Vision Module

The vision module is actually a very complicated module and none of us has background in computer vision. However, we have figured out how to detect the location of ball and goal, as well as markers on the field. We have benefited from Tekkotsu framework a lot in the implementation of this component. Tekkotsu implements a vision component developed by Carnegie Mellon University, called CMVision [1], [4]. The technique used in object recognition in this component is called segmented vision. Segmentating can be considered as the process by which information on the images are extracted through color codes. The images are encoded in the YUV color space [2]. Color thresholds are applied on images in constructing connected regions of colors. For example, we have a goal which is blue. To locate the location of the blue goal first, we need to make our system understand what blue color is, that is we define color thresholds. Color thresholds are defined using sample images. Then segmenation process will provide us with regions of blue color extracted from camera images. Eventually an algorithm that takes in blue regions and decides which one is the blue goal is run on these regions and the result is the location of the goal on the image.