yea I'm not sure, I thought I could use the import the SDK library into C# and use it like a standard library. that's why I'm asking for comments and opinions now. but as justin suggested, since I already have a EZB4 I might as well started there and see if I can transfer anything useful from there

If you are building a hardware controller, i don't see why you would use EZB SDK in your project.

If you want to use EZB as main hardware controller makes sense to use all the tools ARC, EZB SDK etc.

If you choose to go with an EZB i don't see why you need an Arduino Mega, plus the bluetooth module.

In about 20 lines of code you could do that with an ez-b v4 and the ez-sdk. It shouldn't take longer than an hour. Need help?

@DJSures it be nice i you could sow me how to do it on ez b4 and ez sdk.

You bet! Here's how we'll start...

1. Mount the camera static on a tripod ideally in front of the paddle arm. The camera must not move

2. Use enough joints in the arm to get a full reach from the pong table

Now for code, there's two parts - and it's super easy

Part 1 Use the ez-sdk camera to get the X/Y location of the detected object (the ball)

Part 2 Have a function that takes the X/Y object location and moves the paddle arm joints to put the paddle in the correct position block the ball

*Note: If you are capable to create an ez-b v4 replica in an AT Mega, then that above explanation should be easy based on the EZ-SDK examples. You're looking at about 30-50 lines of code.

@DJ,

For future requests, and to get a status, can you read my post #2 ?

Ignore Tutorial 56 for this discussion. Do not consider object recognition for the tracking, and use color or motion instead. However, i would recommend starting with Color. This is because using object detection will not be very good with detecting a "ball". The ball will most likely return false positives on other round objects, as there is no real identifying contours. Also, training the ball would be a challenge because you would not be able to have your fingers in the trained image.

Again, i recommend using color tracking - and it's the fastest! Use a pink or Green or Red ping pong ball.

This is far less complicated of a solution than it needs to be. The code is simply...

  public partial class Form1 : Form {

    EZB                                          _ezb;
    Camera                                       _camera;

    public Form1() {

      InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {

      _ezb = new EZB();

      _camera = new Camera(_ezb);
      _camera.OnNewFrame += _camera_OnNewFrame;

      comboBox1.Items.Clear();
      comboBox1.Items.AddRange(Camera.GetVideoCaptureDevices());
    }

    private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e) {

      _camera.Dispose();
    }

    private void comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) {

      _camera.StartCamera((ValuePair)comboBox1.SelectedItem, pnlCamera, 320, 240);
    }

    void _camera_OnNewFrame() {

      ObjectLocation[] objectLocations = _camera.CameraBasicColorDetection.GetObjectLocationByColor(true, EZ_B.CameraDetection.ColorDetection.ColorEnum.Red, 20, 80);

      if (objectLocations.Length == 0)
        return;

      Invokers.SetAppendText(textBox1, true, objectLocations[0].ToString());

      moveArm(objectLocations[0].CenterX, objectLocations[0].CenterY);
    }

    void moveArm(int x, int y) {

      // not calibrated, nor tested. Using the scalar to determine the location
      _ezb.Servo.SetServoPositionScalar(Servo.ServoPortEnum.D0, 1, 150, 1, 320, x, false);

      // not calibrated, nor tested. Using the scalar to determine the location
      _ezb.Servo.SetServoPositionScalar(Servo.ServoPortEnum.D1, 1, 150, 1, 200, y, false);
    }
  }
}

Now my example really only uses a scalar and 2 servos for horizontal and vertical position. The toughest part of your attempt is to identify how to relate the camera X/Y position to the number of joints in the paddle arm.

If there are quite a few joints, it would be a little more challenging, but still very doable. Because the ez-b sdk accepts servo positions as degrees, i should be easy to do with atan() or atan2() to identify angles.

Hi @DJSures,

Because I'm currently still printing out the parts that I needed to construct the arm, so I thought might as well tried to get Emgu CV working to get some experience. Please see code below of what I've done so far with EMgu CV framework and C#. It is working as in it show the back camera, and the combo box did show the the list of camera's available on my pc. The only difficulty I'm currently experience is, after selecting a different camera in the combo box, it didn't switch. I suspect I missing a timer or something minor like that, that stops me from doing so. I'll try your example, but in the mean time if you can see what's is missing in my code, feedback is very welcome

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows.Forms;

using Emgu.CV;                  //
using Emgu.CV.CvEnum;           // usual Emgu CV imports
using Emgu.CV.Structure;        //
using Emgu.CV.UI;               //

using DirectShowLib;


namespace WebCam
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        // member variables ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
        Capture capWebcam;
        private int _CameraIndex;

        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        void processFrameAndUpdateGUI(object sender, EventArgs arg)
        {
            Mat imgOriginal;

            imgOriginal = capWebcam.QueryFrame();

            if (imgOriginal == null)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("unable to read frame from webcam" + Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine +
                                "exiting program");
                Environment.Exit(0);
                return;
            }

            ibOriginal.Image = imgOriginal;

        }

        private void ComboBoxCameraList_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            //-> Get the selected item in the combobox
            KeyValuePair<int, string> SelectedItem = (KeyValuePair<int, string>)ComboBoxCameraList.SelectedItem;

            //-> Assign selected cam index to defined var
            _CameraIndex = SelectedItem.Key;
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            // For Selecting Which Camera to use
            //-> Create a List to store for ComboCameras
            List<KeyValuePair<int, string>> ListCamerasData = new List<KeyValuePair<int, string>>();

            //-> Find systems cameras with DirectShow.Net dll 
            DsDevice[] _SystemCamereas = DsDevice.GetDevicesOfCat(FilterCategory.VideoInputDevice);

            int _DeviceIndex = 0;
            foreach (DirectShowLib.DsDevice _Camera in _SystemCamereas)
            {
                ListCamerasData.Add(new KeyValuePair<int, string>(_DeviceIndex, _Camera.Name));
                _DeviceIndex++;
            }

            //-> clear the combobox
            ComboBoxCameraList.DataSource = null;
            ComboBoxCameraList.Items.Clear();

            //-> bind the combobox
            ComboBoxCameraList.DataSource = new BindingSource(ListCamerasData, null);
            ComboBoxCameraList.DisplayMember = "Value";
            ComboBoxCameraList.ValueMember = "Key";


            //for outputting the feed.
            try
            {
                capWebcam = new Capture(_CameraIndex);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("unable to read from webcam, error: " + Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine +
                                ex.Message + Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine +
                                "exiting program");
                Environment.Exit(0);
                return;
            }
            Application.Idle += processFrameAndUpdateGUI;       // add process image function to the application's list of tasks

        }

     
    }
}