Many machine vision modules running on JeVois send messages over serial port (either the hardware 4-pin connector, or the serial-over-USB port) to indicate what they have found (e.g., detected ArUco marker IDs, decoded QR-Code contents, identified TensorFlow objects).

Objective

In this tutorial, we will write a simple Python program to read and parse the messages sent by JeVois over serial.

Getting started

Connect JeVois to a host computer.
Start video capture software and select YUYV 640x500 @ 20.0 fps which should launch the DemoArUco machine vision module
Connect to JeVois using a serial terminal, and issue:
```
setpar serout USB
setpar serstyle Normal
```
to instruct JeVois to send any detections to the serial-over-USB port, and to use the Normal standardized message format.
See Standardized serial messages formatting for more information about standardized message formats. Since DemoArUco sends 2D messages and we selected the Normal format, we expect messages formatted as:
```
N2 id x y w h
```

Point JeVois towards some ArUco marker and confirm that you see these messages in your serial console. Use the screenshots from the documentation page of DemoArUco for example. You should see someghing like this:

N2 U18 -322 -369 444 419
N2 U5 352 259 434 450
N2 U43 -358 228 459 456
N2 U12 367 -323 416 428
N2 U18 -317 -363 441 425
N2 U5 380 288 428 463
N2 U43 -333 256 453 463
N2 U12 391 -303 413 425
N2 U18 -294 -342 438 428

The Python program

Now, quit your serial terminal so that it will not interfere with out Python program.
Make sure you have pyserial installed, it is a python module which we will use for serial communication with JeVois. For example, on Ubuntu: sudo apt install python-serial
Check out the docs of PySerial here: https://pythonhosted.org/pyserial/
Using your favorite editor, create parseserial.py with these contents:

#!/usr/bin/python
 
# Needed packages: sudo apt install python-serial
 
# This tutorial is a simple program that allows one to read and parse serial messages from JeVois
 
serdev = '/dev/ttyACM0' # serial device of JeVois
 
import serial
import time
 
with serial.Serial(serdev, 115200, timeout=1) as ser:
    while 1:
        # Read a whole line and strip any trailing line ending character:
        line = ser.readline().rstrip()
        print "received: {}".format(line)
 
        # Split the line into tokens:
        tok = line.split()
 
        # Skip if timeout or malformed line:
        if len(tok) < 1: continue
 
        # Skip if not a standardized "Normal 2D" message:
        # See http://jevois.org/doc/UserSerialStyle.html
        if tok[0] != 'N2': continue
 
        # From now on, we hence expect: N2 id x y w h
        if len(tok) != 6: continue
 
        # Assign some named Python variables to the tokens:
        key, id, x, y, w, h = tok
 
        print "Found ArUco {} at ({},{}) size {}x{}".format(id, x, y, w, h)
        

remember to edit the value of serdev in the Python code to be the name of the serial port for your JeVois camera: same name as you use with your serial terminal program; typically:
- On Linux: /dev/ttyACM0
- On Mac: /dev/tty.usbmodem*
- On WIndows: COM3:

Point JeVois towards some ArUco marker and confirm that you see these messages in the terminal in which you launched the parseserial.py program:

received: 
received: 
received: 
received: 
received: 
received: N2 U48 -203 220 356 353
Found ArUco U48 at (-203,220) size 356x353
received: N2 U48 -209 233 356 359
Found ArUco U48 at (-209,233) size 356x359
received: N2 U48 -52 253 366 369
Found ArUco U48 at (-52,253) size 366x369
received: N2 U48 11 269 359 369
Found ArUco U48 at (11,269) size 359x369
received: N2 U48 84 253 363 363
Found ArUco U48 at (84,253) size 363x363

Note how the empty "received:" statements are because we have a chosen timeout of 1 second when opening the serial port, and JeVois was not looking at any ArUco for the first 5 seconds of this example.

Troubleshooting

If you see nothing, review this:

permissions ok on the serial port? correct serial device/name? No other program using the serial port (e.g., a serial terminal)?
do you have a module running and is it streaming? If you are seeing live video in a video capture software then you are ok. If you started your module with no USB video out using setmapping2, did you also send a streamon?
Was setpar serout USB issued (if listening to the serial-over-USB), or setpar serout Hard (if listening to the 4-pin port)?