Camera Support? Arduino Workaround?

[FishMan]

So I am trying to do head tracking with a Pi 2 running Windows 10. I found, among other tutorials, this handy one: https://msopentech.com/blog/2015/05/15/ ... rry-pi-ii/

and my blood ran cold when I read this line at the end:

"At the time of this post, camera support is not yet available on Raspberry PI II running Windows 10, but it will be soon to enable a variety of additional scenarios, such as real time video frame analysis…"

That's exactly what I need to do! Are there any further developments on that? I need to get some face tracking up and working

Now before I enter full-panic mode, I also have an arduino at my disposal. With some finagling, could I get that to use the camera and just send the image data to the Pi? If so, some good tutorials/links on that would be appreciated

I await your wisdom...

[Glass_cannon]

I am also very interested in this topic. I can't imagine there wont be camera support, too many projects involve cameras. I've reached out to a a few ms dev support people, I guess we will see if they respond..

[r4049zt]

I don't expect that the arduino will be good for camera images. Reason is that arduino has about 2k of data memory and about 32k of program memory. The number of bits required to store a 3 colour image at 8 bits per colour of size 240x240 pixels is 1382400; or about 1350k. So no chance of getting that stored in 2k on an arduino. The time required to pass that through a 16MHz 8 bit cpu and 100kHz i2c line is not that quick either.

What the arduino would be good for is a low power "watchman" with the task of monitoring the current through less than six light detectors continually, on very low power, optionally checking other burgler alarm switches as you'd fit on the door and window frames, and if thresholds are exceeded or switch events occur, pass a <60 character command line such as "raspistill" to an external device.

I'm not sure how to make use of Windows10 in such a system. Perhaps it could be used to improve the boot logo and graphical user interaction screen, at the expense of battery life and a decrease of responsiveness from 99.9% chance of acting upon a 1ms event to 30% chance of acting on an event of 1000ms. What do the pro users think?

[markrad_msft]

Unfortunately the USB camera support did not make it into the most recent drop. The quality did not meet the standard so it had to be pushed back again. Hopefully we will see this support soon, perhaps in the next drop but I can't be certain.

[FishMan]

So, since time happens to be of the essence for me, should I switch to a Pi running Raspbian and save myself the trouble? I feel a bit sheepish about that though, seeing as I've spent so much time seeing if I can get the Win10 to work

[Glass_cannon]

Yeah I'm in the same boat as you Fish. I'd love to get this working on Win10 as I've spent a good amount of time getting my device prepped but without even a basic level of camera support and no real timeline as to when we can expect it (not a callout to you MS guys, I know you're working hard) our dev team discussed it and we're switching back to a linux environment.

[jtanner_msft]

The only comment I can really say is that like the desktop a version, Windows 10 IoT Core is expected to also release on 7/29. Whether camera support will have made it in by that point, or if it will be in a future release after that point I unfortunately don’t know. If your schedule dictates that you ship at the end of July or August, then it probably is better to look for an alternative OS for the time being. But if you can wait to ship until November then it might be worth waiting a month before deciding.

I hope this helps in some way.