CMOS camera modules are widely used in mobile phones and web cameras, and the price is pretty low when in volume. Therefore it becomes the best choice for embedded applications. However there is barrier in both hardware and software when using camera modules and block the hobbyists off. That why ArduCAM is born. ArduCAM is an open source project for CMOS camera modules, which hide the complexity of capturing high speed high resolution image data stream and provide the source code configuration for camera modules. User can freely control the ArduCAM shield to accomplish their different tasks. The first release of ArduCAM shield target for Arduino and its compatible platforms like Maple, Chipkit. And we plan to move to more powerful platform like Raspberry PI, Beagle board or Pandaboard.
What ArduCAM can do
Take still image
Take BMP or JPEG image and save to SD/TF memory card
Real time preview on 3.2” LCD screen
Mounting with proper lenses, can be used as microscope or astronomical telescope
Real time video recording
With ArduCAM team’s optimization, Arduino now can record 5 fps low resolution MJPEG video stream AVI files to SD card. It can achieve much higher frame rate with more powerful MCU other than Arduino
Wireless image transmission
Connected to extra Bluetooth or WiFi module, achieve wireless image transmission
Color and object recognition
With proper image processing algorithm, simple image procesing algorithm can be achieved
What ArduCAM can’t do for now
Real time video processing
Arduino like platforms are too slow and has insufficient memory to do the video processing
Is it possible to directly connect the modules, without the ArduCam shield, to boards like the Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, Parallella via their gpio ports?
That is exactly what I need.
You can connect the ArduCAM shield to Raspberry Pi with its GPIO ports to emualte as a parallel data bus. It is much easier to connect a MIPI camera module to the Raspberry Pi.
Is it possible to connect the ArduCAM shield to extra “Zigbee” module for wireless image transmission?
I try to use PIR sensor, ArduCAM shield, and Zigbee module for wireless photo transmission.
Yes, you can connect bluetooth or zigbee module to ArduCAM shield Rev.C with Arduino boards. Let us know if you have any questions else.
Would it be possible to have this camera take a photo every second or so and use that image data to control a DIY rgb led matrix? I want to basically make a super low resolution mirror 8×8 using real time camera input. Looking for a non-android solution.