Linux Gains Support For Really High Frame Rates With The PS3 Eye Camera

A new patch has been proposed today for the Linux kernel that would allow the PlayStation 3 Eye camera to capture at much higher frame-rates.

The PlayStation Eye camera for the PS3 is similar to a web camera but can also be used for computer vision and gesture recognition tasks. The PlayStation Eye has been supported by the Linux kernel since the late Linux 2.6 days but with a future update (Linux 3.20 or later given that the 3.19 merge window is closed) will support higher modes.

Joe Howse posted the patch today for enabling high-speed modes for the PS3 Eye camera, "Add support in the PS3 Eye driver for QVGA capture at higher frame rates: 187, 150, and 137 FPS. This functionality is valuable because the PS3 Eye is popular for computer vision projects and no other camera in its price range supports such high frame rates. Correct a QVGA mode that was listed as 40 FPS. It is really 37 FPS (half of 75 FPS). Tests confirm that the nominal frame rates are achieved."

This improvement will certainly be welcomed by those using the PS3 Eye camera on Linux for innovative purposes. This USB camera that can achieve up to 187 frames per second can be found for under $10 on Amazon.com that should make it quite a bargain for those wishing to experiment with CV projects.