Weekly Report 2

Status and Accomplishments

• Build and run DSPLink, Codec-Engine and iUNIVERSAL examples.
• Tested DSPLib for DFT on 64x+ cycle accurate simulator.
• Tested RTSC codec package wizard and RTSC server wizard.
• Looked into iUNIVERSAL examples for better understanding.

Plans

• Look further into iUNIVERSAL API .
  
• Modify and rebuild iUNIVERSAL examples that could use few of the DSPLib and IMGLib functions.
• Use CCS and JTAG for debugging.
  
• Look into xDAIS standard.

Blockers

• Was unable to debug using JTAG. Looking for help on JTAG debugging. Also posted for help on http://e2e.ti.com/support/development_tools/code_composer_studio/f/81/p/49722/177040.aspx#177040
  
• Was unable to generate DSP executable using RTSC server package wizard. Also posted for help on http://e2e.ti.com/support/dsp/davinci_digital_media_processors/f/99/p/49980/177207.aspx#177207

My First Test With SVN

Today, I did my first test with SVN (A revision control system). Following was the procedure followed.

# sudo apt-get install subversion
# svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs /media/disk/OE/dspacceleration
# cd /media/disk/OE/dspacceleration
#svn checkout https://opencv-dsp-acceleration.googlecode.com/svn/trunk opencv-dsp-acceleration
#svn import -m "Testing svn_first time" /media/disk/OE/work https://opencv-dsp-acceleration.googlecode.com/svn/trunk

I was prompted with username and password. Google account password did not work for this. I had to find the password at the http://code.google.com/p/opencv-dsp-acceleration/source/checkout and then click on googlecode.com password to see the password. Finally, the test file was imported.

Are you using OpenEmbedded based development inside VMware Linux??

If you are also using openembedded based development environment inside virtual Linux, before starting with the development you should pay attention to few thing. I came across different issues. Here I try to summarize it.

1) Make sure you have plenty of disk space to accommodate the build procedure. Plenty does not mean few Gigabytes. It should be minimum of 30GB but adding some more GB to it will not harm. I had allocated 20GB separately for openembedded but turn out to be havoc in between of the build procedure.

--> To solve this issue, I had to allocate more space. I now have 50GB and things seems to be fine now.

2) If you are using VMware Player,(suggested is VMware Workstation) you cannot directly expand your disk size unless you have the version 3 or new. You can go to setting before launching your VMware Linux and then then expand your drive. But again you have to create or extend partition inside guest OS(Ubuntu in my case)using 'gparted' or similar partition tool.

3)Don't provide symbolic link to your newly created disk space. You should rather start building after you #cd OE_Base_Dir_On_New_Partition. Otherwise, you may end-up with error similar to

NOTE:make

make: GNUMakefile: Too many levels of symbolic links

make: stat: GNUMakefile: Too many levels of symbolic links.

make: ***No rule to make target 'GNUMakefile'. Stop.

Fatal: oe_runmake failed.

There is some issue with coreutils-native-7.2.-r1 package. The GNUMakefile is symbolically linked to itself if symbolic link is used within build path.

4)Try to allocate more that 512 MB of memory while working with VMware. You may end up with the following error

cc1: out of memory allocating XXXXXXX bytes after a total of YYYYYYYY bytes

--> Issue solved by increasing the memory size using VMware setting.

As OpenEmbedded based development generally take lots of time, plan and act ahead to save time!!!!

GSoC 2010 : OpenCV DSP Acceleration

Warm Greeting to all,
I am writing blog for the first time. I knew that I had to start it some day. And I think the day has come. I am not used to blogging and I apologize in advance if I am not able to convey my ideas clearly.

This summer, summer of 2010, I will be working on OpenCV DSP acceleration. My proposal for OpenCV DSP Acceleration was selected for Google Summer of Code 2010. My mentoring organization is Beagleboard.org. I would like to thank my mentors Leonardo Estevez, Katie Roberts-Hoffman and Luis Gustavo Lira for their decision to give there precious time during this summer.

My Work
The goal of this project is to accelerate OpenCV ( which is a open-source computer vision library) using the on-chip DSP C64x+ on OMAP3530. I will be using Beagleboard which house heterogeneous processor unit like ARM Cortex-A8 and TMS320C64x+ DSP. I am basically planning to port few OpenCV API link cvDFT(), cvSobel(), cvAvgSdv(), cvIntegral() to DSP. These accelerated libraries will then be used to demonstrate to success of the project by building a application for template-matching. This application will capture image using a camera continuously and do the template-matching with stored templates after processing the captured image.

If you think you can help me with fantastic ideas and suggestions, I will really appreciate that. I will be continuously posting my progress and details. Please, don't forget to check back later for updates and for your suggestions.