headtracker / mag lens / macro lens (linaccess at yokoy.de)

[Luke Hutchison]

Where do you get the size 90x30 from though?  Are you saying you can't get
at the full-sized frame through the API currently?

You really should consider fitting a paraboloid over the dot to get
sub-pixel resolution.  Note that if the dot is bigger (more than a few
pixels), you probably want to just use the weighted centroid, but if it's
small, a paraboloid is the right approach.  You really will get at least a
10x increase in accuracy in both x and y, bringing your effective resolution
to something like 900x300 for the example you gave.  You may not even need a
lens.  I have used this before with success for an image processing project.

Here's the code for the 1D version:

// Fit a parabola to three points, and return the x coord of the turning
// point (point 2 is the central point, points 1 and 3 are its neighbors)
double parabolic_fit(double x1, double y1,
                     double x2, double y2,
                     double x3, double y3) {

  double a = (y3 - y2) / ((x3 - x2) * (x3 - x1)) -
             (y1 - y2) / ((x1 - x2) * (x3 - x1));

  double b = (y1 - y2 + a * (x2 * x2 - x1 * x1)) / (x1 - x2);

  double xmin = x2;       // Just use central point if parabola is flat
  if (fabs(a) > EPSILON)
    xmin = -b / (2 * a);  // [avoids division by zero]

  // Use the following to calculate the y-value at the turning point
  // of the parabola:
  //
  //   double c = y1 - a * x1 * x1 - b * x1;
  //   double ymin = a * xmin * xmin + b * xmin + c;

  return xmin;
}

I don't have code for the 2D version unfortunately.

The 2D version (fitting a paraboloid to a neighborhood of more than four
points total) is overspecified, as is the 1D version if fitting a parabola
to more than three points (e.g. using two neighbors on either side of the
brightest pixel).  Thus you need to do some sort of regression to find the
best fit.  I'm sure there is code out there to accomplish this.

Luke


On 9/5/07, linaccess at yokoy.de <linaccess at yokoy.de> wrote:
>
> Hello Luke,
>
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 16:11:34 -0700
> "Luke Hutchison" <luke.hutch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Is the processing time for 640x480 the reason you're only using 90x30?
> >
>
> No, I am not at the point thinking about optimization the processing time.
> You don't want to dance in front of the camera to control the mouse
> pointer. You just want to move your head a few degrees as if you would look
> to the edges of the display without moving your eyes. Then the area
> recognized from the camera is very small. It is like moving the mouse only
> one or two millimeters to move the mousepointer over the whole desktop. To
> get more 'delta pixel' I need a mag lens, I think.
>
> regards,
>
> yokoy
>
>
>
> > You can actually dramatically increase the precision to which you can
> read
> > back the bright point's location by fitting a paraboloid to the
> intensity
> > values in the neighborhood of the brightest pixel, then reading off the
> > location of the extremum of the paraboloid.  You will get at least one
> order
> > of magnitude more accuracy that way than looking at the integer coords
> of
> > the brightest pixel (perhaps as much as two orders of magnitude).
> >
> > Luke
> >
> >
> > On 9/4/07, linaccess at yokoy.de <linaccess at yokoy.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello Mary Lou,
> > >
> > > On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:13:34 -0400
> > > Mary Lou Jepsen <mljatolpc at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > lenses are cheap.  it depends on what exactly you are doing with the
> > > > software.
> > >
> > > tracking a little shiny point at the head and transform it into
> > > mousepointer movements. Here is the description:
> > > http://www.olpcaustria.org/mediawiki/index.php/Headtracker
> > >
> > > With the XO camera we typicaly use only 90x30 pixel from the 640x480
> > > pixel. So I want to magnify the operative area with a lens.
> > > Here is a picture of the area:
> > >
> > >
> http://www.olpcaustria.org/mediawiki/index.php/Headtracker#magnification_lens
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > American Science and Surplus is a good way to experiment:
> > > > http://sciplus.com/category.cfm?subsection=21
> > > >
> > >
> > > thank you for that link. A plastic lens is what I am searching for.
> > >
> > >
> > > > then to china for mass production at very low price point.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > - Mary Lou
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > regards,
> > >
> > > yokoy
> > > --
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Devel mailing list
> > > Devel at lists.laptop.org
> > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
> > >
> >
>
>
> --
>
>
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