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Image Inversion Using BeagleBone Blue Hardware

This example uses:

Open Model

This example shows how to use the V4L2 Video Capture and the SDL Video Display blocks from the BeagleBone® Blue block library to implement an image inversion algorithm with a Simulink® model, and to run the model on BeagleBone Blue hardware.

Introduction

Black and white image inversion refers to an image processing technique where light areas are mapped to dark, and dark areas are mapped to light. In other words, after image inversion black becomes white and white becomes black. An inverted black and white image can be thought of as a digital negative of the original image.

In this example, the inversion algorithm will be applied to the red (R), green (G) and blue (B) components of an image captured from a USB camera creating a color digital negative effect. The R, G and B components of the image are represented as uint8 values. That is, the range of the values that any of the color components can take is from 0 to 255. Assuming that the intensity value at position $(x, y)$ of the image is $I(x,y)$, the inversion mapping is defined by $I_{inverted}(x,y) = 255-I(x,y)$.

Prerequisites

We recommend completing Getting Started with Simulink Coder Support Package for BeagleBone Blue Hardware example.

Required Hardware

To run this example you will need the following hardware:

  • BeagleBone Blue hardware

  • A compatible USB camera

Task 1 - Connect Camera

In this task, you will connect a USB camera to your BeagleBone Blue hardware and check if the camera was detected properly by the Linux kernel.

1. If you have a USB camera:

  • Connect the USB camera to the USB port on your BeagleBone Blue board. Note that some cameras may draw too much power and may require a powered USB hub for proper operation.

2. Check if the camera is recognized by the Linux kernel by executing the following command on the MATLAB prompt:

b = beagleboneblue;
system(b,'ls -al /dev/video*')

Typical output will be:

crw-rw---T+ 1 root video 81, 0 Dec 16 14:43 /dev/video0

Make sure that the video device file name displayed above matches to the 'Device name' parameter specified on the V4L2 Video Capture block mask. In this example, the 'Device name' should be set to '/dev/video0'.

Task 2 - Configure and Run the Image Inversion Model in External Mode

When you run the image inversion model in External mode, the image is captured from the USB camera connected to the BeagleBone Blue hardware and the results of the image inversion is sent back to the host computer to be displayed by the on SDL Video Display block.

1. Open the beagleboneblue_inversion Simulink model.

2. Select Tools > Run on Target Hardware > Options.... Review the parameters on the page that opens and make sure that the connection parameters for your BeagleBone Blue board are correct.

3. In the model, change the Simulation mode on the toolbar to External.

4. In the model, click the Run button on the toolbar to run the model on BeagleBone Blue hardware.

5. Observe the display of inverted images on the host computer.

6. While the model is running, double click on the Constant block and change the Constant value from 255 to 120, for example. Observe the resulting image effect.

7. Press the Stop button on the model to stop model execution.

Other Things to Try

Change the model to use a different constant value for each color component. Then, independently change the value of each of the constants to get a wider range of imaging effects.