Re: [avr-chat] AVR solutions for image processing

[David Kelly]

On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 07:04:16PM +0530, Shashank Chintalagiri wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm working on something that requires me to obtain images from a CCD / Line
> sensor at a relatively high frame rate (~30 fps, maybe more :|) at
> resolutions comparable to 1024x768 pixels.

Even at only 1 bit deep you are looking at 98k bytes for one frame.
Where are you going to put that in an AVR? If dealing with multiple
frames your firmware team will probably demand at least 512k bytes of
scratch RAM.

> about this than I do). We plan to take a quick succession of images
> and run image processing routines on it to make the images clearer and
> of higher resoultion. Could anyone tell me what kind of processing
> power I should be looking at for this?

You know more about how much computational load you have than we do. You
know more about how long the user is willing to wait for results.

> Would an advanced ATMega series controller be able to handle the load
> or is ARM7 (or blackfin) the minimum required for this?

Perhaps the new hot rod family of AVR has an external memory bus. Think
the AVR32 does. But at this stage of the game I don't think you should
be trying to bend your requirements to a particular CPU. If it were me,
would first plan on overkill with the CPU, then if production quantities
justify redesign for cost only after you have more experience with the
product. Is much easier to run a fast CPU slow, than a slow CPU fast.

> Chintalagiri Shashank
> Junior Undergraduate
> Department of Physics
> Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

OK, so its not to be a mass produced product? Then kill it with
horsepower and use an ARM7 or ARM9. Don't cost much more than an AVR in
low volume. Your time, and class deadline costs much more than the CPU.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, address@hidden
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Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.