640 replies to this topic

[Sambas]

Past month or so I've been silently building and testing first OP-OSD prototype.

It started from this wire mess:


and evolved into this:


Hardware is old AHRS board + video sync circuitry.

Current status:


Projects that inspired me:
http://code.google.com/p/cl-osd/
http://www.davidcranor.com/David_Cranor/Projects/Entries/2010/8/31_Thinner_Client.html

[Tobi]

Great, looks very promising!

[dankers]

This will rock, all this happened very fast and its looking like it will be a great OSD.

[Felix Da Cat]

nice!!!

[juz]

Wonderful stuff. I only fly FPV and would love to try this puppy out one day. Sambas, to me, you are another openpilot hero. I will watch this OSD development with great interest.

[dankers]

Sambas, to me, you are another openpilot hero.

You are not wrong, "quietly brilliant" is what we call him.

[ThomasB]

Hi Sambas,

Really nice work !
Which video sync circuitry you are using ?
And what's the resolution you can achive with this solution ?
I read a little bit about the David_Cranor Projet, the resulution seems depending on the processor power, right ?

best regards

Thomas

[Sambas]

I use good old LM1881 to separate composite sync from videosignal. In middle of screen I have 336x192 graphic area (frame around OP logo), and 4x40 lines of text, 2 on top and 2 on bottom. So about 336x252 total resolution. What I have seen is that memory is only limit in this. STM has plenty of power to redraw every frame in time. Currently I have only played with PAL video signal. Handling NTSC needs some work in timing perspective.

[ThomasB]

@Sambas
Very nice!
I've no problem with the missing NTSC Support
Will you publish your software/hardware as OpenSouce? Right near me lies an Olimex STM32F103 Board waiting for some experimental hobby stuff,
and I'm very impressed from your project. I think the MAX7456 is old enough to go in retirement now.

best

Thomas

[dankers]

Will you publish your software/hardware as OpenSouce?

Yes! Its OpenPilot, everything we do is Open Source. The team is going to start helping with it as well, we need the GCS side of it working so it can be configured for example.

[ThomasB]

Sorry David, wasn't aware that this is an official OpenPilot project.
I've no knowledge about QT programming, but would like to have a look at the embedded side,
can I find something about this project in the OpenPilot GIT ?

best

Thomas

[dankers]

Its still heavily in progress currently, no one has seen the code yet but Sambas, none of the core team even. It's basically just a proof of concept right now using an old AHRS and It's not even using FreeRTOS yet, just showing how well it can work on the STM32.

We are working on a board for this and for sure, once we have it a bit more solid it will be in Git but Sambas is leading this but no stress on him to do what he feels like when he has time, its very very early days for this yet which is why this is cool, we can follow it from start to a really cool OSD.

[ThomasB]

but no stress on him to do what he feels like when he has time

Hi David,
yes I understand this concept. It's one of the reasons why I'm working alone most of the time.. only to have the feeling of control.
(It's my very precious hobby time
I think I talked with you (or peabody, don't know) about this way of work some weeks ago.

Anyway, I found some open source projects out there today, so I've a good base for some own experiences

best (and good wishes for your project, sambas)

Thomas

[D-Lite]

I use good old LM1881 to separate composite sync from videosignal. In middle of screen I have 336x192 graphic area (frame around OP logo), and 4x40 lines of text,

Does text and graphics come from the same framebuffer or do you have special code for the text lines that doesn't require a framebuffer?
I looked at the MAX7456 and it doesn't have graphics capabilities at all. There's a lot that can be done with user defined character sets. I used that a lot on text LCDs and good old C-64 computer and you can do nice-looking thing with that technic. But with the "real" graphics we have far more possibilities (as you already showed in you videos) and are already beyond the capabilities of a MAX7456. The end result will be much superior, I'm shure.

[Sambas]

graphics uses its own framebuffer and text lines use one shared buffer atm.

[Kerbob]

Amazing Sambas! Excellent work!!
Let me know where I can send coffee so you can work on it more hours of the day.

[Sambas]

Tried to design simple attitude indicator:

[PatTDM]

Really good work !

[Snagglesworth]

I love the resolution you are getting from this. Kicks the ass off most OSD's out there.
Excellent work Sambas

[ThomasB]

Really smooth animation with Flicker free screen.
The "simple attitude indicator" is very visual and self explaining.
Good work!