At the start of the week, we prepared slides for the proposal presentation and did a couple of practice runs during the weekend. We also placed inventory orders for a (temporary) camera and KR260. Discussed more concrete requirements for the camera tripod. Shaye got a basic CV pipeline up. Danny looked into different backends for the web app and started the Django tutorial. Jessie began Varun’s tutorial for Kria KR260 setup.
One risk that came up this week is camera compatibility with FPGA. We are waiting for Varun to test the compatibility with the 1080p webcam and are hoping to hear back by the end of this weekend. If the compatibility is confirmed, we’ll decide on and order a camera next week. We are also concerned with the camera field of view in relation to capturing the whole keyboard. We plan to either use a taller camera tripod or place the camera in a taller position, or get a more expensive camera with a larger field of view. We will weigh the decision out by the end of next week. A general worry we still have is porting to the FPGA. We’ll hold off on FPGA porting until the CV pipeline is fully finalized. We may start working in parallel on RPi in addition to the FPGA if we’re unable to see a path forward by October 12th. Shaye will focus on working with either an RPi4 or RPi5 while Jessie continues with the FPGA. If we’re unable to get the FPGA working on a basic level by mid October then we will give up on the FPGA.
No major changes happened—we have more concrete ideas on how to position the camera. This is included in Jessie’s status report for more detail; the diagram also included there.
We’re still on schedule. For next week we want to finish up CV pipeline and FPGA setup and hopefully start CV and FPGA integration. We will meet with Professor Dueck’s students on Wednesday, where we will test the CV pipeline to detect different angles on the keyboard. We will use a loaned camera from the inventory that will be handheld temporarily before we order one.
Link to video of current CV pipeline: link