Departments:
  1. Electronics Engineering
  2. Mechatronics Engineering
Modules:
  1. Pixy Camera
Microcontrollers:
  1. Arduino Uno
Codings:
  1. Arduino C
Softwares:
  1. Arduino IDE

get started with pixy camera, how to use pixy camera, pixy camera tutorial, how to use pixy camera
Hello friends, hope you all are fine and having fun with your lives. Today's post is about getting started with pixy camera. Now, the first thing comes in mind is what is Pixy Camera so let's first have a little introduction about Pixy Camera on which I recently worked. Pixy Camera is a small camera board which uses NXP microcontroller. Its a very powerful board and can get easily interfaced with simple Arduino UNO board. So, now we can do image processing even on Arduino UNO. Image Processing needs a powerful board that's why we can't interface simple webcam with Arduino UNO or mega etc. Before using pixy camera, when I need to do on board image processing I always used either Arduino YUN, Raspberry Pi or Arduino USB host shield but still it was quite tough to do the image processing even on such powerful boards like Arduino YUN. But now with Pixy Camera module, one can quite easily do the image processing even on Arduino UNO.

Now question arises what this module does ? Actually this Pixy module has a NXP microcontroller on it which does all the image processing and is controlled by a computer. (We are gonna cover this in coming tutorials) Once you set its parameters like color detection or object detection etc then you simply unplug it from computer and plug it with Arduino or any other PIC Microcontroller. Now whenever that object comes in front of Pixy Camera it will automatically recognize it and will send the command to your microcontroller and will also send the parameters like X, Y coordinates or size etc of the object and what you need to do is to apply your algorithm on Arduino i.e. what you gonna do if the object is infront of the camera. Sounds complex, don't worry we are gonna follow everything in detail in coming tutorials. So, now we are gonna have a look at how to get started with Pixy Camera.

Getting Started with Pixy Camera

  • So, when I ordered for my Pixy Camera, I got the box within 10 days.
  • As I received the box I opened it and I got two items from it, one is the Pixy Camera board itself and second is the Serial to SPI cable which is used to connect Pixy Camera with Arduino or PIC Microcontroller.
  • The Pixy Camera is shown in below figure:
getstarted with pixy camera, how to use pixy camera, pixy camera tutorial, how to use pixy camera
  • The Serial to SPI cable which is received has 9 pins on one end which is inserted in Pixy board while six pins on the other end which is inserted in Arduino Microcontroller.
  • This cable is also shown in below figure:
get started with pixy camera, how to use pixy camera, pixy camera tutorial, how to use pixy camera
  • The black side of this cable is for microcontroller while the white side is for Pixy Camera board itself.
  • Next cable you are gonna need is the USB to mini USB cable, which is not with the package so you need to get it on your own.
  • I got mine as well and is shown in below figure:
get started with pixy camera, how to use pixy camera, pixy camera tutorial, how to use pixy camera
  • This cable is used to connect your Pixy Camera board with computer.
  • Using this cable, we train our Pixy camera and let it know about colors and objects.
  • We actually set signature using Pixy Camera Software, which I am gonna cover in my next tutorial and using this software we make pixy do incredible things.
Now we have all the tools to get started with Pixy Camera so now in the next tutorial, we will have a look at How to install Pixy Camera software in Windows. Click the below button to move to next tutorial. If you having questions please ask in comments below. [vc_empty_space height="30px"]

How to Install Pixy Camera Software >>