who knows about image sensors?

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Raleel

Raleel

The Lemon LeCroix of Mythras
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I swear this is related to design and development, though maybe a little out in left field.

What I'm thinking about is having a mini with a power source in the base, a short range wireless transmitter (bluetooth seems the obvious choice here), and a small image sensor. The idea is that one could transmit the video from the perspective of the miniature, and ostensibly your character, while looking over terrain.

I get that this may be over-engineering, but I know nothing about image sensors, little about electronics, but quite a bit about bluetooth, and how cool would that be!
 
Raleel said:
I swear this is related to design and development, though maybe a little out in left field.

What I'm thinking about is having a mini with a power source in the base, a short range wireless transmitter (bluetooth seems the obvious choice here), and a small image sensor. The idea is that one could transmit the video from the perspective of the miniature, and ostensibly your character, while looking over terrain.

I get that this may be over-engineering, but I know nothing about image sensors, little about electronics, but quite a bit about bluetooth, and how cool would that be!
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You can certainly get Linux SOC-based systems small enough to fit in the base of a mini (e.g. cloudbit or pocketbeagle). There are also small USB cameras available, so it might be possible to put something together. I suspect the mini would end up looking like a mini with a camera mounted where its head should be, though.

Smallest HD 720P USB Camera Module with JX-H42 sensor-1MP Camera Module-Shenzhen CM Technology company Ltd

This is one of the smallest USB camera modules in the world with its size only 15mm*15mm, if your products are very small with little space for components, this would be your best choice, you can use it in many applications like electronic toys, security, internet of things, robotics, drones...
www.camera-module.com

You might also be able to use a mobile phone camera. Some of those get quite small. This might involve some research as to models of phone where the cameras use vanilla USB (and have usable drivers available) and sourcing one for some transplant surgery.
 
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Nod. I have a raspberry pi with a camera on it. The camera module itself is actually smaller than the one you posted, though the board is about the same size. It has a flat ribbon cable out the back.

ideally, I could move the sensor to a shield on the mini or a rock on the base for aesthetics.

the pocketbeagle looks small enough I could do a 3” base mini pretty easily. getting it down to a 1” will be a challenge.
 
Raleel said:
Nod. I have a raspberry pi with a camera on it. The camera module itself is actually smaller than the one you posted, though the board is about the same size. It has a flat ribbon cable out the back.

ideally, I could move the sensor to a shield on the mini or a rock on the base for aesthetics.

the pocketbeagle looks small enough I could do a 3” base mini pretty easily. getting it down to a 1” will be a challenge.
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The smallest cameras I can think of that might be readily available would be the selfie cameras on mobile phones. Whether you can easily get them as discrete components and whether they use USB as an interface I couldn't really tell you off the top of my head. My gut instinct is that they probably do use USB, simply because of the availability of the interface, drivers and available IP for inclusion in the SOC modules.

However, I suspect you might be up for a fair amount of google-fu to find something you can actually get hold of. It might be worth your while to look through Bunnie Huang's blog.
 
Thanks for the tip! This is not a little project I am sure, and remarkably niche. But still, might be fun!
 
Raleel said:
Thanks for the tip! This is not a little project I am sure, and remarkably niche. But still, might be fun!
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Bear in mind that USB is just SCSI over a different layer 1 - as are Fibre Channel, SAS and quite a few other protocols.
I may have had occasion to sweet-talk Netapp out of their disk firmware and flashed a whole load of secondhand Hitachi FC disks at one point.
 
Not sure your intent, but just as something to play with I got one of these HF inspection cameras for work around the house.

Not sure if you have plans for a camera in every mini, just something to occasionally use to provide POV or thinking about putting cameras in every player mini. Obviously not practical for putting in a mini, but might be helpful as a proof of concept.

Wait for one of the frequent 20% off coupons, HF is always having some sort of "Everything must go" sale. I also remember seeing some cheaper ones in the store that are not showing up online.

They are handy for looking in a drain or wall, under a door etc and make you feel like a ninja so well worth having even if your project fizzles. :grin:
 
Toadmaster said:
Not sure if you have plans for a camera in every mini, just something to occasionally use to provide POV or thinking about putting cameras in every player mini. Obviously not practical for putting in a mini, but might be helpful as a proof of concept.
Click to expand...

ya, this is kind of the idea. Tabletop Field of View. it's sort of a crazy idea, but it would be pretty cool.
 
Raleel said:
ya, this is kind of the idea. Tabletop Field of View. it's sort of a crazy idea, but it would be pretty cool.
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I think I'd probably do it with a cage above the field and a camera on that. Think of a 3d printer cage all the way around your playfield with a camera above that can go to an x y coordinate and go down Z distance.

Sort of like how it's done for football.
 
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