Saturday, January 27, 2007

Fun with LEDs and pattern recognition...





Having nothing much to do today, I connected a bunch of LEDs to my computer's parallel port. I've written a little program which uses a webcam to recognize color patterns, I create, by making colored dots on a sheet of paper. If I make a sequence like, red - yellow - red, the computer will recognize it as a binary 101 (red = 1, yellow = 0). So, it will turn on the LEDs in the sequence: ON OFF ON. Well, I guess this thing doesn't have much practical use. However, its fun because it feels as if I'm visually communicating with the computer in some way! I find this really interesting. Check out the videos above. :)

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ashish,
I have to go to work now. That's lame because I can't wait to finish reading all your posts. They will help me tremendously with my projects for school. Thank you and thanks to Scott Hanselman for pointing me in your direction.

Engineering Student
Portland, Maine, USA

Ashish Derhgawen said...

I'm glad my blog is helping you in your projects. It means a lot to me. Keep visiting.. :)

Robert Straitt said...

Hey ashish,
I've been trying to use VB.Net to get my W/C to recognize a red dot.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to do it.

Any chance you could send a snippet my way?

The Addy is RSTR5105@gmail.com

Thanks.

Unknown said...

Sure, this isnt useful just to turn LEDs on and off...but replace the notebook with a whiteboard (eraseable), and replace the LEDs with some form of sound generator, and you have something to "play" your computer with...and record at the same time!

:)

Anonymous said...

Dude! That is the most AWESOME thing I've seen all day! I wish I could do that kind of stuff when I get bored... *builds up 1337 h4X0r skeelz*

What'd you write that program in, VB? Python?

Anonymous said...

Thats pretty neat

you have the loudest computer ever

Ashish Derhgawen said...

Ha ha! That was my brother's computer!

webby said...

i love this sort of thing!
a while ago i tryed to make a parralel to lcd screen erm...thingy

anyway, if ya wanna have a go at some more advanced visual stuff (like say BB gun turrets of DOOOOoooooom...) have a look at www.roborealm.com

Chris said...

Awesome projects, and great job on all of them.

I think I remember reading in one of your previous posts that you use VB... I've been searching for a long time, how do you access the webcam?

Anonymous said...

That's nice, but can you give us a little more detail on how it's done?

Anonymous said...

For a practical application you could modify this to monitor the status leds on a router, modem, etc. Then the program could take action if a led turns off or changes color.

Cool project though.

Anonymous said...

for anyone that wants to know how to do this in java email me at mathwiz_ben@comcast.net

Anonymous said...

ya, my email got deleted, so anyone looking for sample code email me at my new emal ben_abraham@comcast.net. sorry for the inconvenience.

Anonymous said...

Hi..
I'm really impressed with your projects..itz Cool dude..
I'm wondering if you could help me with this project of mine.. i need to make an assembly language program (preferably tasm, nasm etc..) controlling LED through the parallel port. The program will have its input as to what LED will light. The program must run in Window 2000, NT, XP. I', lookimg forward to your reply. I hope you can help me a lot. My email is carlo_moratalla@yahoo.com. Thanks for posting your projects. They greally give me inspirations.

Anonymous said...

I found a perfect program for anybody who wants to make their own version. The software is caller RoboRealm and can be downloaded from their web site www.roborealm.com and it works quite good.

Jishnu Dave said...

Hi, how are you accessing the webcam data using VB? Is there any special control for it?? Pls reply..

Ashish Derhgawen said...

Jishnu: Use DirectShow

Jishnu Dave said...

Thanks! I'll have a look. By the way, your blog feed doesn't seem to work.

Anonymous said...

Hey, just stumbled upon your this post... how about using for a game of life? You know, you could have a bunch of LED's and you turn some of them on. Then you have the pattern recognized and according to the rules (can't remember them at the moment) will alter the pattern... just a thought...

vijumohan said...

hi ....
am a newbie to this field......
i want to switch on one energy meter and i want to count the pulse of that meter's output using parallel port and c language(OS win98)
plse give some ideas or some sample codes........
its urgent.....

vijunambiar@gmail.com

Harsha Vardhan said...

Hi thanks for that wonderful project can i know the details of the code ??? So that i would do this as my mini project in the college.......

kavi said...

hi..
hello..ashish u r projects are gre8.

kavi said...

Hi..
I'm really impressed with your projects..I'm wondering if you could help me with this project of mine.. i need to make an controlling LED through the parallel port. The program will have its input as to what LED will light. The program must run in Window 2000, XP. I lookimg forward to your reply. I hope you can help me . My email is kavi1787@yahoo.com. Thanks for posting your projects.

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