Arducam Mega 3MP with Maker Feather AIOT S3

Hussien Jawhar Sathik
02 Jun 2023
Tutorial
490

Introduction

In this tutorial we shall how to interface Arducam Mega 3MP with Maker Feather AIOT S3, First let's have a look on the Arducam Mega 3MP.

What is Arducam MEga 3MP?

Arducam Mega 3MP is a camera that is targetted for batteryu-powered IoT devices with embedded machine learning and artificial intelligence applications, making the development of computer vison applications seamless for edge devices. High-level commands were built in the new SPI camera series so using high resolution cameras on MCUs becomes so much easier from then on. With the fully open source SDK that supports most platforms, Mega is the first SPI camera fitting any MCUs. These, together with super low power, quick-response and other enhancements, make Arducam Mega a real legendary game-changer in the industry.

Equipped with the Arducam Mega 3MP, users can explore a wide range of projects requiring image or video capture. Whether it's building a surveillance system, developing a robotics application, or creating an interactive art installation, the Arducam Mega 3MP offers the necessary functionality and performance to bring these ideas to life. The compact size of the Arducam Mega 3MP makes it suitable for embedding in small-scale devices, while its compatibility with popular development platforms ensures seamless integration into existing projects. Additionally, Arducam provides comprehensive documentation and libraries, making it easier for users to get started and leverage the full potential of this camera module.

These are features of Arducam Mega 3MP

Easy Using: The built-in high-level commands allow users to manipulate the camera through API access, like using a DSLR camera with button clicks.

Low Pin Count: Different from its predecessors, we removed two I2C interfaces and now only 6 pin left. 4 for SPI, 2 for power.

Extreme Compatibility: It fits any microcontroller that has a single standard SPI interface (either native or mimic one). The HAL (hardware abstraction layer) design is used so that the adaption to different platforms becomes much simpler.

High Resolution: Max resolution is up to 2048 x 1536 for Mega 3MP and 2592 x 1944 for Mega 5MP.

Impressive Image Quality

Quick Response: Wake-up is as quick as 94ms for Mega 5MP and 42ms for Mega 3MP. Because the sensor is now directly talking to the chip.

Power Efficiency: The power consumption is lowered down to under 200 mW for idle mode, and under 650mW for working mode.

Multiplexing: You can port 4 Mega onto the adapter (The Pico4ML Pro) and the 4 quads capture images simultaneously then read out sequentially.

Thats a very brief introduction on the Arducam Mega 3MP

Hardware

For this tutorial mainly we need two hardware.

1) Arducam Mega 3MP

2) Maker Feather AIOT S3

The pin assignment for the Arducam is as shown in the figure below

Thats the hardware part. Now we can move to the software part.

Software

For the software we will be using Arduino IDE and also the Arducam GUI. First lets look at the Arduino IDE. In order to run te Arducam, first we need to install the required library.

For this open the Arduino IDE and go to Sketch --> Include Library --> Manage Libraries

Then type "arducam" in the search bar.Choose Arducam Mega and click install.

Go to Examples --> Arducam Mega --> ArduinoESP32 --> full_featured. This will open the example program. We will be using the program in this tutorial.

In the example code shown below, please make sure to change the CS to 7

const int CS = 7; Arducam_Mega myCAM(CS);

The next step that we need to do is to download the GUI for the Arducam. To download the GUI, visit here. This site offers all the info related to Arducam Mega. Click the ArducamMegaSetup

In this window,click the first option to download the Arducam GUI. The installation process is quite straight forward. Once the installation is done, we are ready to test the Arducam Mega.

Demo

The first step that we need to do is to upload the example code to the Maker Feather AIOT S3. This is the same code that we have seen earlier.

Once we have successfully uploaded the program. We can now open the Arducam GUI. The below figure shows the GUI for the Arducam Mega. First we need to select the port, then choose the baudrate and click the open button. This will connect the port.

Upon succcessfully opening the port, we have two option, one is for the Video and another one is for Capture.