July 17, 2013

Build an Arduino-powered single pixel digital camera

 Digital photography and image processing isn't something that naturally springs to mind when working with an Arduino board, however with some imagination and different thinking the folks over at the Arduining website have managed to create a single-pixel digital camera. it doesn't simply capture one dot and consider that an image - instead a light sensor is mounted on a servo-controlled pan/tilt sensor. This is then moved about by the Arduino in a set pattern in order to capture light levels across an area with a fixed boundary.

The x and y coordinates of the sensor and the light level for each spot are then sent back to a PC running some processing code which can assemble the data and convert it to a greyscale image. It's quite clever in its simplicity, and a demonstration of the project is shown in the following video:


To find out more and make your own version, visit the Arduining website. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well. 

If you're new to Arduino and want to join the fun, the first step is a solid board for your projects - our Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino-Uno compatible with low-profile USB socket, onboard prototyping space and easy to view LEDs:



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