Hi folks,
Happy New Year! Here's what's going on with OpenMV:
Performance Optimization
We've hired a performance optimization specialist to speed things up on the STM32 architecture. We met Larry Bank at the ARM AI IoT conference in December. In just a few weeks Larry has been able to improve the performance of a few key algorithms on the OpenMV Cam by leaps and bounds:
JPEG Compression (image transfer to the IDE):
- RGB565 VGA was 174ms per frame, now 45ms (3.9x speed-up)
- RGB565 QVGA was 16ms per frame, now 8.4ms (1.9x speed-up)
- RGB565 QQVGA was 4ms per frame, now 2ms (2x speed-up)
He's also managed to speed up AprilTags on the OpenMV Cam H7 Plus (which will be on sale in a few months) by 2x and Line Segment Detection by 4x-6x!!! Checkout the difference in the video below:
We're excited about all the code Larry will be able optimize to make it go faster. We've already got him working on improving QR Code Detection performance, Barcode Detection performance, and Data Matrix Detection performance next (we will also improve color detection performance too). We expect he'll be able to deliver 2x performance or more on these algorithms.
That said, if you are interested in other algorithms on the OpenMV Cam receiving his touch let us know at openmv@openmv.io!
Larry is also generally available for hire as an optimization specialist. Let him know if your company needs something to go way faster. Hiring him is like getting a new processor architecture!
Amazon and Google Shopping
Moving on, we've setup our Amazon Store and Google Shopping Ads. You can now buy all of our stuff directly on Amazon in the USA. Better yet, now that the USA and China have signed a trade deal agreement we will be able to move key products back to the USA for Fulfillment by Amazon. We plan to keep our warehouse in Hong Kong for global shipments but we hope to cut shipping time to customers in the USA dramatically.
Switching shipping providers from ShipBob to fulfillment by our Contract Manufacturer EtonTech (Etonnet) last year while fulfilling our OpenMV Cam H7 Kickstarter was complex and stressful but we finally have a shipping solution that's able to deliver packages internationally reliably. Moving forward, we hope we can continue to grow things without shipping being a massive nightmare.
Interface Library Development
We're starting development on a general purpose interface library for the OpenMV Cam this year. If you've got thoughts about how this should be developed let us know on the forums. As the OpenMV Cam has gotten more popular we've noticed an uptick of requests for connecting it other systems as companion processor.
OpenMV Cam H7 Plus Release Date
Finally, we're on track to start production of the OpenMV Cam H7 Plus after the Chinese New Year! We've got all the components and PCBs ordered and ready for assembly. We hope to finish production and testing by the end of February and start shipping in March.
And... I'd like to say a special thank you to everyone who pre-ordered and OpenMV Cam H7 Plus. This was our first production run without having to launch a Kickstarter to fund it. That said, the preorders really help. Thank you for your support of OpenMV!
