Flashing to an SD Card

Question

Thank you for the updated Easy Install script! It worked well once downloaded without errors. Better yet jevois-daemon worked great.

Now I would like to flash an SD card to try with a raspberry pi until my Kickstarter reward arrives, but I am not certain where to begin. I found the hbuild and pbuild directories so I assume that the libraries and base apps have been compiled. I tentatively tried beginning the process at the section "flashing it all to microSD", but the rebuild-platform.sh quickly errored out. Since I am still unclear on all the processes involved, asking the question, "How do I proceed?", seems a better alternative to destroying a perfectly fine install.

Thank you

Answer 1

There two basic ways to run JeVois software:

• host mode: you use your own computer, operating system, and camera sensor. You compile the jevois and jevoisbase software collections in host mode, using the native compiler provided by your Linux distro. Then, you just run jevois-daemon on your host computer and using your camera sensor (e.g., a USB camera). There is no support in this mode for streaming video out over USB. Instead, all video results are shown in a window on your screen.
• platform mode: you use your desktop computer to cross-compile jevois and jevoisbase for the specific quad-core ARM processor inside the JeVois smart camera. You then also cross-compile a whole operating system and a custom Linux kernel for that processor and for the JeVois hardware. Finally you flash the whole thing onto microSD, including bootloaders specific to the JeVois chip only, insert the microSD into your JeVois smart camera, and run. Since the JeVois hardware has no screen, in this mode you stream video results out over USB.

To compile and run JeVois software on your RPi in host mode, please see INSTALL in the jevois repository. You do not need to flash a microSD card. You basically follow these steps (you cannot use the easy install option, since that one is for 64-bit Intel host only):

• install NOOBS for RPi 3 (download from Raspberry Pi web site) on a microSD. This is a raspbian O.S. that already provides utilities and libraries pre-installed. So you basically do not need to build those again from the jevois-sdk and you will not use jevois-sdk at all. This is the microSD you will use.
• do as explained in "ADVANCED: Install necessary packages on your host computer" of the JeVois INSTALL.
• Also follow the steps in "ADVANCED: Download JeVois source code"
• Then proceed with "ADVANCED: SPECIAL CASE: Compiling OpenCV 3.2 on Raspberry Pi 3 host" which is a RPi-specific version of "ADVANCED: Installing OpenCV 3.2.0 on a Linux host system"
• and finally follow "Compiling JeVois library and base apps for host computer"
• you will get jevois-daemon running on your pi. It will grab video from a connected camera and will display the results in a window on your screen.

There is no availability at this point for a hybrid mode where you use another hardware board (e.g., Raspberry Pi 3) to emulate all the functions of the JeVois platform hardware. In principle, this might be possible, but there are several things which currently are specific to the particular processor inside the JeVois smart camera, and that would need to be ported to the completely different processor inside the Raspberry Pi 3 (what is completely different is not so much the CPU core, but the hardware in the chip to support peripherals such as USB and camera). Since the RPi is a bit slower, much bulkier, and more expensive (once you add fan, case, camera sensor) than the JeVois hardware, such porting is not a priority for us at this time.