[aprssig] Packet Compressed Sensing Imaging (PCSI)

[spam8mybrain]

Interesting concept. What is the packet transmit rate with your protocol? Can it coexist with other users on the channel by waiting between packets, or will it saturate the channel until the picture is sent?
    
Assuming the Father of APRS doesn't choke because of bandwidth consumption, I would be interested in building a parallel client for your protocol to try sending and receiving pictures.Andrew, KA2DDOauthor of YAAC ("Yet Another APRS Client")

-------- Original message --------
From: Scott Howard <showard at nd.edu> 
Date: 6/28/20  19:19  (GMT-05:00) 
To: aprssig at lists.tapr.org 
Subject: [aprssig] Packet Compressed Sensing Imaging (PCSI) 

Dear APRS SIG,I'm happy to share a new image transfer method called PCSI that a team of students and I have been developing during quarantine. PCSI is digital (packet based), unconnected multicast (UI frames), compatible with APRS (basically turbo-charged APRS Vision https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC1997-APRSvision-WB4APR.pdf), resilient to packet loss (every receiving station can receive a different random set of packets and still reconstruct the entire image), and computationally trivial for the transmitter (8-bit microcontroller can easily construct packets). The goal is to be used with low-power microcontrollers and weak signals (even HF modes) transmitting images when packets will likely be lost. In SSTV and other unconnected digital image modes like SSDV, if the signal is weak or packets are lost, entire sections of the image are distorted or missing. In PCSI, if packets are lost, you still receive the entire image. Every additional packet received (in any order) simply increases image quality. Images take between 1-4 minutes to come in using 1200 baud, which is on par with SSTV. It's all controlled with an easy GUI where you just set your call sign, load your file, then click send.I've used it to transmit images locally between a hamshield KISS system and a kenwood TH-D72a, and between two direwolf systems acoustically through speakers and microphones. Now it's ready for testing in the wild.Details and usage videos are here:https://maqifrnswa.github.io/PCSI/ Windows and Linux binaries (for TCP or serial port KISS devices) are available here:https://github.com/maqifrnswa/PCSI/releases/tag/v0.0.0 (It should work on Macs too, I just don't have one to build binaries. If you're comfortable with python on Mac, you can also just use the source code.)Python Source code (everything is open source):https://github.com/maqifrnswa/PCSI The method isn't necessarily tied to APRS and can be used over any band or mode, but if you'd like to explore its use for tactical and timely image transmission over APRS (basically the goal of APRS Vision), you can set it to use base91 encoding, use the "{{V" info prefix, and use an appropriate altnet. For now, I've been using the destination address PCSI to indicate that these are PCSI packets.Since this is a specialized group of experts, I'd appreciate any testing and feedback you can give. It's kind of a fun mode - you start watching the entire image come in over time, and as packets arrive, the image comes in to focus. To transmit and receive, you just need any KISS TNC/soundmodem/direwolf/etc. It might be a cool way to send low-res images over lossy and weak HF channels when you don't want to spend bits on FEC (although you could also put FEC on top of this method). Any feature requests, advice, or tips are welcome as well.Backstory: When CoVid-19 shut down universities, students weren't able to continue lab based work. I came up with this project so that undergraduate lab assistants could work remotely while supporting a new educational initiative that my university is pursuing around students developing technology for high altitude balloons. The results are like magic - even receiving 20%-30% of the total bytes of the original image (i.e., 70-80% packet loss) gives high quality images. And it's a good introduction for students to the math behind compressed sensing imaging. There are also other tricks under the hood, like the optional use of chroma compression to increase speed.Cheers and thanks!Scott-- Scott Howard, PhDAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Electrical EngineeringUniversity of Notre Damehttp://ee.nd.edu574-631-2570 (direct)574-631-4393 (fax)https://howardphotonics.nd.eduFollow me on Twitter @HowardPhotonics262 Fitzpatrick HallNotre Dame, IN 46556
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig_lists.tapr.org/attachments/20200629/5b1b1ee2/attachment.html>