Flowcode Support Board

I've posted a couple of examples of using espressif sample code with the esp32. With the release of v10 I thought I'd try and find a 'neater' way of doing this. I've posted here as I think the code should be applicable to v9 as well...

A work in progress.. And not a project for the faint of heart....

So - with a esp32cam board (optimism is a dangerous thing) I wanted to get the camera working from within FC...
First job is to get the camera component compiling from within Flowcode.

So - first get the the esp32 camera source... (this is at https://github.com/espressif/esp32-camera)

Then copy the esp32-camera directory to a new location.

Now create a new FC project and save it to this 'esp32-camera' directory - and call it examples.fcfx Note that FC10 seems to do things 'slightly' differently - and I haven't experimented with renaming the examples folder - however I don't want FC to create the main folder and sdkconfig.

In the examples folder edit CMakelists.txt and change project to esp-project (last lines should read:

project(esp-project)

In the examples\main directory edit CMakelists.txt and change the first line to

set(COMPONENT_SRCS "take_picture.c" "esp-project.c")

Edit take_picture.c and change the first line of init_camera to

int init_camera()

and change app_main() to

void snap()
{
camera_fb_t *pic = esp_camera_fb_get();

// use pic->buf to access the image
esp_camera_fb_return(pic);
}

Add

#include "take_picture.h" to the start of the file...

Note that we will need to get rid of the esp_camera_fb_return line (and call this after dealing with the photo - however the first task is to get this to compile...

Create a new file take_picture.h

#ifndef take_picture
#define take_picture 1

int init_camera();

void snap();

#endif

Continued in next post...

As an aside: To make esp32 programming a nicer place: edit C:\ProgramData\MatrixTSL\FlowcodeV10\FCD\ESP\Batch\esp32_prog.bat and change 115200 to 921600 - this programs the esp32 at 8x speed (FC ignores the setting in menuconfig)

If this speed doesn't work reliably for you try multiples of 115200 (2x, 4x)

Martin

In examples.fcfx in the supplementary code:

#include "take_picture.h"

To use our 'current code' - we can add FCL_ERR = init_camera(); or snap(); in C blocks - and this is what I did (note that snap currently just discards the photo..

I 'flashed' the LED on A4 - to show 'life' - and all seems well....

However - we can't yet compile from FC... To do this - first open a command prompt and
cd esp32-camera/examples
esp-idf\export
idf.py fullclean

idf.py menuconfig - in the component config there should be a camera configuration 'tab' at the bottom - untick all except the camera you have attached (I have ov2640)

You should now be able to compile using either idf.py build or from within FC
This is a simple test (takes a 'photo' (which is discarded) and flashes the onboard LED - the UART doesn't seem to work with esp32cam boards (and opening a com port 'stops' program execution - so no debug messages for us)

Next job - save the picture to SD First - lunch!

Martin

Hi Martin,

Ooh I've got a bunch if these camera boards so very interested to how you get on with this one. Maybe together we can somehow wrangle this into a component.

Hi Ben,

Just got my first JPEG saved After a lot of fiddling.

Hit upon the snag of the SD card not being supported (?) on the camera board - so had to pull in some more espressif code...

Still - got there - next try upping res to UXGA
The names Bailey, David Bailey???

Bailey? I'll drink to that....

Great work and thanks for sharing.

Regards

And it works at UXGA as well...

Strangely, I think my first bit of code on the old v7 forum was for a JPEG camera on Arduino - which I used to make some timelapse 'movies' - this should be much better (640 x 480 on Arduino) - and I now have it churning out PICn.jpg at a few secs intervals - pity it's dark outside!

Not sure how it's easiest to share the code - I also added the sd_card_example from the espressif examples with a couple of small functions to open/close/write files etc...

Biggest stumbling block was a #define BOARD_WROVER_KIT 1 in the camera example - I think it was there before and I didn't add it myself... However this meant the 'pins' were incorrect....

Anyone (Ben) have any of the other camera units available??

Martin

These are the ones I have.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001642663021.html

I've confirmed they work but wasn't able to include all the various libraries into Flowcode compiler. I must admit I didn't get to spend very long on it.

Yes - same one, though I think I paid a bit more 72p each including the 'extension' board!

Martin

72p for a camera board..... They saw you coming

Beggars belief it can be sold at a profit at that price.......