The OpenMV Cam is a small, low power, microcontroller board that allows you to easily implement applications using machine vision in the real world. You can program the OpenMV Cam in high-level Python scripts (courtesy of the MicroPython Operating System) instead of C/C++. This makes it easier to deal with the complex outputs of machine vision algorithms and working with high-level data structures. But, you still have total control over your OpenMV Cam and its I/O pins in Python. You can easily trigger taking pictures and videos on external events or execute machine vision algorithms to figure out how to control your I/O pins.
OpenMv 3D Model
Features
The STM32H743VI ARM Cortex M7 processor running at 480 MHz with 1MB of RAM and 2 MB of flash. All I/O pins output 3.3V and are 5V tolerant. The processor has the following I/O interfaces:
A full-speed USB (12Mbs) interface to your computer. Your OpenMV Cam will appear as a Virtual COM Port and a USB Flash Drive when plugged in.
A ?SD Card socket capable of 100Mbs reads/writes which allows your OpenMV Cam to record video and easy pull machine vision assets off of the ?SD card.
An SPI bus that can run up to 100Mbs allowing you to easily stream image data of the system to either the LCD Shield, the WiFi Shield, or another microcontroller.
An I2C Bus, CAN Bus, and an Asynchronous Serial Bus (TX/RX) for interfacing with other microcontrollers and sensors.
A 12-bit ADC and a 12-bit DAC.
Three I/O pins for servo control.
Interrupts and PWM on all I/O pins (there are 10 I/O pins on the board).
And, an RGB LED and two high power 850nm IR LEDs.
A removable camera module system allowing the OpenMV Cam H7 to interface with different sensors:
The OpenMV Cam H7 comes with an OV7725 image sensor is capable of taking 640x480 8-bit grayscale images or 640x480 16-bit RGB565 images at 60 FPS when the resolution is above 320x240 and 120 FPS when it is below. Most simple algorithms will run at above 60 FPS. Your image sensor comes with a 2.8mm lens on a standard M12 lens mount. If you want to use more specialized lenses with your image sensor you can easily buy and attach them yourself.
A LiPo battery connector is compatible with 3.7V LiPo batteries commonly sold online for hobbyist robotics applications.
Applications
The OpenMV Cam can be used for the following things currently (more in the future):
Frame Differencing
You can use Frame Differencing on your OpenMV Cam to detect motion in a scene by looking at what's changed. Frame Differencing allows you to use your OpenMV Cam for security applications. Check out the video of the feature here.
Color Tracking
You can use your OpenMV Cam to detect up to 16 colors at a time in an image (realistically you'd never want to find more than 4) and each color can have any number of distinct blobs. Your OpenMV Cam will then tell you the position, size, centroid, and orientation of each blob. Using color tracking your OpenMV Cam can be programmed to do things like tracking the sun, line-following, target tracking, and much, much, more. Video demo here.
Marker Tracking
You can use your OpenMV Cam to detect groups of colors instead of independent colors. This allows you to create color makers (2 or more color tags) which can be put on objects allowing your OpenMV Cam to understand what the tagged objects are. Video demo here.
Face Detection
You can detect Faces with your OpenMV Cam (or any generic object). Your OpenMV Cam can process Haar Cascades to do generic object detection and comes with a built-in Frontal Face Cascade and Eye Haar Cascade to detect faces and eyes. Video demo here.
Eye Tracking
You can use Eye Tracking with your OpenMV Cam to detect someone's gaze. You can then, for example, use that to control a robot. Eye Tracking detects where the pupil is looking versus detecting if there's an eye in the image.
Person Detection
You can detect if there's a person in the field of view using our built-in person detector TensorFlow Lite model. Video demo here.
Optical Flow
You can use Optical Flow to detect translation of what your OpenMV Cam is looking at. For example, you can use Optical Flow on a quad-copter to determine how stable it is in the air. See the video of the feature here.
QR Code Detection/Decoding
You can use the OpenMV Cam to read QR Codes in its field of view. With QR Code Detection/Decoding you can make smart robots that can read labels in the environment. You can see our video on this feature here.
Data Matrix Detection/Decoding
The OpenMV Cam H7 can also detect and decode data matrix 2D barcodes too. You can see our video on this feature here.
Linear Barcode Decoding
The OpenMV Cam H7 can also decode 1D linear bar codes. In particular, it can decode EAN2, EAN5, EAN8, UPCE, ISBN10, UPCA, EAN13, ISBN13, I25, DATABAR, DARABAR_EXP, CODABAR, CODE39, CODE93, and CODE128 barcodes. You can see our video on this feature here.
AprilTag Tracking
Even better than QR Codes above, the OpenMV Cam H7 can also track AprilTags at 160x120 at up to about 12 FPS. AprilTags are rotation, scale, shear, and lighting invariant state-of-the-art fiducial markers. We have a video on this feature here.
Line Detection
Infinite line detection can be done speedily on your OpenMV Cam at near max FPS. And, you can also find non-infinite length line segments too. You can see our video of this feature here. Additionally, we support running linear regressions on the image for use in line following applications like this DIY Robocar.
Circle Detection
You can use the OpenMV Cam H7 to easily detect circles in the image. See for yourself in this video.
Rectangle Detection
The OpenMV Cam H7 can also detect rectangles using our AprilTag library's quad detector code. Check out the video here.
Template Matching
You can use template matching with your OpenMV Cam to detect when a translated pre-saved image is in view. For example, template matching can be used to find fiducials on a PCB or read known digits on a display.
Image Capture
You can use the OpenMV Cam to capture up to 640x480 Grayscale/RGB565 BMP/JPG/PPM/PGM images. You directly control how images are captured in your Python script. Best of all, you can preform machine vision functions and/or draw on frames before saving them.
Video Recording
You can use the OpenMV Cam to record up to 640x480 Grayscale/RGB565 MJPEG video or GIF images (or RAW video). You directly control how each frame of video is recorded in your Python script and have total control on how video recording starts and finishes. And, like capturing images, you can preform machine vision functions and/or draw on video frames before saving them.
TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers Support: TensorFlow Lite support lets you run custom image classification and segmentation models onboard your OpenMV Cam. With TensorFlow Lite support you can easily classify complex regions of interest in view and control I/O pins based on what you see. See the TensorFlow module for more information.
Specification
ITEM Details
Processor ARM® 32-bit Cortex®-M7 CPU
w/ Double Precision FPU
480 MHz (1027 DMIPS)
Core-Mark Score: 2400
(compare w/ Raspberry Pi 2: 2340)
RAM Layout 256KB.DATA/.BSS/Heap/Stack
512KB Frame Buffer/Stack
256 KB DMA Buffers
(1MB Total)
Flash Layout 128KB Bootloader
128KB Embedded Flash Drive
1792KB Firmware
(2MB Total)
Supported Image Formats Grayscale
RGB565
JPEG (and BAYER)
Maximum Supported Resolutions Grayscale: 640x480 and under
RGB565: 320x240 and under
Grayscale JPEG: 640x480 and under
RGB565 JPEG: 640x480 and under
Lens Info Focal Length: 2.8mm
Aperture: F2.0
Format: 1/3"
HFOV = 70.8°, VFOV = 55.6°
Mount: M12*0.5
IR Cut Filter: 650nm (removable)
Electrical Info All pins are 5V tolerant with 3.3V output. All pins can sink or source up to 25mA. P6 is not 5V tolerant in ADC or DAC mode. Up to 120mA may be sunk or sourced in total between all pins. VIN may be between 3.6V and 5V. Do not draw more than 250mA from your OpenMV Cam's 3.3V rail.
Weight 19g
Length 45mm
Width 36mm
Height 30mm
Comparison Between The OpenMV Cam Family
We have released two different OpenMV Cam products in the past and the table below illustrates the differences between them along with the newly released OpenMV Cam H7 Plus.
OpenMV Cam M7 OpenMV Cam H7 OpenMV Cam H7 Plus
Processor ARM® 32-bit Cortex®-M7 CPU
216 MHz (462 DMIPS)
Core Mark Score: 1082 ARM® 32-bit Cortex®-M7 CPU
480 MHz (1027 DMIPS)
Core Mark Score: 2400 ARM® 32-bit Cortex®-M7 CPU
480 MHz (1027 DMIPS)
Core Mark Score: 2400
RAM Layout 128KB .DATA/.BSS/Heap/Stack
384KB Frame Buffer/Stack 256KB .DATA/.BSS/Heap/Stack
512KB Frame Buffer/Stack
256KB DMA Buffers 256KB .DATA/.BSS/Heap/Stack
32MB Frame Buffer/Stack
256KB DMA Buffers
Flash Layout 32KB Bootloader
96KB Embedded Flash Drive
1920KB Firmware 128KB Bootloader
128KB Embedded Flash Drive
1792KB Firmware 128KB Bootloader
16MB Embedded Flash Drive
1792KB Firmware
Maximum
Supported
Resolutions Grayscale: 640x480 and under
RGB565: 320x240 and under
Grayscale JPEG: 640x480 and under
RGB565 JPEG: 640x480 and under Grayscale: 640x480 and under
RGB565: 320x240 and under
Grayscale JPEG: 640x480 and under
RGB565 JPEG: 640x480 and under Grayscale: 2952x1944 (5MP) and under
RGB565: 2952x1944 (5MP) and under
Grayscale JPEG: 2952x1944 (5MP) and under
RGB565 JPEG: 2952x1944 (5MP) and under
Pin Out
Click to view the original file.
Dimensions
Power Consumption
Idle - No ?SD Card 110mA @ 3.3V
Idle - ?SD Card 110mA @ 3.3V
Active - No ?SD Card 160mA @ 3.3V
Active - ?SD Card 170mA @ 3.3V
Temperature Range
Storage -40°C to 125°C
Operating -20°C to 70°C
