Video/Image Analysis

Later, Jon

-------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Hylands snipped-for-privacy@huv.com

Project: Micro Raptor (Small Biped Velociraptor Robot)

Be sure to check out the multi-part article in SERVO Magazine on OpenCV. Also visit the author's home page at

to see some additional vision-related libraries she has created.

You should also check out CodeProject

where there are several C++ and C-based image analysis libraries. Look for those that are implemented as a standard DirectShow filter, and then you can use the DirectShowNet (directshownet.sourceforge.net) open source library. This library wraps DirectShow COM calls so you can use C# or VB.NET to produce Windows-based vision and media applications.

If the frame rate is low enough, you could probably do this internally in a C#/VB app using DirectShowNet only, and creating the threshhold algorithm yourself in code. Look for the sample applications that use the SampleGrabber filter and interface. This filter allows you to inspect the RGB pixels of a video stream. You should not use this technique with 30 fps video as it will be too slow, especially in VB.NET. You get better speed using unsafe memory pointers in C# -- various code sources on the Web demonstrate how to do this. For this type of image analysis a frame rate of 8-10 fps is usually sufficient.

-- Gordon

Thanks to Jon and Gordon for your responses, I'll check out all your suggested resources.