Lejos NXT ColorSensor

[zatteschacht]

Hi,

Part of my Thesis is to make a LEGO NXT robot navigate through a world following a black line. The world also has crossroads indicated by different colors.

To follow the black line, I use 2 Light sensors and it goes well. To detect a crossroad I want to use a Color Sensor.

Reading a color however takes a lot of time.

When using Lejos NXJ 0.8.5, I used ColorLightSensor.readColor(), which returned me the color fast enough.
I switched to Lejos NXJ 0.9.0, and now I use ColorSensor.getColor(), which is far too slow. Is there any way you can still read the colorsensor without it taking so much time?

I'm getting kinda desperate..

[skoehler]

Have you tried getRawColor() instead of getColor() ?
You may also try the readValues() method of the SensorPort class.

See http://lejos.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc ... iew=markup

[gloomyandy]

You probably need to make sure the sensor is in the correct mode before calling getColor... Try setting the floodlight to be white, at the start of your program...
setFloodlight(Color.WHITE), this should mean that when reading the sensor you will not have to get through the reset/setup code all of the time. One quick tip, it is often a good idea to look at what a call like getColor does to help you understand why something may be slow. The source code for all of the leJOS classes is provided with the leJOS and can also be accessed on line. So for instance here is the ColorSensnor code...
http://lejos.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc ... iew=markup
As you can see a call to readColor is much more complex if the current type is not COLOR_FULL. A quick look at the code and you will see that setting the floodlight to WHITE will set the type to be COLOR_FULL...

Andy

[zatteschacht]

Wow, first of all thx for the very quick response.
I tried getRawColor() and getColorID() but no change there.

I used and keep using TYPE_COLORFULL

I tested getLightValue() and it goes about 100x faster though. When looking at the code I don't understand why. getColorID() and getLightValue() are almost identical (except for a condition check). Would it be possible to get the color when using just getLightValue()?

[zatteschacht]

I have changed the int in the constructor of ColorSensor from TYPE_COLORFULL to Color.WHITE. TYPE_COLORFULL was just wrong of me to use. The getColor method now goes fast enough. Hopefully I get good readings on the colors now Thx all