Linescan IMaging Sensor

[davisgraveyard]

I saw an ad in Nuts & Volts for Parallax's new TSL 1401 Linescan Imaging Sensor Daughterboard http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/ObjectDetection/tabid/176/CategoryID/51/List/0/Level/a/ProductID/566/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName%2cProductName and it got me wondering if this could be used somehow as a trigger for a prop2?

At its simplest could it be used just like a motion sensor ? But that seems like an very expensive trigger.   But what about something more detailed like direction detection like detecting if someone is coming from the left or right or getting closer?  Sort of like a smart motion detector?

[JonnyMac]

It may be possible but to your point it's an expensive sensor and would require very sophisticated code to deal with the data coming back; not sure it's really Halloween friendly.

[davisgraveyard]

I took a look at their example BS2 code.  It is pretty complex but in the end it does provide a way to tell  if the object has moved.  Since it is only dealing with 128 lines of data you could do a simple compare and see if the values are increasing from left to right or right to left or if the entire set is growing (getting closer).     

I just wasn't sure about the interface to a Prop2?

[JonnyMac]

It looks like there is some kind of adapter that allows the camera to be plugged into a breadboard.  You'd probably want to go with this and then you could "hack" a few extension cables to make the connections.  Take the plastic shell off of one end of three cables and protect the metal sockets with heat shrink tubing (I use 3/32").  You can then push the single sockets onto the pins of the adapter.  Based on the diagram on page 5 of the manual you'd need three cables; thee signals, two Vdd (+5, red), and one ground (black).

Without spending a lot time looking a the code I'm not sure if the ULN would be an influence so you may want to cut the ULN inputs for P0-P2 or pop the chip while experimenting.