Subject:
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Re: LEGO® Company and Logitech® Put Advanced PC Camera Technology in the Hands of Kids
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 18 Aug 2000 17:19:03 GMT
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In lugnet.lego.announce, Suzanne D. Rich writes:
> Republication of official LEGO Company press release of May 16, 2000:
> http://www.lego.com/info/pressspecific.asp?PressReleaseId=113&Year=2000
> ---------------------------
>
> LEGO® Company and Logitech® Put Advanced PC Camera Technology in the Hands of
> Kids
>
> <snip!!!>
>
> Media Contacts:
> Eva Lykkegaard, LEGO Company - +45 79 50 74 24 – • Eva.Lykkegaard@Europe.LEGO.com
> Betty Skov, Logitech - (510) 713-4463 – betty_skov@logitech.com
>
> © 2000 LEGO Company
> TM and ® indicate trademarks of the LEGO Company
> Page updated June 28th, 2000
I didn't even know this product existed when I found it on sale at Target in
North Attleboro, MA a week ago. Here's my mini-review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LEGO Mindstorms Vision Command, (set #9731, 141 pieces incl. CD-ROM.)
The camera is color, and has an apparent maximum resolution of 640x480. The
body dimensions are: 8 studs wide, roughly 5 studs deep, and one plate short
of 6 bricks high. The lens has manual focus ring which I found stiff to turn,
but which worked well over a decent range. The camera body has a "manual
shutter" button on top that can be used to tell the software to take a
picture, but you can avoid jiggling the camera by using the software to take
pictures. The camera also has a built-in microphone that records a sound
track when you record a video clip.
The camera has a 5-meter/15-foot USB cable coming out the back, but does not
have any other connections and DOES NOT require its own batteries or power
supply. Like virtually all USB devices, this camera looks as if it was
chipped off of an iMac, with its very tasteful transluscent blueberry-over-
charcoal case. (Ironically, the software only supports Windows.)
The camera driver is fully TWAIN compliant, which means that the camera can be
used with virtually any imaging software, including a number of popular paint
and tele-conferencing programs.
It is important to note (in case it isn't already obvious) that the USB camera
doesn't connect to the RCX. Instead, the camera connects to your computer's
USB port, and the camera software uses the IR tower to send commands to the
RCX based upon certain image processing events, like motion detected, color
change detected, etc. You're not going to "create robots that see" without
having a Windows 98 computer running somewhere in the loop. And although the
5 meter / 15 foot USB cable is generous, it imposes some restrictions on how
far your robot can roam from the mother ship, and may pull it off course if
you're not careful. On the other hand, you could also make very good use of
Vision Command without even owning an RCX or any other LEGO products! (If
such a situation can be imagined!)
I built the "Power Platform" from the Vision Command Constructopedia, which
uses an RCX and two motors to aim the camera up/down and side-to-side. The
model was easy to build (took about 1/2 hour) and used a remarkably small
number of pieces.
The Vision Command software is also very neat. The software can be configured
to snap "spy photos" when it visually detects motion. There is also an RIS-
like programming environment that provides programming blocks that can watch
the camera for color or motion, and control an RCX via the IR tower. Using
this software, I was easily able to program my "Power Platform" to track the
(slow) movement of a stack of red bricks, always keeping them in the center of
the image. The Vision Command software insisted on loading the version 2.0
firmware into my RCX, which hasn't caused any problems for me so far.
My system (a Pentium II 266MHz laptop with 64M RAM) barely meets the minimum
system requirements printed on the box, and I had trouble installing the
software until I cleared up about twice the 200Megs of hard disk space the
installation said was required.
I have found that my machine practically grinds to a halt when the camera
software runs live video at the full 640x480 resolution. My system had no
trouble with the camera running at lower resolutions (320x200), but the
programming environment has no apparent way to switch the camera to a lower
resolution, so I couldn't always do this. As a result, the programming
environment crawled along and ignored many a mouse click on my system. [I
found a tech note on Microsoft's web site that recommended disabling your
video acceleration if you have trouble with a USB video camera, but when I did
that, the VC software just produced garbled displays altogether on my machine.]
The set #9731 also includes a handful of useful LEGO building elements. Of
particular note are a number of Technic "bent beams" that are different shapes
than any that I have seen before.
Overall, this package is really cool. You might be able to find a 640x480
color USB camera for slightly less $$$ somewhere else, but the image
processing software really makes this kit worth checking out. Even if you
don't own any other Mindstorms products!
I'll try to post some pictures that I've taken with it as soon as I am able...
- Chris.
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