Joe Watson's Discussions

Some Things I have learned about the Stonyman imaging chips
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Sometimes, experimentation provides a lot of good answers.After reading the data sheet for the Stonyman imaging chip, I set out to operate one using a PIC 18F2550 microcontroller. I developed a…Continue

Tags: 18F2550, PIC, video, microcontroller, lessons

Started this discussion. Last reply by Joe Watson Jul 7, 2014.

FPN Patterns for different resolutions
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This topic would seem to apply to most any of the Centeye imagers that incorporate the binning capability.I am considering an application where the imager would be operated at different resolutions…Continue

Tags: resolution, binning, different, Noise, Fixed

Started this discussion. Last reply by Geoffrey L. Barrows May 30, 2013.

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Joe Watson's Page

Profile Information

Hometown: Cedarville, Ohio

About me: Retired since end of 2010, Joe outlived his 1st wife of 30 yrs and is now working on a 2nd one (13 yrs). 5 kids call him Grandpa. Joe is an optimist.

What are your interests related to embedded eyes / vision?: I need a vision system for a robotics project that can see patterns of distant infrared LEDs. Most digital camera sensors see them very well (for some you must remove a filter) but they do not have the binning capability of Centeye chips. I think that capability can reduce the computational load and permit a microcontroller to process the image data.

Although I have built model airplanes and model rockets over the years, this robotics project will stay firmly on the ground.

Tell us about your technical background: Now retired, Joe started as an electronics repairman in the USAF (1963 - 1967). While in the Air Force (and well before the arrival of ICs) he designed and built a small digital computer with a magnetic drum memory over the course of 3 years in his barracks room.

In 1967, Joe played a very small part in an early image processing project to help NASA select landing sites for the upcoming Apollo missions. If interested, go to the following link and look for the "Printing The Moon" entry:

http://www.moonviews.com/2012/06/

That same year, Joe co-authored the first commercial software for a CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine), a type of 3D precision measuring instrument. In 1970, he wrote the software for direct computer control of a servo driven version of a CMM, another world's first. Nowadays, most CMMs are servo driven. Over the course of 31.5 years, Joe helped advance the art of metrology (dimensional measurement) by writing software and firmware to control and monitor CMMs, and process the data they collect.

In 1979, Joe lead the development of firmware for an X86-based controller to control CMMs and collect CMM data. Although having been repackaged several times over the years, that same firmware is still being sold on new CMMs today, some 34 years later because no one has been able to build a controller that can do the job and that costs less to build than that old design.

Along the way, in 1971 Joe bought a DEC PDP-8 series minicomputer which he still owns. He says his best projects on the PDP-8 (other than making money on the side) involved graphics on an oscilloscope screen and a homemade light pen. (The computer could play checkers and it could let you control a simulated lunar lander.) In 1975, Joe helped a friend assemble a MITS Altair 8800. That computer model had a direct impact on the creation of Microsoft.

The last 10 years of Joe's career, he wrote software used by most of the county boards of elections in the state of Ohio. This involved primarily voter registration, long distance communication protocols, and mapping applications.

Some of Joe's best work has involved assembly language. This must sound odd but he has used more high level languages over the years than he can even recall.

Now Joe spends his time tinkering with Arduinos, PICs, and Parallax P8X32 systems. At the time of this writing, he is into the PIC 18F2550 processor.

Technical interest: image processing, ground robotics, industrial automation

Website: http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/ebjoew/

Comment Wall (1 comment)

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