A Reconfigurable High-Res Network Camera

An anonymous reader writes "This technical article describes the architecture and design philosophy behind the Elphel Model 313, an intelligent 1.3 megapixel network camera that delivers full-sized images at up to 15 frames per second. The design of the Model 313, which has an embedded Linux computer based on an Axis ETRAX 100LX RISC processor, makes use of a reconfigurable Xilinx FPGA for much of the camera's internal control logic. Because both the embedded software and FPGA hardware algorithms are released as open source technologies, developers can readily customize the Model 313's operation to meet specialized requirements."

Comments

HumanID aims for 150 meters, not 150 feet

[Nathaniel]

"HID is the Human ID at a Distance program that DARPA is working on. Their goal is to develop technology to be able to positively ID individuals from a camera at a distance of 150 feet.

You can check it out here"

That's 150 meters, not 150 feet.

Re:Price

[Psiren]

It depends what you want to do with them. Granted for home use they are overly expensive, but at work we are using ~30 network cameras (not this one) for our CCTV, which runs in its own VLAN on our network. Works a treat.

Re:Price

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Hm.

I just completed several weekends-worth of crawling around in my attic dragging coax and 12 v power out to points around the perimeter of the house for a secondary security system.

Rather than doing the network camera thing, I'm bringing all of the cable to a PC running "motion" (http://motion.technolust.cx). This is video, so it's a lot lower resolution than 1.3 mp (~3.8 kilopixels).

Still, I can get about 15-20 fps on 4 streams easily enough.

It's enough for decent security monitoring. The cables are basically inaccessible, the thing's all on a UPS, and it'd take an expert to find the box where the stuff's getting recorded.

If I'd been a better shopper, the system would have priced out much lower. But with buying weatherproof color bullet-cams a couple of years ago, this is not price competitive with the network cams.

Interesting how quickly this kind of thing changes!