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Suggestions for Xilinx based evaluation board for image processing

Hello!

I have been playing with image processing on FPGA for some time now, and the results seem interesting (I am working mainly on image preprocessing and edge/corner detection algorithms). My main research platform was the S3BOARD from Digilent/Xilinx, but I got to the point, where RS232, or RS232 USB converters do not offer sufficient speed (imagine sending a 512x512 image to the board and then waiting for the results, even in grayscale). Therefore, I'd like to invest some money in a more advanced evaluation board. For now, the Virtex-4-based Video Starter Kit seems to be the most reasonable choice for me. Is anyone here using this kit? The opinions I have found while googling the net (like the one here:

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are however somewhat disencouraging. I'd like to know if it's hard to develop my own applications for the daughtercard without having to use the Matlab/Simulink software (just plain HDL). I also tried to find some other boards for this task (a solution that is functioning out-of- the-box would be ideal). The price of boards by Vmetro and Hitechglobal is an overkill for me. I considered also buying the XUPV2P board from Digilent design a CameraLink compatible interface for it, but I fear that V2Pro devices are a bit outdated and Xilinx will stop supporting this product line. I'd also like to know if it is better to use dedicated National Semiconductor chips to do the deserialization, or try to use the IOB/multiple clocks based approach? Thanks for any suggestions.

Reply to
Marek Kraft
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I am.

It's not too bad. It's annoying (to me) that Xilinx demos are so tied to Matlab, but they do supply a simple video pass through application (with selection of the various inputs and outputs) that runs standalone on the daughter card. It uses a PicoBlaze to bit-bang the IIC buses. It's in Verilog, but there's not much there so it's fairly easy to translate.

If the 2VP7 has enough processing power (and memory) for you, you could just use it standalone.

I have the complete VSK, but I'm told by Xilinx folks that one of the new V5 SXT boards works with the daughterboard. If you need more power/memory than the 2VP7 provides you could look into using a ML506 with the Video IO daughterboard.

Reply to
Pete Fraser

Marek

We have a couple of things in the pipeline that may be useful to your application depending exactly on what you want to do. If you want to either post your requirements I'll respond. If you don't want the details in public send an email marked for my attn. to one of our public emails listed on our website and the team will pass it over to me to respond.

John Adair Enterpo> Hello!

here:

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Reply to
John Adair

Buy the National chips and be done with it. You'll be glad you did.

-a

Reply to
Andy Peters

Marek,

Virtex II Pro is a successful, in production, product line.

We rarely remove support for anything. We still offer the XC3000 family of components (not many, but still manufacture, sell, and support the ones that are still used!).

Discontinuance is determined by lack of use. For example, the 4KXV series was intended to be a 'fall back' if Virtex was unsuccessful.

I would not worry about discontinuance of the VII Pro.

If you are designing a new board, for a commercial product, then I would encourage you to consider Virtex 5. The latest technology provides much more value for the cost than the older technologies.

Austin

Reply to
austin

Andy is right, I myself had to design my custom board (three years ago) while playing with real time image processing. If you want an efficient solution. Try Hunt engineering board (Hunt- RTG-005), which is a ready to go module and will provide you a high speed USB interface along with camera link.

regards MH

here:

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Reply to
mh

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