For more information about the OpenMV Cam please see our documentation.

Interface Library

The OpenMV Cam comes built-in with an RPC (Remote Python/Procedure Call) library which makes it easy to connect the OpenMV Cam to your computer, a SBC (single board computer) like the RaspberryPi or Beaglebone, or a microcontroller like the Arduino or ESP8266/32. The RPC Interface Library works over:

• Async Serial (UART) - at up 20 Mb/s.
• I2C Bus - at up to 1 Mb/s.
• SPI Bus - at up to 60 Mb/s.
• CAN Bus - at up to 1 Mb/s.
• USB Virtual COM Port (VCP) - at up to 480 Mb/s.
• WiFi/Ethernet - at up to 65/100 Mb/s.

With the RPC Library you can easily get image processing results, stream RAW or JPG image data, or have the OpenMV Cam control another Microcontroller for lower-level hardware control like driving motors.

OpenMV provides the following libraries for interfacing your OpenMV Cam to other systems below:

• Generic Python Interface Library for USB and WiFi Comms
  • Provides Python code for connecting your OpenMV Cam to a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer (or RaspberryPi/Beaglebone, etc.) with python programmatically over USB VCP or Ethernet/WiFi (i.e. with sockets).
• Arduino Interface Library for I2C, SPI, CAN, and UART Comms

Applications

The OpenMV Cam can be used for the following things currently (more in the future):

• TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers Support
• TensorFlow Lite support lets you run custom image classification and segmentation models on board your OpenMV Cam. With TensorFlow Lite support you can easily classify complex regions of interest in view and control I/O pins based on what you see. See the TensorFlow module for more information.
• The OpenMV Cam features Edge Impulse integration for easy training of TensorFlow Lite Models in the cloud. Using OpenMV IDE and Edge Impulse you can easily train a Model in 15 minutes! Here's a video showing how it works.
• Frame Differencing
• You can use Frame Differencing on your OpenMV Cam to detect motion in a scene by looking at what's changed. Frame Differencing allows you to use your OpenMV Cam for security applications. Checkout the video of the feature here.
• Color Tracking
• You can use your OpenMV Cam to detect up to 16 colors at a time in an image (realistically you'd never want to find more than 4) and each color can have any number of distinct blobs. Your OpenMV Cam will then tell you the position, size, centroid, and orientation of each blob. Using color tracking your OpenMV Cam can be programmed to do things like tracking the sun, line following, target tracking, and much, much, more. Video demo here.
• Marker Tracking
• You can use your OpenMV Cam to detect groups of colors instead of independent colors. This allows you to create color makers (2 or more color tags) which can be put on objects allowing your OpenMV Cam to understand what the tagged objects are. Video demo here.
• Face Detection
• You can detect Faces with your OpenMV Cam (or any generic object). Your OpenMV Cam can process Haar Cascades to do generic object detection and comes with a built-in Frontal Face Cascade and Eye Haar Cascade to detect faces and eyes.  Video demo here.
• Eye Tracking
• You can use Eye Tracking with your OpenMV Cam to detect someone's gaze. You can then, for example, use that to control a robot. Eye Tracking detects where the pupil is looking versus detecting if there's an eye in the image.
• Person Detection
• You can detect if there's a person in the field of view using our built-in person detector TensorFlow Lite model. Video demo here.
• Optical Flow
• You can use Optical Flow to detect translation of what your OpenMV Cam is looking at. For example, you can use Optical Flow on a quad-copter to determine how stable it is in the air. See the video of the feature here.
• QR Code Detection/Decoding
• You can use the OpenMV Cam to read QR Codes in it's field of view. With QR Code Detection/Decoding you can make smart robots which can read labels in the environment. You can see our video on this feature here.
• Data Matrix Detection/Decoding
• The OpenMV Cam can also detect and decode data matrix 2D barcodes too. You can see our video on this feature here.
• Linear Barcode Decoding
• The OpenMV Cam can also decode 1D linear bar codes. In particular, it can decode EAN2, EAN5, EAN8, UPCE, ISBN10, UPCA, EAN13, ISBN13, I25, DATABAR, DARABAR_EXP, CODABAR, CODE39, CODE93, and CODE128 barcodes. You can see our video on this feature here.
• AprilTag Tracking
• Even better than QR Codes above, the OpenMV Cam can also track AprilTags. AprilTags are rotation, scale, shear, and lighting invariant state-of-the-art fidicual markers. We have a video on this feature here.
• Line Detection
• Infinite line detection can be done speedily on your OpenMV Cam at near max FPS. And, you can also find non-infinite length line segments too. You can see our video of this feature here. Additionally, we support running linear regressions on the image for use in line following applications like this DIY Robocar.
• Circle Detection
• You can use the OpenMV Cam to easily detect circles in the image. See for yourself in this video.
• Rectangle Detection
• The OpenMV Cam can also detect rectangles using our AprilTag library's quad detector code. Checkout the video here.
• Template Matching
• You can use template matching with your OpenMV Cam to detect when a translated pre-saved image is in view. For example, template matching can be used to find fiducials on a PCB or read known digits on a display.
• Image Capture
• You can use the OpenMV Cam to capture Grayscale/RGB565 BMP/JPG/PPM/PGM images. You directly control how images are captured in your Python script. Best of all, you can preform machine vision functions and/or draw on frames before saving them.
• Video Recording
• You can use the OpenMV Cam to record up to Grayscale/RGB565 MJPEG video or GIF images (or RAW video). You directly control how each frame of video is recorded in your Python script and have total control on how video recording starts and finishes. And, like capturing images, you can preform machine vision functions and/or draw on video frames before saving them.

Finally, all the above features can be mixed and matched in your own custom application along with I/O pin control to talk to the real world.

Pinout

Schematic & Datasheets

• OpenMV Cam Base Schematic (.pdf)
• OpenMV Cam OV5640 Schematic (.pdf)
• Eagle Schematic (.sch)
• Eagle Board (.brd)
• Processor Datasheet: MIMXRT106FCVL5B (.pdf)
• Reference Manual (.pdf)
• Camera Datasheet: OV5640 (.pdf)
• Software Application Note (.pdf)
• Main Regulator Datasheet: AP61300 (.pdf)
• Backup Regulator Datasheet: MIC5363 (.pdf)
• Battery Charger Datasheet: BQ24075 (.pdf)
• Ideal Diode Datasheet: LM66200 (.pdf)
• SDRAM Datasheet: IS42S16160G (.pdf)
• FLASH Datasheet: IS25LPWP064D (.pdf)
• WiFi/BLE SoC Datasheet: LBEE5K1DX (.pdf)
• WiFi/BLE Chip Datasheet: CYW4334WKUBGT (.pdf)
• Ethernet PHY Datasheet: KSZ8081RND (.pdf)
• Secure Element Datasheet: SE050C1HQ1 (.pdf)
• Accelerometer Datasheet: MXC4005XC (.pdf)
• GPIO EMI Filter and TVS Datasheet: EMIF06-1005M12 (.pdf)
• USB EMI Filter and TVS Datasheet: EMIF02-4CMX8 (.pdf)

3D

• OpenMV Cam RT1062 Model (.step)