As you may seen it before, here are the specs:

- 4 channel audio input:16 bits/channel, 48kHz, SNR 90db
- 56º or 75º Field of View zoom lens
- 2.1 F-stop, <1% distortion, fixed focus (25cm to 8 at 75º FOV)
- 640 x 480 at 60 frames/second
- 320 x 240 at 120 frames/second
- USB.0 high-speed data transfer
- Uncompressed video or optional JPEG compression

This makes the PS3Eye ideal for multitouch applications. The best part is the price $39.99! I found mine here.

Now, the main problem with this camera is that there are no drivers for Windows. The camera’s chipset info is virtually non-existent on the web.
After examining the camera internals (pictures here) I found that it features the OV534-LB50 camera USB 2.0 bridge and the OV7720 CMOS VGA sensor. Both of these are made by OmniVision.

I started thinking to my self: “This camera is awesome and it will be such a great and inexpensive replacement for Firefly MV and the like. If we could just get it to work under Windows...”

Initially, I started poking around with the USB trying to send some commands to the PS3Eye and see what happens…

After many long nights I’m bringing you the result:
- Full VGA (640x480) 60fps video capture test app that features uncompressed high quality raw video
- Low CPU overhead (since there is no decompression involved on the PC)
- Very low latency (1 frame time period)

The camera currently streams video in YUYV format, therefore each frame is 640*480*2 bytes.
At 30fps this amounts to about 17.5MB/s which is pretty low in comparison to the total USB 2.0 bandwidth.
At 60fps the amount of data gets higher and it could be affected by other peripherals connected to the USB host controller.
This is why it is recommended that the camera be the only device connected to the USB host controller.

Most of the CPU overhead that I currently have is the color conversion code that is implemented in straight C/C++ without any SIMD optimizations.
For real (MT) applications this code will go away, since we will be extracting raw grayscale image (every second byte of YUYV).

My driver exposes a camera as a device with direct access, thus eliminating the complexities and the overhead of DirectShow system.
I will be working on custom PS3EYE capture filter for use in TouchLib.
I am currently running Vista and all the code is developed and tested under this particular OS.

Driver Installation:

- First run the Install.bat in Driver directory. You might need to reboot your machine after this step.
- Plug in the PS3Eye camera. Let the Windows detect the hub and two USB Camera-B3.04.06.1 devices.
- One of these is the audio and the other one is the camera itself. After a few seconds Windows will automatically detect and install one of the USB Camera-B3.04.06.1 devices. This will be the audio device. The one that is left is the camera.
- Windows will prompt you for a driver. Cancel out of that and go to the Device Manager, right click on USB Camera-B3.04.06.1 device and chose Update Driver Software.
- From there select Browse my computer for driver software and select the Driver directory. The PS3Eye Camera driver will be installed.

After successful installation, your Device Manager should look similar to this:

Now run the PS3EyeTest.exe program, and the captured video as well as the FPS counter will be displayed.

Go, try it for yourself…

UPDATE: The analysis of the differences between B3.04.06.1 and B4.04.27.1 firmware revealed that the only difference between them
is the reported amount of power that the device consumes. This information is stored in configuration descriptor in the camera’s EEPROM.
The B3.04.06.1 version reports 10mA and B4.04.27.1 reports 500mA. This change is due to the fact that in the newer version of the camera the OV538 chip sits directly on the USB bus as opposed to OV534 chip being behind the GL850A USB2.0 hub controller chip. To get more details on this read here.

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*UPDATE* 09-05-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
The test app is now running and capturing at 50fps full frame (640x480) resolution images!
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*UPDATE* 09-05-2008
For IR blocking filter removal instructions take a look at this post.
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*UPDATE* 09-09-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
The test app is now running and capturing at 60fps full frame (640x480) resolution images!
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*UPDATE* 09-17-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
The test app should run with both B3.04.06.1 and B4.04.27.1
The test app also allows you to dump camera firmware from its eeprom (8K) as well as its ram (12K)
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*UPDATE* 09-19-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
The test app detects and displays the camera version.
Now you can select the capture resolution and frame rate.
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*UPDATE* 09-20-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
Fixing the video redraw issue (thanks oaa8 for your feedback).
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*UPDATE* 09-22-2008
PS3EyeTest code update!
Fixed 320x240 frame (full sensor). Now capturing at 60fps.
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*UPDATE* 10-01-2008
I just published the early version of PS3Eye Camera DirectShow Capture Source Filter.
You can find all the info and download the files here.
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*UPDATE* 10-05-2008
I made a single PS3Eye Setup application that will install PS3Eye Driver, DirectShow filter and PS3EyeTest
applications all at once. It will also allow for clean Unistall for those of you that are experiencing problems
with Flash content in IExplorer and Mozilla browsers. For more info and files go here or here.
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*UPDATE* 10-06-2008
UPDATE: I worked on major bug fix. Flash player camera capture now works properly.
I successfully tested it on http://www.snapture.com.
Please download the latest PS3EyeSetup (1.0b81006).
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*UPDATE* 10-07-2008
UPDATE: Increased compatibility by setting default capture frame rate to 15fps for DirectShow filter (320×240),
making it fully compatible with Flash and many video conferencing programs out there. Fixed ‘green screen’ bug.
Please download the latest PS3EyeSetup (1.0b81007).
First version of TouchLib PS3Eye input filter is coming soon...

ALL CREDITS TO ALEX

ENJOY