is it possible FX3 UVC video in greyscale format?

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Anonymous
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Hello,

   

I'm developing FPGA board which generates grayscale images from scanning electron microscope and considering FX3 for sending that as video over USB. Since there is no colors I wander could it be an easy way to modify FX3 UVC app to transmitt just greyscale images (Y channel) and no color (UV).  And if so, would that format be understood by generic UVC drivers?  I know YUV format has Y8 and Y16 variations, but it is not anywhere directly mentioned in UVC documentation. Could somebody having FX3 board on the table just try that by disabling UV channels?

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4 Replies
Anonymous
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Right, I too doubt the usefulness of standard UVC driver for your application.

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Anonymous
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Better late than never...

I have grayscale video working from a FX3 to a Linux box. The Linux uvcvideo driver supports the 'Y800' FOURCC.

Windows is not so accommodating. There, I think you would have to register your own codec to interpret the video data.

Steve 

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Anonymous
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 Hi,

   

 

   

I believe you may need a filter driver in addition to UVC driver for this purpose.

   

 

   

Regards,

   

Gayathri

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Anonymous
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Hi karnel,

   

Its been a while since your 1st post perhaps you have answered your question already. There does seem to be little web discussion on the subject on UVC, YUV and greyscale.

   

Anyway I have developed a UVC camera based on an Aptina sensor specifically for greyscale applications. The sensor normally outputs color but changing a register setting forces it to output only luma information which actually works. Exactly what this means data-wise isn't discussed in the datasheets but it could just be the 'Y' byte (Luma) with the U and V set to 0x80 i.e. zero chrominance (probably easier to quote than arrange)

   

Interestingly AmCap by default shows a "ColorEnable" tick-box but there is no mention of it in the USB specs or web-discussions, if anyone has the answer please let me know, for the time being I'm using a Vendor Command to access this control.

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