Digilent Zybo Z7 + Pcam 5C

Table of contents

image

To view the webinar recording, go here: Embedded Vision on Xilinx FPGA

 

{tabbedtable} Tab LabelTab Content
About

The Zybo Z7 is a feature-rich, ready-to-use embedded software and digital circuit development board built around the Xilinx Zynq-7000 family. This is the second generation update to the popular Zybo that was released in 2012. The Zynq family is based on the Xilinx All Programmable System-on-Chip (AP SoC) architecture, which tightly integrates a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor with Xilinx 7-series Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) logic. The Zybo Z7 surrounds the Zynq with a rich set of multimedia and connectivity peripherals to create a formidable single-board computer, even before considering the flexibility and power added by the FPGA. The Zybo Z7's video-capable feature set, including a MIPI CSI-2 compatible Pcam connector, HDMI input, HDMI output, and high DDR3L bandwidth, was chosen to make it an affordable solution for the high end embedded vision applications that Xilinx FPGAs are popular for. Attaching additional hardware is made easy by the Zybo Z7's Pmod connectors, allowing access to Digilent's catalog of over 70 Pmod peripheral boards, including motor controllers, sensors, displays, and more.

 

image

The Pcam 5C is an imaging module meant for use with FPGA development boards. The module is designed around the Omnivision OV5640 5 megapixel (MP) color image sensor. This sensor includes various internal processing functions that can improve image quality, including automatic white balance, automatic black level calibration, and controls for adjusting saturation, hue, gamma and sharpness. Data is transferred over a dual-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface, which provides enough data bandwidth to support common video streaming formats such as 1080p (at 30 frames per second) and 720p (at 60 frames per second). The module is connected to the FPGA development board via a 15-pin flat-flexible cable (FFC) that is pin compatible with the connector found on the popular Raspberry Pi development board. The Pcam 5C comes with a 10 cm flat-flexible cable and a factory-installed fixed focus lens with M12 lens mount, so it is ready to use out of the box.

Important Dates

Enrollment Begin: Apr 10 2019

Enrollment Ends: May 13 2019

RoadTesters Selected:May 292019

Product Shipped: May 30 2019

RoadTesting Begins: June 5 2019

Reminder/Update Email: July 5 2019*

Submit Reviews By: August 5 2019*

*The element14 RoadTest Staff will send this reminder/update email.

**If a RoadTester is unable to meet the deadline, please notify the RoadTest Program Lead, , as soon as possible before the deadline.

RoadTesters

Terms and Conditions

RoadTest

Digilent Zybo Z7 + Pcam 5C

Terms and Conditions

These are the terms and conditions which govern the Digilent Zybo Z7 + Pcam 5C contest. This Contest requires participants to submit an application indicating their previous experience with this type of equipment/component, information on what they would do to test the equipment/component, and the applicant’s desire to post a thorough review of their experience with images, photos, or other supplemental materials. Participants will be required to meet the Conditions for Participation.  The winners of this RoadTest will receive the item(s) listed below. RoadTest Reviews are due no later than 60 days after the receipt of the item(s). No other prizes are offered.

The Principal terms of the Competition:

The following words and phrases are used in these terms and conditions and have the meanings given to them below.

(RoadTest or Contest)

Key dates:

Applications Close: midnight (GMT) on Apr 10 2019

Announcement of Winner (estimated): May 13 2019

Prize: Digilent Zybo Z7 + Pcam 5C

 

Competition Site: https://www.element14.com/community/groups/roadtest?ICID=menubar_resources_roadtest

Site or element14 Community: www.element14.com/community

Judges: members of the element14 community team chosen at the Organiser’s discretion.

Judging Criteria, All of the following which will have equal weighting:

· Demonstrated competence with the technologies including links or descriptions of past projects

· Qualifications as indicated by current job role and/or schooling/vocational training;

· A thorough description of how the prize would be tested;

· Likelihood that the Applicant will blog about the prize and provide a review on element14.com;

· Originality;

· Innovation.

Organiser: Premier Farnell plc (registered in England and Wales under company number 876412) whose registered office is at Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds, UK

Conditions for Qualification: in addition to meeting the requirements of these terms, all persons applying to take part in the Contest (each one an Applicant) must:

· Provide a RoadTest application describing what he/she would do if awarded the Prize including similar previous projects, product experience and qualifications

Terms: these terms and conditions which govern the Competition and to which the Organiser reserves the right to make changes from time to time and the latest version of these Terms from time to time will be posted to the Site.

  1. Eligibility
  2. Applications:
  3. Selecting Winners:
  4. Liability:
  5. General:

1.1 Save as set out in these Terms, the Contest is open to any natural or legal person, firm or company or group of natural persons or unincorporated body.

1.2 All Applicants must be aged at least 18 at the time of their application.

1.3 Applicants must not enter the RoadTest if doing so or taking part may:

1.3.1 cause the Organiser and/or themselves to be in breach of any agreement (including but not limited to any contract of employment) to which they are a party or in breach of any law, regulation or rule having the force of law to which the Organiser or the Applicant may be subject or any policy of the Organiser or the Sponsor;

1.3.2 Require the Organiser to obtain any licence, authorisation or permission to deal with the Applicant; or

1.3.3 Be in breach of any policy or practice of their employer. Some employers prohibit or restrict their employees from taking part in competitions such as these or receiving prizes under them and the Organiser respects those policies and practices.

The Organiser reserves the right to disqualify any Application made in breach of these Terms and to reject any Application which it reasonably believes may be or become in breach. The Organiser reserves the right to require evidence in such form as the Organiser may reasonably require of any Applicant’s compliance with any of these Terms and to disqualify any Applicant or Participant who cannot provide such evidence reasonably promptly.

1.4 Multiple applications are not permitted.

1.5 Applications may not be submitted by an agent whether acting on behalf of an undisclosed principal or otherwise.

1.6 The Contest is NOT open to:

1.6.1 Any person or entity who is a resident or national of any country which is subject to sanctions, embargoes or national trade restrictions of the United States of America, the European Union or the United Kingdom;

1.6.2 Any employee, director, member, shareholder (as appropriate) or any of their direct families (parents, siblings, spouse, partner, children) (“Direct Families”) of the Organiser and Sponsors; or

2.1 Each Applicant must fully complete and submit a RoadTest Application by the Application Close.

2.2 By submitting a Registration Form, each Applicant:

2.2.1 Authorises the Organiser to use his or her personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998) for the purposes of running and promoting the RoadTest;

2.2.2 Authorises the Organizer to copy, reproduce and publish their application should they be accepted as a Participant;

2.2.3 Will be deemed to have read, accepted and agree to be bound by these Terms. Applicants are advised to print and keep safe these Terms;

2.2.4 Authorises the Organiser to copy, reproduce and use the Application and/or Review for the purposes of the RoadTest and as otherwise contemplated by these Terms. The Organiser will not be responsible for any inaccuracy, error or omission contained in any reproduction or use of the Project Blogs.

2.2.5 Licenses the Organiser to use the intellectual property in the Project (IP) for the purposes of this Contest. As between the Applicant and the Organiser the IP remains owned by the Applicant.

2.2.6 Grants the Organiser the right to use his or her likeness, photographs, logos, trademarks, audio or video recordings without restriction for the purposes of Contest or the promotion of it or the Site;

2.2.7 Agrees to participate positively in all publicity surrounding the Contest;

2.2.8 Agrees to be responsible for all expenses and costs incurred by him or her in preparing for, entering and participating in the Contest (save for any expenses expressly agreed by the Organiser to be borne by it in these Terms);

2.2.9 Confirms that he or she owns all IP used in his or her application or Project or Blogs and indemnifies the Organiser from any claim by a third party that use of any material provided by an Applicant to the Organiser infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party;

2.2.10 Agrees not to act in any way or fail to act in any way or be associated with any cause or group which would have a negative impact on the reputation of the Organiser and/or the RoadTest.

2.3 All applications submitted to this RoadTest must meet the following criteria:

2.3.1 Applicants must be the author, creator and owner of the proposed review idea. Applicants must not submit someone else’s idea;

2.3.2 The proposed application must be reasonably achievable by the within the time constraints of the Contest;

2.3.3 Applications must not include or propose any of the following, the inclusion of which shall render any proposed application ineligible:

(a) Applications which relate to socially taboo topics, such as illicit drug use or sexual gratification;

(b) Applications that are or could reasonably be considered to be illegal, immoral, discriminatory or offensive as determined by the Organiser;

(c) Applications in relation to them which if accepted would infringe or breach any of the policies or terms of access or use of the Site.

2.4 No Application may contain any of the hazardous substances identified by Article 4 of Directive 2002/95/EC of the European Parliament on the Restrictions on the Use of Substances in Electronic and Electrical Equipment ("the Directive") or the use of such hazardous substances in the in any such Project must not exceed the maximum concentration values set out in the Directive.

3.1 Winners will be selected by the Organiser on the basis of the quality of his or her application and its adherence to these Terms.

3.2 The total number of Winners selected will be at least the minimum number set out above but the actual number is at the sole discretion of the Organizer and/or the Sponsor, if applicable.

3.3 The Organiser will use all reasonable efforts to announce the Winners via an update to the RoadTest page by the date listed above.

3.4 Winners agree to take part in all publicity which the Organiser or the Sponsor wishes to use to promote the RoadTest, the Products featured or other Contests with which the Organiser may be connected from time to time.

3.5 Details of the Winners may also be published in the media.

3.6 Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes, duties or other charges payable in relation to any prize.

3.7

4.1 The Organiser hereby excludes all and any Liability arising out of the Contest or the acceptance, use, quality, condition, suitability or performance of any Prize, even where that Liability may arise from the Organiser’s negligence.

4.2 Nothing in these Terms will affect any Liability of the Organiser for death or personal injury arising from its negligence, for breach of Part II of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (in the event that any entrant is entitled to claim rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1987) or for any matter in relation to which it would be illegal for the Organiser to exclude or to attempt to exclude its Liability.

4.3 Subject to 4.2, neither the Organiser, any parent company nor any subsidiary of the Organiser or such parent company or any of their directors, officers and employees (together referred to in these terms and the ‘Associates’) makes any guarantee, warranty or representation of any kind, express or implied, with respect to this Competition or the Prizes potentially available under it. Neither the Organiser nor any of its Associates shall be responsible for any Liability that may arise out of or in connection with person’s participation in this Competition, the claiming, redemption or value of any prizes under it, the use or enjoyment of such prizes or any events or circumstances arising out of or in connection with any of them. Any implied warranties of condition, merchantability or suitability or fitness for purpose of any of them are hereby expressly excluded. Wherever used in these Terms, ‘Liability’ shall mean any and all costs, expenses, claims, damages, actions, proceedings, demands, losses and other liabilities (including legal fees and costs on a full indemnity basis) arising directly or indirectly out of or in connection with the matter concerned.

5.1 The RoadTest is organised and sponsored by the Organiser. The Organiser reserves the right to delegate all or any of its powers, rights and obligations arising in relation to the RoadTest to any Associate and certain such rights and powers are assumed by the Organiser on behalf of itself and each Associate. Reference to “Organiser” shall be deemed to include reference to each Associate.

5.2 The RoadTest may be terminated at any time if there are, in the sole opinion of the Organiser, an insufficient number of entries, or if the Applications are not of an appropriate standard for a competition of this nature. The Organiser has the right to cancel or suspend the RoadTest at any time due to circumstances outside its reasonable control.

5.3 The Organiser shall have the sole discretion to disqualify (without correspondence or right of appeal) any Applicant it considers to be adversely affecting the process or the operation of the RoadTest or to be in breach of these Terms or to be acting in a disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other Applicant or Participant.

5.4 The Organiser has the right to amend or add to these Terms from time to time. Revised Terms and Conditions will be posted on the Contest Site and it is a condition of entry to the RoadTest that Applicants agree to comply with these Terms and, if appropriate, such Terms as amended from time to time.

5.5 Headings are for convenience only and do not affect the interpretation or construction of these Terms and Conditions.

5.6 These Terms and the operation of the Contest shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and any claim or matter arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Comment List
Anonymous
  • I can't seem to send you a message yet, but when I can I'll send over the voucher code. (It really should be easier than this to send messages!)

  • That is very kind. Originally I was planning to use SDSoC for the project (to implement hardware acceleration), as it has several advantages over using just HLS. If it is Ok, I'll take your offer. Thank you.

     

    Fabio

  •   wrote:

    I already have an active voucher from a MiniZed kit which shows a license for SDSoC active including for the XC7C010 processor so I wonder if that would still work.

    I've got 2 MiniZeds and only just noticed that each one has an unused SDSoC voucher in the box. image

     

    Now that I've started the road test I haven't felt a need to use it yet. I assume they're transferable, so if any of the other road testers finds themselves about to dive into SDSoC territory let me know and I'll send one over.

  •   wrote:

     

    Glad it helped, David. I am looking at some other Digilent examples too, in particular the VGA Pmod (which I have got for the Arty-S7, and could be useful for my project if will use less FPGA resources than HDMI), and I have noticed it is meant for the 2016.4! I'm going to give it a go, hoping that I won't spend all my roadtest time upgrading Digilent's examples image.

    Coincidentally I was just starting an Arty S7 / VGA project for the Project14 Programmable Logic challenge, so perhaps I can be helpful in return. I've parked that project whilst doing the Zybo road test, but I found that this multi-part guide was really easy to follow and worked well with the Arty / VGA Pmod combination. Even a programmable logic newbie like me could make sense of it. It's all vanilla Verilog so there's no need to stress about the Vivado version.

     

    Andy West's FPGA pong is for an Altera device, but it was also easy to follow and port across. Episode 353: Program Your Own FPGA Video Game

  • For what it's worth, the suggested path to migrate a project from 2016 to say 2018 is as such:

    https://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Embedded-Development-Tools/Migrate-SDK-project-from-2016-4-to-2018-3/td-p/933591

    1. Update the hardware to 2018.3
    2. Re-create the BSP project based on the new hardware definition
    3. Create empty application projects for your previous 2016.4 projects
    4. Import the source code into the empty application project

  • Glad it helped, David. I am looking at some other Digilent examples too, in particular the VGA Pmod (which I have got for the Arty-S7, and could be useful for my project if will use less FPGA resources than HDMI), and I have noticed it is meant for the 2016.4! I'm going to give it a go, hoping that I won't spend all my roadtest time upgrading Digilent's examples image.

     

    I'll post here any update.

     

    Fabio

  • Thanks, Fabio. Those small changes made all the difference. I think they're needed for 2018.2 also, although I've flipped around so much I can't be sure. I'd already solved the need for the src/bd/ system_2019.1.tcl file for the project to be created in Vivado, but I doubt I'd have managed to make the right changes in the IP to get the last bit working.

     

    Versioning is a major headache. Some of the other Zybo examples in the Digilent require Vivado 2016.4! I've no idea whether they will convert easily, but that just seems so out of date.

  • Yes, considering how good the tool is, I think porting/upgrading projects between versions is an area where they could definitely improve.

  • That's very helpful, thanks. I've made some progress on getting stuff working. I that's the error I got a couple of days ago when I had to put the Zybo down for a bit. (Huge project at work going live.)  Vivado versioning does appear to be quite a tricky issue.

  • I have managed to get the Video Workshop example working on Vivado 2019.1. As thought, the problem is due to the example being created for a different  Vivado version (2018.1). To make it work on 2019.1, I have modified the example. While many changes are just "cosmetic"  (use current version tag 2019.1 rather than the old versions), the one change that I think is more substantial is the one made to Digilent's IP MIPI_CSI_2_RX v1:0, used in the "camera_in" block.

     

    While trying to synthesise the project, the synthesis of the above IP kept failing, complaining a signal (axi_data_count) couldn't be found. Earlier, when Vivado performed the IP Upgrade, I noticed something suspicious in the log: a warning about one of Xilinx's IP being updated:

    WARNING: [IP_Flow 19-3501] Upgraded line_buffer from AXI4-Stream Data FIFO 1.1 to AXI4-Stream Data FIFO 2.0

    Looking at the IP implementation (found in the zyboz7_workshop/vivado_project/repo/vivado-library/ip/MIPI_CSI_2_RX/hdl folder), the error seems to be due to the signal being declared in the interface for a line buffer, which is not actually present in the IP implementation of such interface. As mentioned, this could possibly be due to the version change for the AXI4-Stream IP. Although not 100% sure about this, I decided to comment out the signal, and this seems to have done the trick: the synthesis finally completed successfully, and I was able to generate the bitstream, and export to the SDK to be used to execute the demo on the Zybo Z7.

     

    Using Vivado 2019.1, the implementation reports some timing failiures (negative slack) on 3 endpoint. I need to investigate those further, to see if there is an easy way to fix them. Anyway, they don't seem to affect the functionality, the video work exactly as for the 2018.1 version.

     

    I have uploaded the modified version of the workshop files for Vivado 2019 on Github.

     

    Fabio