3 ms·

little bit faster at 20Mhz, but not that that would help much. No reason i see to use a microprocessor for image processing. You either go for an FPGA, or some

little bit faster at 20Mhz, but not that that would help much. No reason i see to use a microprocessor for image processing. You either go for an FPGA, or something beefier like a raspberry pi

tomalpha 4y ago
I was going to quibble with your use of "microprocessor", given that you seem to be implying that it wouldn't include more powerful CPUs, but that got me thinking: given the change in transistor sizes since that name was coined should we be calling them "nanoprocessors" these days?
- tkanarsky 4y ago
  Agh, I meant to say microcontroller. But you're right, microprocessor is too broad of a term these days when it can refer to both a top-flight AMD workstation chip and a tiny stm8. Nanoprocessor sounds about right for the latter :)
unwind 4y ago
I think you meant "microcontroller", the Pi 4B for instance is powered by a 64-bit quad-core ARM A72 running at 1.5 GHz. That is most certainly what most people would call a (rather beefy) microprocessor.
- makoto12 4y ago
  yeah, definitely meant microcontroller. I'm targeting my statement at hobbyists and people working on solo projects. If you're some company that has the R&D budget to make it work with a beefy microprocessor, then that makes perfect sense.
  - girvo 4y ago
    You’d be surprised how far you can get with an ESP32-S3, the Xtensa LX7 is a weird little chip, but surprisingly can be quite powerful. Though I’m biased of course because we use them to their limits at work!
    - makoto12 4y ago
      haha, if you can get an ESP32 to do image processing, then you're not an average hobbyist
      - girvo 4y ago
        I guess, but it’s also pretty open code these days now that the S3’s LX7 has some nice vector extensions and other additions for ML applications :) https://github.com/espressif/esp-who https://github.com/espressif/esp-who It’s not out of reach for hobbyists, I think, though getting it to run very well might be. And I would certainly tell anyone interested to start with something more powerful first! I’m currently experimenting with porting Arraymancer to the S3, just to see how it can run, outside of work time mind you. https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer Slightly orthogonal to what we are discussing above, but more to show that these weird micros have some surprising grunt if you know how to make them sing. Though I still wish ESP-IDFs malloc was better behaved.
chris_overseas 4y ago
There are many reasons: power usage, size, cost, availability being some of the main ones. I've been using microcontrollers for wearables and, as much as I'd like the power and ease of use of a Raspberry Pi, the size and power requirements can be too much to deal with. The Teensy 4.0 has proven to be a much better alternative for me - much smaller, lower power consumption, and still plenty of performance including a floating point unit which has been a game-changer.
BlueTemplar 4y ago
Wouldn't the Pi be a problem, considering it's core OS / especially graphic processing "OS" is closed source ?

little bit faster at 20Mhz, but not that that would help much. No reason i see to use a microprocessor for image processing. You either go for an FPGA, or something beefier like a raspberry pi

tomalpha 4y ago

I was going to quibble with your use of "microprocessor", given that you seem to be implying that it wouldn't include more powerful CPUs, but that got me thinking: given the change in transistor sizes since that name was coined should we be calling them "nanoprocessors" these days?

tkanarsky 4y ago
Agh, I meant to say microcontroller. But you're right, microprocessor is too broad of a term these days when it can refer to both a top-flight AMD workstation chip and a tiny stm8. Nanoprocessor sounds about right for the latter :)

unwind 4y ago

I think you meant "microcontroller", the Pi 4B for instance is powered by a 64-bit quad-core ARM A72 running at 1.5 GHz. That is most certainly what most people would call a (rather beefy) microprocessor.

makoto12 4y ago
yeah, definitely meant microcontroller. I'm targeting my statement at hobbyists and people working on solo projects. If you're some company that has the R&D budget to make it work with a beefy microprocessor, then that makes perfect sense.
- girvo 4y ago
  You’d be surprised how far you can get with an ESP32-S3, the Xtensa LX7 is a weird little chip, but surprisingly can be quite powerful. Though I’m biased of course because we use them to their limits at work!
  - makoto12 4y ago
    haha, if you can get an ESP32 to do image processing, then you're not an average hobbyist
    - girvo 4y ago
      I guess, but it’s also pretty open code these days now that the S3’s LX7 has some nice vector extensions and other additions for ML applications :) https://github.com/espressif/esp-who https://github.com/espressif/esp-who It’s not out of reach for hobbyists, I think, though getting it to run very well might be. And I would certainly tell anyone interested to start with something more powerful first! I’m currently experimenting with porting Arraymancer to the S3, just to see how it can run, outside of work time mind you. https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer https://github.com/mratsim/Arraymancer Slightly orthogonal to what we are discussing above, but more to show that these weird micros have some surprising grunt if you know how to make them sing. Though I still wish ESP-IDFs malloc was better behaved.

chris_overseas 4y ago

There are many reasons: power usage, size, cost, availability being some of the main ones. I've been using microcontrollers for wearables and, as much as I'd like the power and ease of use of a Raspberry Pi, the size and power requirements can be too much to deal with. The Teensy 4.0 has proven to be a much better alternative for me - much smaller, lower power consumption, and still plenty of performance including a floating point unit which has been a game-changer.

BlueTemplar 4y ago

Wouldn't the Pi be a problem, considering it's core OS / especially graphic processing "OS" is closed source ?