Some of you might know that I have been working on some machine vision stuff for a man who is a Volcanologist at the United States Geological Survey. He has a need to monitor Mount St. Helens with cameras to see what is moving around inside the volcano. I have a buddy at work named Evan who recently got his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Duke University. We have purchased an industrial quality, fanless, no moving parts, PC from an outfit in Thailand and a couple of cameras from a German company. We are going to add a derivative of Linux, probably PuppyLinux, and set it up as a low power, highly portable way for taking pictures in relatively harsh environments. The computer itself is VERY cool. You can get the most limited version of it for $85. It looks like this:
Nohrtec MicroClient JrSX
The thing to the left of the computer is a compact flash card. To those who know about such things, it will give you an idea of how small the system is. We are going to take the open source, machine vision software we are developing (KamVu), port it to Linux, add some functionality for this application and send it off to see whether the USGS can use it to put in their volcanoes. It should be a lot of fun.
Christian
Dad, I have to send my PDA back to servicing. Major digitizer drift again, and this time it is a hardware problem, so the app you got me wont fix it. ):
Do it.
That is very small. And very cool. And very cheap.
Win-win-win!
Ann
Hunter
Ken,you are very lucky to have such an awesome job!
Hunter
Ken,I remember asking what college you went. Although I didn’t think about it at the time,I also would like to know what classes you took.
Thanks for the nice comments, Hunter. I really like my work. I got an Associate Degree in Computer Systems Technology, a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Oregon State University, and a Masters Degree in Industrial Engineering. I enjoyed the last degree the most. I also attended Portland State University, Texas A&M University, and a number of others.
Hunter
Thanks!
You don’t need floating point support? You will just be using this for image capture then?
Hmm. I kind of want one of those and I don’t know why.
Ann
I don’t think it is a want thing. You are an engineer. You NEED one of those things.
I still think that there is a lot of money in my asparagus picking vision picker/sorter/packer idea! 😉 but No…. You go off chasing the headlines with a volcano watcher?!?
It is all about the FAME!!!! I am going to be the next Britney Spears.
Hunter
I sure hope not!