Allyn H

Making things, writing code, wasting time...

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Creating a Web Server on the Galileo

What is a Web Server?

The Galileo, acting as a Web Server, can host a web page, this web page can be reached by opening a web browser and navigating to the IP address of the Galileo.
The Galileo will respond with the HTML you’ve created.

Galileo hosting a Web Server.

Galileo hosting a Web Server.

What is the Web Server used for?

The hosted web page acts as a user interface to the Galileo, this allows you to:

  • Control the GPIO pins, via a web interface.
  • Display the values of GPIO pins on your web page.
  • Send system commands to the operating system, via a web interface.

For more information on what a Web Server is, here are some useful links:

What is a Web Server – How Stuff Works.
Creating a Web Server with Arduino

How do we make a Web Server?

There are several ways to create a Web Server, the main 3 methods are:

Click on the links above to see how I’ve used these methods to create a Web Server.

Each of the above has their own benefits and drawbacks, for example, using the Arduino IDE example is the least flexible Web Server methodology – however it provides the best (in my opinion) interface to control the GPIO’s.

Time-lapse photography using the Galileo and IR remote control.

I decided to try my hand at some time-lapse photography using the IR remote control I made for the Galileo.
I set the code to take a picture every 20 seconds and left the camera alone to do its thing…

Here is a picture of the Galileo setup:

The book is - Brother Odd by Dean Koontz.

The IR remote is built on a breadboard and being propped up to point it at the camera.

Here you can see the picture count being displayed on my laptop:

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.

Laptop displaying current number of pictures taken.

Here’s the result:

Time-lapse photography, made using Galileo and IR remote control. from Allyn H on Vimeo.

Making an IR remote control for a Nikon camera:

Introduction:

I started this project as a bit fun, when I first bought my Galileo board. As this was my first Arduino project, I decided to try downloading an already completed project and get it working on my own board. I soon realised this wouldn’t be as easy as I thought…
As the Intel Galileo is actually a Linux computer emulating the Arduino IDE, the GPIO speeds are a lot slower on the Galileo when compared to a dedicated microcontroller. This proved to be a big problem for me, as it meant I couldn’t just run any of the timing or frequency dependant Arduino projects directly on the Galileo.

With this in mind, I decided to build the Infra-Red remote control for my Nikon SLR camera. As the Arduino libraries would not work for the Galileo, I decided to build my own.

How the command signal works:

The command signal is transmitted on a 38.4KHz carrier wave, the command signal is sent in a binary format.
This means, when sending a binary “1”, the LED is turned on and off at a frequency of 38400 times a second for a given time period of 400uS. When transmitting a “0”, the LED remains off for 400uS.
Luckily for me the command signal for the Nikon camera has already been decoded and published, the details can be found here: http://www.sbprojects.com/projects/nikon/

So, from observing the diagram on the SB Projects page, we can convert each binary value of the command signal into a series of pulses generated on the carrier frequency. The pulses can be turned on or off to generate the binary values.

Cool stuff, eh?

Creating a binary “1” and piecing together the command signal.

 

Parts list:

  • Intel Galileo.
  • IR LED – I broke open an old remote control and took the LED from here.
  • Resistor – 220Ω.
  • Breadboard – for building a prototype design.
  • Nikon Camera – you know, to use the remote control on…

Schematic:

It's pretty basic, honestly...

Schematic diagram for the circuit.

Salvaging an IR LED from an old remote:

I had been looking to buy an IR LED but as they’re so cheap, I couldn’t find anywhere that would ship one to me unless I bought about €40 worth of items, so my dad donated his old TV remote, which I broke open and removed the IR LED.

Time to open it up and remove the LED:

inside out.

Work in progress.

I used a wire snips to cut off the IR LED:

D'oh!

Here’s a close up of the IR LED, just in case you’ve read this far and still don’t know what I’m taking about (highly possible).

Creating the 38.4KHz clock pulses:

In order to generate the command pulse, we need to be able to create a clock frequency of 38.4KHz and turn this off and on to create the binary values. I’ve already created a post on how to create a clock pulse using the Galileo, you can view it here.

For this project I am using the method shown in example 1, which is plenty fast for what we need.

The code from example 1 outputs a 444KHz frequency (I’ve measured this as 444KHz, it should be 477KHz, which is why some of the maths may not add up), which is way too fast, so we’ll need to add in a delay to slow that down, in this case the delay is created with an “for statement”. We use a delay value of 12 as this translates to 38.4KHz, so in order to generate the required frequency – we turn on the LED and count for 12 clock periods, then turn off the LED and count for another 12 clock periods.

void pulseLoop(int pulses, int SHINE)
{
  // Integers for loops:
  int i;
  int n;
  // delayValue is used to delay the clock from 460KHz to 38.4KHz:
  int delayValue = 12;

  register int x = 0;

  // Loop to control the number of pulses created
  // Number is multiplied by 2 to create both the low and high period of the pulse:
  for(n=0; n<(pulses*2); n++)
  {
    // Loop to delay the digitalWrite to 38.4KHz:
    for(i=0; i<delayValue; i++)
      {
        // SHINE only activated the IR LED when we are supposed to pulse, deactivates for the delay:
        digitalWrite(2, (x & SHINE));
      }
    x =!x;
 }
}

Here’s how that code looks on a Logic Analyser:

Quality picture, eh?

38.4KHz clock frequency created using the GPIO example 1.

Using the code above, we can call the function pulseLoop and pass the number of required pulses and the LED state as an argument, for example we could just type in:

  // First Pulse:
  pulseLoop(76, 1);
  pulseLoop(1058, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);
  pulseLoop(61, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);
  pulseLoop(137, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);
  // Wait for 2nd pulse
  pulseLoop(1078, 0);
  // Second Pulse:
  pulseLoop(76, 1);
  pulseLoop(1058, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);
  pulseLoop(61, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);
  pulseLoop(137, 0);
  pulseLoop(15, 1);

Creating the full command:

The code above works – however it’s a bit too messy and just not cool really..
So lets put all of our pulse values into an array and create a new function which will use that array to build the command.

// Create an array for the pulse values:
int nikonCommand[16] = {76, 1058, 15, 61, 15, 137, 15, 1078, 76, 1058, 15, 61, 15, 137, 15, 1078};

void takePicNikon()
{
for(int x=0; x<sizeof(nikonCommand)/sizeof(int); x++)
  {
    int y = x + 1;
      pulseLoop(nikonCommand[x], (y%2));
  }
}

The line “pulseLoop(nikonCommand[x], (y%2));” uses the C language modulus operator to tells us if the index number is even, if it is we pass a “1” into the pulseLoop function, this will switch on the LED for each item in the array.

Full command:

Using the above code, it was possible to replicate the command required for the Nikon camera, here is a

Coooollll...

The full command pulse, with the Logic Analyser data.

 

It’s Working!!!

This is also Horstachio’s big screen debut…

Galileo – IR Remote for Nikon Camera.. from Allyn H on Vimeo.

Grab the code here:

Feel free to use my code, make something yourself. It should be very easy to port this to any other make camera.

Please let me know if you plan on using this in any projects 🙂

Link to my code on GitHub.

Intel Galileo – Getting to grips with GPIO speeds:

Using the fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive command to write to the GPIO's.

Using the fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive command to write to the GPIO’s.

As part of my latest project, I’ve been trying to come to terms with how the GPIO’s (General Purpose Input / Output) on the  Galileo work, there are several ways to program the Galileo I/O’s, mainly: GPO, SPI or ADC.

As the Galileo is running Linux and emulating the Arduino IDE, the GPIO’s run a lot slower than expected, as the chip copes with this overhead.

The GPIO’s on the Galileo are routed through the Cypress CY8C9540A chip, which drastically slows down the performance of these pins, however, not all of the GPIO pins are routed through the PWM.

While reading up on this, I found the below post by “deckard026354” on the Intel communities site, which states the Galileo has 2 dedicated IO’s  with “significant data rates”.

https://communities.intel.com/message/207904#207904

I managed to get my hands on a Saleae Logic Analyser, which I used to measure the speeds of the GPIO.

I created a basic sketch on the Arduino IDE and measured the frequency at the Galileo outputs.

Default speed – 226Hz:

int led = 2;

void setup() {                
  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);     
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(led, LOW);
}

Output:

As expected, the wave form reads 226Hz, pretty slow though – so lets see what we can do about that.

Don't hover over me, it's creepy...

Default 226Hz

 

Example-1 – outputs 477kHz waveform on IO2:

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(2, OUTPUT_FAST);
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly: 
  digitalWrite(2, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(2, LOW);  
}

Output:

The output measures 444KHz, not too shabby. Although I seem to me missing 33Hz…  I’ve measured this a few times and am pretty sure it’s accurate. So it could possibly be down to the overhead from the Galileo emulating the Arduino IDE.

Using the OUTPUT_FAST pinMode definition.

Using the OUTPUT_FAST pinMode definition.

Example-2 – outputs 683kHz waveform on IO3:

void setup(){
    pinMode(2, OUTPUT_FAST);
}

void loop()
{
    register int x = 0;
    while(1){
        fastGpioDigitalWrite(GPIO_FAST_IO2, x);
        x =!x;
    }

}
Using the fastGpioDigitalWrite command to write to the GPIO.

Using the fastGpioDigitalWrite command to write to the GPIO.

Output – 705KHz: 

The pulses generated seemed to alternate between 667KHz and 705KHz, I’m not sure if this is an inaccuracy with the Galileo or the Saleae, although this does average at 686KHz, so it looks to be an issue with the measurement.

Controlling the GPIO's with fastGpioDigitalWrite.

Controlling the GPIO’s with fastGpioDigitalWrite.

Example-3 – outputs 2.93MHz waveform on IO3:

uint32_t latchValue;

void setup(){
    pinMode(3, OUTPUT_FAST);
    latchValue = fastGpioDigitalLatch();
}

void loop()
{
    while(1){
        fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive(latchValue);
       latchValue ^= GPIO_FAST_IO3;
    }

}

Output:

Nice! 3MHz from a GPIO,

Although I’m a bit worried about the function name “fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive“, so I’d like to know a bit more about this before using it in a dedicated sketch.

Using the fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive command to write to the GPIO's.

Using the fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive command to write to the GPIO’s.

 

Example-4 – outputs 2.93MHz waveform on both IO2 and IO3:

uint32_t latchValue;

void setup(){
    pinMode(2, OUTPUT_FAST);
    pinMode(3, OUTPUT_FAST);
    latchValue = fastGpioDigitalLatch(); // latch initial state
}

void loop()
{
    while(1){
        fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive(latchValue);
        if(latchValue & GPIO_FAST_IO3){
            latchValue |= GPIO_FAST_IO2;
            latchValue &= ~ GPIO_FAST_IO3;
        }else{
            latchValue |= GPIO_FAST_IO3;
            latchValue &= GPIO_FAST_IO2;
        }
    }
}

Output:

I didn’t get this to work -_-

If I get a chance, I’ll go through the code again at a later stage and debug…

 

So there you go, depending on how you program IO2 or IO3, you can get:

  • 226Hz by using the default setup.
  • 477KHz by using pinMode(2, OUTPUT_FAST).
  • 683KHz by using fastGpioDigitalWrite(GPIO_FAST_IO3, x);
  • 2.93MHz by using fastGpioDigitalWriteDestructive – although I don’t like the sound of this command…

Night photography – tougher than it looks:

So I’ve been spending a bit more time playing with my Nikon SLR camera and trying to level up my photography skills.
One of the things I’ve been trying to get into is night photography.
I’m a bit of a noob with the camera and don’t have all the required equipment yet, but I thought it would be great to combine some electronics with the photography aspect of this project.
I’ve been messing around with the exposure settings on my camera with little success, as can be seen.

Here is my first attempt:

Painting with light - Night Pictures. by Allyn Hunt, on Flickr

Long exposure photography – attempt number 1…

 

Pretty cool picture, however it’s not quite what I was looking for.
This was a 30 second exposure but I was holding the camera when the shutter was pressed, then placed onto a stable surface – this resulted in the light show on display.

Night Pictures.

Attempt number 2.

Not too bad this time, looks pretty cool but it stil needs a bit of work.

So I made an attempt at shooting the night sky, which didn’t really turn out as well as I had hoped.

Stars... First attempt.

Stars… First attempt.

There’s a lot of light pollution in this area and I didn’t really know how to set the focus for this shot.

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