Which development board choose for multiple real-time image processing [closed]

Question

I have strong knowledge as a programmer, but I am very new to embedded development and hardware. I am about three weeks searching for some development boards, but I don't want to spend my precious money in a wrong one, and I want to ask you guys if I am doing it right.

I need to make a real-time image processing for three cameras in a pair of glasses: one with average resolution (maybe TCM8240MD CMOS sensor 1300x1040) and two small cameras to track eye's pupil directly (maybe one with 120x90 black & white res.)

I will need to track both eyes direction and see where the person is looking at the 3rd camera (higher resolution). While I am doing this I will make a multiple face detection in this 3rd camera and check if the pupil is focusing in some of these detected faces.

I am also planning to project some data in the glasses lenses to focus the detected faces, just like a common camera, but it is not confirmed yet.

After researching in some places (including here), I've found these two options in many of them:

• Beagleboard-xM
• ARM9Board OK6410

The last one comes with a LCD and is cheaper than Beagleboard, but I am not sure if it would make the job.

If you have any other suggestion I will be HIGHLY appreciated.

The price can be around 250 USD, but the cheaper it is, better for me!

It can be Android based or Linux based too. I think that the OK6410 supports Android.

Beagleboard has OpenCV support, and I've read that it can help me with this image processing.

Thanks in advance and sorry for my bad English, Vinicius

Answer 1

I would recommend the PandaBoard. It's very important you use a board which has a good support and the Linux kernel is optimized for the hardware. The PandaBoard is more powerful (dual core) than the BeagleBoard, and the price is about 180 USD. You can install Ubuntu or Android on it, and have OpenCV at your disposal. I would vote for Linux against Android, as the latter in my opinion would waste the processing power which may be very important for the task you described. If you're going to use USB cameras it's likely everything works smoothly but still try to check the cameras have Linux drivers.

Edit: See this link for more information on the camera support of the board.