OpenMV Cam H7 - Machine Vision w/ MicroPython.

Shipping Update
about 5 years ago – Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 02:10:18 AM

Hi folks,

We're currently shipping orders right now. We've packaged up about 1/3rd of the Kickstarter orders and they are making their way to the fulfillment center. Other orders were delayed in being shipped because we were in the middle of an inventory transfer from our old shipping warehouse. That inventory transfer has now been completed and we should be able to ship most orders.

Once your order is processed you will receive a tracking number. The tracking number will not be live initially until your order makes its way into the shipping carrier's systems and onto a plane to where you live.

We'd like to ask to be patient for receiving your order if possible. We've had to move shipping companies (due to various reasons...) and change over our online store  at the same time as completing this Kickstarter. A lot of things are going on at the same time making this all very complicated. Anyway, we expect to ship more or less all Kickstarter orders by the end of April.

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We are also working on getting OpenMV IDE 2.2.0 out the door. It should be ready in about 2 weeks before the bulk of folks get their Kickstarter order.

Thank you for reading,

Shipping to Backers Starting
about 5 years ago – Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 12:48:26 AM

Hi folks,

I know, there have been a lot of emails about shipping starting. Well, it finally is! We've received all the units in Hong Kong and our new shipping company is finally ready to start shipping. In the background we were setting up the shipping company not only to process all the Kickstarter orders but also all OpenMV store orders as we've been moving all our inventory too.

Shipping will proceed roughly in the order of folks backing the OpenMV Kickstarter. As for FLIR Lepton Backers your units will be sent to GroupGets. We expect that once GroupGets receives your orders to process they will reach out to you for FLIR Lepton intent verification if they haven't already.

Anyway, the whole shipping process will take all of April most likely. Luckily, BackerKit should send out emails as shipments get processed so you know where your reward is.

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In other news, we finally released version 3.3.1! There are a lot of new features in the firmware. But, in particular, firmware version 3.3.1 is necessary to fully enable all the features of the Global Shutter and FLIR Lepton 3.5.

Since it's March and there's a lot happening right now (taxes), it's going to take some time to get the documentation updated and OpenMV IDE updated for the next release. So, until then you can download the latest firmware from our github here: https://github.com/openmv/openmv/releases. The OpenMV Cam M4 firmware is OPENMV2, the OpenMV Cam M7 firmware is OPENMV3, and the OpenMV Cam H7 firmware is OPENMV4. You can use the Tools->Run Bootloader action in OpenMV IDE to update your OpenMV Cam H7 firmware to v3.3.1 by selecting the firmware.bin file in the OPENMV4 folder.

As for examples, you can download the scripts from here:

https://github.com/openmv/openmv/tree/master/scripts/examples

https://github.com/openmv/openmv/tree/master/scripts/examples/27-Lepton

https://github.com/openmv/openmv/tree/master/scripts/examples/28-Global-Shutter

Many of the other scripts in the examples folder have also been updated for other new features like the gamma_corr() method which provides fast gamma, contrast, brightness correction.

Anyway, we'll get the documentation updated and the next version of OpenMV IDE released which packages everything up nicely as soon as we can.

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In regards to the OpenMV Cam H7 being available generally for purchase, we will start shipping online store orders for it in April. You can pre-order it on our website if you'd like to place an order earlier.

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As for the OpenMV Cam M7, there was a run on the store and we ran out before we expected to. That said, we planned to stop producing the OpenMV Cam M7 anyway so we're happy to have 100% sold out. The OpenMV Cam H7 fully replaces the OpenMV Cam M7 and will instantly boost your OpenMV Cam M7 performance by about 2X or more.

In regards to firmware support for the OpenMV Cam M7, since we've stuck with STM32 architecture we'll be able to continue delivering firmware updates to the OpenMV Cam M7 as new features appear on the OpenMV Cam H7. Similarly, we'll also continue to support the OpenMV Cam M4 (as an aside, v3.3.1 re-enables a lot of features we had ran out of room for on the OpenMV Cam M4 as we found a way to save a massive amount of flash allowing us to add back in many features previously only on the OpenMV Cam M7/H7).

Thanks for reading!

Manufacturing Finished! All units are now shipping to the distribution warehouse!
about 5 years ago – Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 01:11:33 AM

Hi folks,

EtonTech has finished manufacturing everything and they've shipped out all of our goods to our new shipping warehouse in Hong Kong!

There was about a 1.5 week delay because of issues with a tiny (0.5mm) black spot appearing on our plastic cases for the OpenMV Cam H7. EtonTech takes pride in everything they manufacturer and kept redoing the case manufacturing run until it was fixed. The reason for the spot was due to excess material from an unrelated previous manufacturing run that was hard to remove from the injection molding machine.

Anyway, in parallel we've finally got all the firmware features in for the Global Shutter Camera and Radiometric Lepton support. We're going to get the firmware release done over the weekend and then update our documentation followed by a new IDE release packaging everything up. This process may take more time than when folks start to receive their units. So, once we get the firmware release finished we'll post a link to it here (the new firmware v3.3.0 will be downloadable from github). When your cameras arrive they will have firmware version v3.2.0 on them which only has partial support for the Global Shutter camera (QVGA and below resolution support) and the FLIR Lepton 1/2/3 (temperature measurement mode not available). The new firmware release fixes the above issues (full 752x480 support on the global shutter camera with trigger mode and radiometric FLIR temperature measurement mode) and we'll post links to examples scripts allowing you to utilize the new features so you can get started while waiting for the full IDE release.

Here's the Global Shutter Camera in action:

The MT9V034 sensor is able to focus at objects a lot closer up than the OV7725. The picture above are with the standard 2.8mm lens that comes with the camera. So, if you have plans to use your Global Shutter Camera for precision measurement it's going to be a champ.

And with Radiometric FLIR Lepton support you can now get more than pretty images with your FLIR Lepton 3.5. By default our firmware supports all FLIR Leptons but puts them in AGC mode where they automatically scale the temperatures in the image from 14-bit to 8-bits using an adaptive histogram equalization method (which is built-into the FLIR Leptons). This produces great looking thermal images but also results in you not knowing what temperature any of the pixels in the image are. So, now you'll be able to actually set a target temperature range (like 20C to 35C) and our code will clamp all 14-bit temperature readings between the specified range and then rescale all values to an 8-bit grayscale image. This makes it simple then to look at a pixel and know what temperature that pixel is. It also means that the content of the image no longer changes the scaling of the pixels (as in AGC mode).

(Note that our firmware for temperature measurement mode will work on all FLIR Lepton sensors. However, only the FLIR Lepton 3.5 will produce accurate readings easily. Other FLIR Lepton sensors don't self calibrate their image array based on their internal temperature which results in them reading different values depending on if they are pointed at something hot/cold and change as they heat up. As for the FLIR Lepton 2.5 - it doesn't calibrate itself enough right out of the box resulting in issues).

Other than the above, SingTown's design for their TV shield is complete and we'll be ordering 250 of the NSTC output shields and 250 of their wireless NTSC 5.8 GHZ broadcast shields. We'll try to get these in stock ASAP. Additionally, we've tested out our new CAN shield and it works great so we'll try to get that in stock too. The CAN shield allows your OpenMV Cam M4/M7/H7 to interface to other microcontrollers on a CAN bus at bit rates up to 1 Mb/s along with providing power for the OpenMV Cam via a 5V linear reg. With the CAN shield using the OpenMV Cam in FIRST Robotics Challenges will become easy along with hooking up many different OpenMV Cams together for automation systems.

Thanks for reading!

Quick Update
about 5 years ago – Wed, Mar 06, 2019 at 08:24:53 PM

Hi folks,

It's March now and we're going to be shipping this month! Yay! An on-time Kickstarter - impossible!

Anyway, we've got more or less all the firmware fixes for the H7 done. The FLIR Lepton 3.5 and Global Shutter work perfectly along with the OV7725 color camera. We've got examples for how to use them too now in the IDE. We're going to try to get the next release out ASAP so you have it when your cameras arrive.

As for shipping, we're waiting on our cases for the H7 to be ready. EtonTech didn't like the quality of the first case production run and requested it to be redone (there was a tiny scratch of all cases). Anyway, we expect to receive the new cases this week or the next and then we will move all our goods to the Hong Kong warehouse and start shipping. Our goal is to have all orders dispatched before the end of the month.

Anyway, I'm going to lock down the BackerKit web store over the weekend and charge all cards and clear everything out on that.

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If you bought a FLIR Lepton 3.5 we're shipping all your rewards to GroupGets who will add a FLIR Lepton 3.5 to your order and then ship to you. If you are a Lepton backer you should have received a separate email from me and GroupGets for paper work required for buying a FLIR Lepton 3.5 sensor.

Thanks for reading!

Packing Approved. Shipping Will Start Soon!
about 5 years ago – Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 01:13:35 AM

Hi folks,

I've received the final production sample units along with the final production packaging. Everything looked good, so I've approved all the built and tested units to be kitted up. Here are some pics:

So, once everything is kitted up we'll transfer all the units to our new Honk Kong warehouse and start shipping this March - right on time!

Given this - Please update your BackerKit orders now if you want to add anything extra. In particular, if you are in a country with questionable post office service and/or customs we heavily recommend you purchase the DHL upgrade on shipping. The default shipping will be via Hong Kong post office mail which will be given to your local post office to fulfill on arrival in your country.

Other than that... we've been working hard on upgrading the firmware and we will have a bunch of new features out in a firmware release right before/after we start shipping OpenMV Cam H7s. I'll have more information available later once we finish the release.