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Biomaker / Biomaker-Challenge-2017

Main respository for documentation related to the 2017 Biomaker Challenge
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Low-cost multispectral camera to monitor tropical rain forests #11

Open jcmolloy opened 7 years ago

jcmolloy commented 7 years ago

This project is to develop a low-cost multispectral camera. I’d want to combine filtered cameras with identical modules below a light diffuser to measure irradiance. Combing the two streams would then allow mapping reflectance based on the filters used. Within the university we should be able to find a chance to try to calibrate and assess this as an alternative to the currently very expensive alternatives. This could be combined with the touch screen to output averaged reflectance indices in the image (I hope) and if we really work hard (though will be difficult) to produce images. This plays in with my UAV work, as I’d love to build and test my own low cost multispectral camera (the one I currently use costs £3,600 and is very far from open source…)

Contact: Jonathan Williams (jvw28)

Organisation: I’m a 1st year PhD student in the Department of Plant Sciences here at the University of Cambridge. I’m in the Forest Ecology and Conservation Group (Coomes Group). I’m working on developing methods to use UAVs to monitor tropical rain forests. The focus of my research is about developing low cost methods for such efforts, and making these widely available. I did a Bachelor’s here in Maths before completing my Master’s here too in Systems Biology. As such I have some pretty solid skills with working across disciplines and with coding.

What would you like to learn? I would love to learn more about physical computing, and generally working with the Arduino. I’ve worked with Raspberry Pis before (myself owning quite a few) but would like to move to microcontrollers. Getting to play around with physical crafting (maybe even CAD and 3D printing if we have time) would be really cool too.

What can you teach? I can teach people a fair bit about image processing and the principles of this. I also have a fairly strong background in maths, computation, but also systems (including synthetic) biology.

Cyberius commented 7 years ago

I might be interested. I am very experienced with microcontrollers.

maykef commented 7 years ago

I hope this helps: https://www.instructables.com/id/A-Raspberry-Pi-Multispectral-Camera/

Cyberius commented 7 years ago

Cheers, Mayke!

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 12:28 PM, maykef notifications@github.com wrote:

I hope this helps: https://www.instructables.com/id/A-Raspberry-Pi-Multispectral-Camera/

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jonvw28 commented 7 years ago

Funnily enough that is one of the designs which inspired my idea. I'm currently thinking we should really work on using the arduino if possible as it draws less power and is in the key kit this challenge is designed to be based on. One extension to the above design would be the proposed irradiance sensor so that relative, rather than absolute reflectance is measured (which is more valuable for vegetation monitoring)

maykef commented 7 years ago

I'm working on a down welling system using a couple of STS spectrometers from Ocean Optics. One of them measures either relative or absolute irradiance, depending on the setup, the other one analyses reflectance. My take is that the values of relative irradiance of the spectrometer can work as to calibrate the camera. Now, cheap, in this context, doesn't exist. Raspberry pi cameras are nice, but not what is needed. You need monochrome sensors, filters, and a decent custom pcb to trigger the cameras at the same time. The latter is extremely difficult to achieve with a raspberry pi due to bus issues. In order to use an arduino, you would have to have a camera with its own processing board. Who is your supervisor? David Coomes? I did my MPhil in conservation leadership a couple of years ago, so I know your department and team very well. I'm based in Cambridge too, so let me know if you want to chat.

jonvw28 commented 7 years ago

Thanks for your helpful input Maykef. I'm seeing this project as a chance to learn a lot about making as much as a way to maybe develop a cool tool. I am indeed in the Coomes Group, I thought I recognised the DAB green wall in your post on the pi multispectral camera ;) I'm definitely going to put in for the challenge, and if I am luckily enough to get a kit then I probably will get in touch at some point :)

jonvw28 commented 7 years ago

@maykef I was wondering if you'd still be interested in helping out with this project in some way. I'd be happy to work on most of it, but having a few advisors who can offer help and/or experience and advice would be really useful. The challenge organisers like the idea of the project, but it would be made much stronger if I had a few partners in the project who can give me advice and help out a bit over the summer. Let me know what you think, I'm based in the David Attenborough building if that would help for occasional meet ups and work sessions as we see fit.

@Cyberius I saw you applied for a a project of your own so might be otherwise busy. But if not I wonder if you might also be keen to still be involved. If so let me know and we can chat a bit more about it.

For both of you, if interested feel free to reply here, or drop me a line on my Cambridge email (jvw28@cam.ac.uk).