methods.

14 Feb 2010

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:55:49 GMT

A brief explanation about the new combined stereo and omnidirectional vision system on the GROK2 robot.

http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2010/02/combined-stereo-and-omnidirectional.html

Having tried the classical space carving/voxel colouring techniques, and found them wanting, I'm going to try simpler methods such as edge, line and motion detection. If the robot is stationary an observed moving object, like a person, should show up well and be easy to triangulate.

1 Feb 2010

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 23:32:27 GMT

Looks like it's been a while since I last blogged here, so here's an update. In the last six months I've mainly been writing more stereo vision code. This was primarily for use with the Surveyor SVS, but I also wrote a version which runs on a PC under Linux.

http://code.google.com/p/libv4l2cam/

v4l2stereo was initially written as an easy way in which to test the stereo algorithm before transferring it to the blackfin, but later developed into a piece of software in its own right. You can see an example of the stereo disparities obtained with the Minoru webcam here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUcLAarcj7U

The Minoru only has a short 6cm baseline, so the effective stereo range is not very great (probably less than two metres), but it works well on Linux. As is always the case with webcams the image capture is not synchronized, so if the cameras are moving quickly the delay does become a problem - but for most slow moving robots would be ok.

A recent nice feature of v4l2stereo is that it can be run in "headless" mode with no GUI output to the screen and also can stream the image over a network using gstreamer.

I also replaced Rodney's head with a simplified version which has the Minoru webcam mounted on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNRdcwrTOM0

As of December 2009 I've also been experimenting with omnidirectional vision. I saw one of the videos from Pi Robot a while back, and had been meaning to try out something similar using a Christmas tree decoration as a spherical mirror. This actually works very well, and I've now created a new project called Omniclops for this code, since I didn't want to mix it up with anything else.

http://code.google.com/p/omniclops/

Fortunately the geometry for a spherical mirror is pretty simple to deal with, and the results look promising. So promising in fact that it's a cause for regret that I didn't try doing this many years ago. I've been aware of this type of vision for at least a decade, but the mirrors always looked too exotic or expensive to be worth bothering with, and the idea of making a parabolic mirror by hand without milling machinery seemed like probably something which wouldn't be very successful.

Whilst fooling around with omnidirectional vision using a Christmas decoration a thought occurred to me. Could I somehow combine stereo vision with omnidirectional vision, so that objects could be ranged without needing to do structure from motion? At first I just thought of using a couple of mirrors with one of the stereo cameras, but then I thought why not just use a single camera with a wide field of view looking at multiple mirrors spaced some distance apart. This seems like a good way to do things for the following reasons:

- You only need a single camera

- There are no camera synchronisation issues

- There are no illumination/colour correction issues

- Ultra wide field of view compared to conventional stereo vision

- Very cheap to build

On the down side the resolution of the image within each mirror is rather low, but this probably isn't a major handicap. Also the geometry is more complex than for ordinary stereo vision, but not prohibitively so. I lashed up a prototype from aluminium and cardboard, using five mirrors made from Christmas decorations (carefully) sawn in half to make hemispheres. You can see the resulting effect like so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIuljh7Piso

This is effectively the same as having five cameras with overlapping fields of view and fisheye lenses. Currently I'm thinking that this approach may be well suited to voxel coloring/space carving volumetric techniques, since it complies with the simple plane ordering constraint and the positions of the mirrors are known.

Workwise, I'm pretty much unemployed now - like a lot of software engineers at present - so I can work on this full time and see if I can get any useful volumetric modeling.

24 Jul 2009

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:23:30 GMT

Calibrating the pan and tilt mechanism (again)

http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2009/07/pan-and-tilt.html

I've adapted older code to simplify this procedure and make it more integrated with the rest of the system.

21 Jul 2009

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:30:05 GMT

Views from both cameras as an animated gif.

http://groups.google.com/group/sentience/web/anim1.gif

The effective stereo range with the cameras spaced 12cm apart looks like it's 4-5 metres. Objects in the far distance shouldn't appear to move.

5 Jul 2009

Sun, 5 Jul 2009 17:04:25 GMT

GROK2 gets new cameras.

http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2009/07/grok2-gets-new-cameras.html

19 Jun 2009

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:53:55 GMT

A brief guide to using the Minoru stereo webcam.

http://code.google.com/p/sentience/wiki/MinoruWebcam

It seems to me that this device might be quite useful for robot projects. It wasn't very long ago that such as device would cost a couple of thousand dollars or more.

In addition to the feature based stereo I may also try implementing a dense stereo algorithm. My thoughts on using this as a replacement for the cameras on GROK2 are that the baseline is probably a little on the short side, but that it probably would work.

31 May 2009

Sun, 31 May 2009 16:56:16 GMT

This weekend I've been experimenting with the Minoru stereo webcam, which I think could turn out to be very useful for robotics purposes.

You can find my review here:

http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/2009/05/minoru-stereo-webcam-review.html

At the moment I'm still undecided as to whether I'll use the Minoru to replace the existing cameras on GROK2. I've ordered some wide angle lenses which I'll try using. If the new lenses fit then this device might be ideal.

25 May 2009

Mon, 25 May 2009 18:40:03 GMT

Have done more testing this weekend and fixed some important bugs. It transpired that there was still a "glitch" issue with the direction of one of the encoders reversing seemingly at random, but I've managed to work around that. Also the motion control and joystick servers are now talking together as they should.

I need to write a new utility program which will allow me to visualise the occupancy grids after doing an initial joystick guided training run. This should allow me to check that things look as I expect them to.

I've also ordered one of the Minoru 3D webcams. Apparently these are UVC compliant and will work on Linux. If I can get a pair of images out of the device this would make an excellent replacement for the existing stereo cameras, whilst also solving my V4L1 issues. However, even if the Minoru does look like a usable stereo camera I'll need to assess image quality and field of view compared to the existing cameras which I'm using.

Wheel odometry is now calibrated, and repeatability looks good over short distances, such that the rate of increase in pose uncertainty should be unmanageably small.