LinkSprite JPEG Color Camera is simple camera that you can use with your Arduino projects. It is size is Size 32X32mm and you can get it for $49.95 from Sparkfun.
Arduino is using serial port to communicate with the camera. Refresh time for shooting a picture is about 4-5sec. If you are planing to write it to an SD card you should give it something around 8sec. to take a picture and save it to a file.
You can download the libraries that you need from this link. Sparkfun, prepared the libraries that you need with example codes.
Beauty of this camera is, it is easy to set up and you can save your images to an SD card. Refresh time for shooting a picture is about 4-5sec. If you are planing to write it to an SD card you should give it something around 8sec. to take a picture and save it to a file. Also, it is possible to change the dimensions, compression of the file and the baudrate of the communication. Serial information about these are all included in the manual.
LinkSprite JPEG camera is running on +3.3v which you can easily get from Arduino. Here is a picture of the camera and the pins:
Arduino is using serial port to communicate with the camera. However, if you want to save this picture to an SD card or send it to processing, you need to use serial ports also. So, in this case we are using soft serial which is included in Arduino Uno. As you can see from the picture, you need to connect power pin to +3.3v and ground pin to Arduino's ground pin. As I already mentioned, this time we are going to use soft serial port to communicate between Arduino and camera. We are going to connect TX pin to Arduinoss digital pin "2" and RX pin to Arduino's digital pin "3" After making these connections, rest is all up to your code. You definitely need to download the libraries from sparkfun.com and include them to Arduino. They also have good example codes. However, if you are new with programing and Arduino or not a C programmer, you might find these examples a bit complicated. So, I have simplified some of their examples. Here is an example that saves pictures to SD card by using sparkfun microSD shield
/*
JPEG Camera Example Sketch
The sketch will take a picture on the JPEG Serial Camera and store the jpeg to an SD card
on an SD Shield
Written by Ryan Owens
SparkFun Electronics
Hardware Notes:
This sketch assumes the arduino has the microSD shield from SparkFun attached.
The camera Rx/Tx should be attached to pins 2 and 3.
IMPORTANT: The JPEG camera requires a TTL level shifter between the camera output
and the arduino. Bypassing this may damage the Arduino pins.
*/
//This example requires the MemoryCard, SdFat, JPEGCamera and NewSoftSerial libraries
#include <MemoryCard.h>
#include <SdFat.h>
#include <JPEGCamera.h>
#include <NewSoftSerial.h>
//Create an instance of the camera
JPEGCamera camera;
//Create a character array to store the cameras response to commands
char response[32];
//Count is used to store the number of characters in the response string.
unsigned int count=0;
//Size will be set to the size of the jpeg image.
int size=0;
//This will keep track of the data address being read from the camera
int address=0;
//eof is a flag for the sketch to determine when the end of a file is detected
//while reading the file data from the camera.
int eof=0;
void setup()
{
//Setup the camera, serial port and memory card
camera.begin();
Serial.begin(9600);
MemoryCard.begin();
//Reset the camera
count=camera.reset(response);
delay(3000);
//Take a picture
count=camera.takePicture(response);
//Print the response to the 'TAKE_PICTURE' command.
Serial.write(response);
Serial.write(count);
Serial.println();
//Get the size of the picture
count = camera.getSize(response, &size);
//Print the size
Serial.print("Size: ");
Serial.println(size);
//Create a file called 'test.txt' on the SD card.
//NOTE: The memoryCard libary can only create text files.
//The file has to be renamed to .jpg when copied to a computer.
MemoryCard.open("/test.txt", true);
//Starting at address 0, keep reading data until we've read 'size' data.
while(address < size)
{
//Read the data starting at the current address.
count=camera.readData(response, address);
//Store all of the data that we read to the SD card
for(int i=0; i<count; i++){
//Check the response for the eof indicator (0xFF, 0xD9). If we find it, set the eof flag
if((response[i] == (char)0xD9) && (response[i-1]==(char)0xFF))eof=1;
//Save the data to the SD card
MemoryCard.file.print(response[i], BYTE);
//If we found the eof character, get out of this loop and stop reading data
if(eof==1)break;
}
//Increment the current address by the number of bytes we read
address+=count;
//Make sure we stop reading data if the eof flag is set.
if(eof==1)break;
}
//Close the file
MemoryCard.close();
Serial.print("Done.");
}
void loop()
{
}
Also, if you want to take pictures by using Processing, Adam Harvey wrote and example code that takes pictures and saves is through a Processing sketch. He is also using call and response methods to take picture. Here is the Arduino side of his code:
/*
From Sparkfun.com
Modified by Adam Harvey Dec. 25, 2010
*/
#include <MemoryCard.h>
#include <SdFat.h>
#include <JPEGCamera.h>
#include <NewSoftSerial.h>
//Create an instance of the camera
JPEGCamera camera;
//Create a character array to store the cameras response to commands
char response[32];
//Count is used to store the number of characters in the response string.
unsigned int count=0;
//Size will be set to the size of the jpeg image.
int size=0;
//This will keep track of the data address being read from the camera
int address=0;
//eof is a flag for the sketch to determine when the end of a file is detected
//while reading the file data from the camera.
int eof=0;
int takeNewPhoto = 0;
boolean takingPhoto = 0;
boolean sendingPhoto = 0;
char filename[] = "/Images/IMG_01.TXT";
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(115200);
camera.begin();
count=camera.reset(response);
delay(3000); // necessary?
//Reset the camera
MemoryCard.begin();
//establishContact(); // send a byte to establish contact until receiver responds
}
void loop()
{
if (Serial.available() > 0) {
// get incoming byte:
int inByte = Serial.read();
if(inByte == 'S')
{
sendPhoto(filename);
}
else if(inByte == 'T'){
takeAndSendPhoto();
}
}
}
void takeAndSendPhoto(){
if(takingPhoto)return;
address = 0;
eof = 0;
size = 0;
count = 0;
takingPhoto = true;
//Take a picture
count=camera.takePicture(response);
//Get the size of the picture
count = camera.getSize(response, &size);
// IMG
char *imgDir = "/Images/";
if (!MemoryCard.exists(imgDir))
MemoryCard.makeDir("/Images/");
int c;
int filenum = 0;
MemoryCard.open(filename, true);
//Starting at address 0, keep reading data until we've read 'size' data.
while(address < size)
{
//Read the data starting at the current address.
count=camera.readData(response, address);
//Store all of the data that we read to the SD card
for(int i=0; i<count; i++){
if((response[i] == (char)0xD9) && (response[i-1]==(char)0xFF))eof=1;
//Save the data to the SD card
MemoryCard.file.print(response[i], BYTE);
Serial.print( (char) response[i] , BYTE);
//If we found the eof character, get out of this loop and stop reading data
if(eof==1)break;
}
address+=count;
if(eof==1){
Serial.print('EOF');
break;
}
}
MemoryCard.close();
takingPhoto = false;
count=camera.reset(response);
delay(3000);
}
void sendPhoto(char filename[]){
if(sendingPhoto)return;
sendingPhoto = true;
MemoryCard.open(filename);
int b;
while((b = MemoryCard.file.read()) >= 0) {
Serial.print( (char) b , BYTE);
}
Serial.print('EOF');
MemoryCard.close();
sendingPhoto = false;
}
void setImageName(int a, int b){
filename[12] = (char) (a+48);
filename[13] = (char) (b+48);
}
void establishContact() {
while (Serial.available() <= 0) {
Serial.print('A', BYTE); // send a capital A
delay(300);
}
}
And this is the processing side of the code. You need to include an image with the name "loading.jpg" to data folder in your processing sketch folder
/* Copied from
http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1271281000
REQUESTS
1. Add Text field to enter filename to read in
2. Test for JPG and TXT filenames
3. Add camera commands via serial
*/
/* Then modified by Adam Harvey Jan 08, 2011 */
import processing.serial.*;
Serial myPort;
int i = 1;
String ImageFilename = "Photo_" + year() + "_" + day() + "_" + month() + "-" + hour() + "_" + minute() + "_" + second() + "_" + millis() + ".jpg";
int CharE = 69;
int CharO = 79;
int CharF = 70;
int TotalBytes = 0;
Boolean imageLoading = false;
Boolean imageReceived = false;
long startTime;
PImage cameraImg,loadingImg;
byte[] Photo = {
};
void setup()
{
size(320,240);
//Set and open serial port
myPort = new Serial( this, Serial.list()[0], 115200 );
myPort.clear();
loadingImg = loadImage("loading.jpg");
}
void draw()
{
// Import Picture
if(imageLoading) {
loadPhoto(); // must be polled every time
image(loadingImg,0,0);
}
else if(imageReceived) {
image(cameraImg, 0, 0);
}
}
void loadPhoto() {
byte[] buffer = new byte[64];
while( myPort.available() > 0 )
{
int readBytes = myPort.readBytes(buffer);
for( int i = 0; i < readBytes; i++ )
{
TotalBytes = TotalBytes + 1;
Photo = append( Photo, buffer[i] );
if ( TotalBytes > 2 && Photo[TotalBytes-3] == CharE && Photo[TotalBytes-2] == CharO && Photo[TotalBytes-1] == CharF ) {
// Save picture to file
if( Photo.length > 10 && !imageReceived ) {
print( "Writing to disk " );
print( Photo.length );
println( " bytes ..." );
saveBytes( ImageFilename, Photo );
println( "DONE!" );
println("Time: " + ((millis() - startTime)/1000.0) + "s");
// Open Picture
cameraImg = loadImage(ImageFilename);
imageReceived = true;
imageLoading = false;
//Clear the array
Photo = null; // clear array
//Clear totalbytes
TotalBytes = 0;
//Flush serial port
myPort.clear();
return;
}
}
}
}
}
void initiatePhotoTransfer() {
startTime = millis();
imageReceived = false;
imageLoading = true;
Photo = new byte[0];
TotalBytes = 0;
println("send S");
myPort.write('S');
}
void captureAndSend() {
startTime = millis();
imageReceived = false;
imageLoading = true;
Photo = new byte[0];
TotalBytes = 0;
println("send T");
myPort.write('T');
}
void keyPressed() {
if( key == 'S' && imageLoading == false) {
initiatePhotoTransfer();
}
else if(key == 'T')
captureAndSend();
}