Reading USB camera data from a microcontroller

[Ivan Nathvalski]

Can some USB, microcontroller expert advise me how can a USB webcam be
interfaced with a microcontroller (PIC, ATMega, etc) so that we can capture
image frames (low speed, low res) with the microcontroller?

 

[mark jb]

Can some USB, microcontroller expert advise me how can a USB webcam be

interfaced with a microcontroller (PIC, ATMega, etc) so that we can
capture image frames (low speed, low res) with the microcontroller?

you'd need a usb host on the board to interface with the micro, power to run
the cam from the board... you may be better ripping a cheap cam apart and
pulling a direct video output before the usb out (if possible)

-mark

 

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

Can some USB, microcontroller expert advise me how can a USB webcam be
interfaced with a microcontroller (PIC, ATMega, etc) so that we can capture
image frames (low speed, low res) with the microcontroller?

About as well as you could pull a 20-ton cargo trailer up a hill using
a bicycle. You need a USB host for that, which needs between one and
two orders of magnitude more CPU power than what you're envisioning.

 

[Michael J. Noone]

Cypress makes some nice little USB host chips - I'd reccomend taking a
look at those as I doubt a 8b micro could handle the complexities of a
USB host interface. Best of luck!

-M. Noone

 

[Alex Gibson]

Can some USB, microcontroller expert advise me how can a USB webcam be
interfaced with a microcontroller (PIC, ATMega, etc) so that we can
capture image frames (low speed, low res) with the microcontroller?

Go with an older type serial cam or get a camucam2 or avr cam
or similar.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cmucam/
http://www.jrobot.net/

http://home.teleport.ch/idobson/ using bascom avr
http://home.teleport.ch/idobson/projects/UDP-webcam.htm
http://home.teleport.ch/idobson/start_e.htm

Alex

 

[dmm]

Can some USB, microcontroller expert advise me how can a USB webcam be
interfaced with a microcontroller (PIC, ATMega, etc) so that we can capture
image frames (low speed, low res) with the microcontroller?

Not a USB solution, but John Orlando and Brent Taylor won 2nd prize
in Circuit Cellar's AVR contest last year with an ATmega8 controlled camera.
http://www.circuitcellar.com/avr2004/Second.html

 

[Rudolf Ladyzhenskii]

USB is a master-slave system. Camera is a slave, so you need a master (USB
host). Low-end micros with USB are USB slaves too.

You need a USB host. It is either built into the higher-end processors or
you need external chip. But this is only half a problem. Then you need USB
host stack, typically found in larger OS, like Linux.

Rudolf

 

[D. Jay Newman]

USB is a master-slave system. Camera is a slave, so you need a master (USB
host). Low-end micros with USB are USB slaves too.

You need a USB host. It is either built into the higher-end processors or
you need external chip. But this is only half a problem. Then you need USB
host stack, typically found in larger OS, like Linux.

I'm solving this problem with a Linksys NSLU2 (Network storage system).
This device has one ethernet port, two USB host, and 1.5 serial ports.

You can load a version of Linux on it that will handle a webcam.

I am planning on preporoccesing the image there and then passing on
the relevent information to my main processor.

http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/