lekernel changed the topic of #m-labs to: Mixxeo, Migen, MiSoC & other M-Labs projects :: fka #milkymist :: Logs http://irclog.whitequark.org/m-labs
sb0 has joined #m-labs
xiangfu has joined #m-labs
fengling has joined #m-labs
rjo_ has joined #m-labs
rjo_ has quit [Client Quit]
nicksydney has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
nicksydney has joined #m-labs
xiangfu has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
fengling has quit [Quit: WeeChat 1.0]
FabM has quit [Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.91.1 [Iceweasel 31.3.0/20141203072641]]
<zumbi_>
hello!
<zumbi_>
I am pondering to get a mixxeo or milkymist one board, but I got few questions
<zumbi_>
mainly on performance, and input channels
<zumbi_>
if I understand correctly, with milkymist one I shold be able to input an audio channel and then some video comes out of it manipulating stream in real time, is that correct?
<zumbi_>
can I add my own filters in the pipeline for tweaking the video output?
<zumbi_>
then mixxeo is just a video mixer of 2 channels? can I add effects to it?
<ysionneau>
zumbi_: on the Milkymist One, you have a language "fnp, flickernoise patch", which you can use to describe how the outputs (midi, dmx, vga) should behave according to the inputs (video in, dmx, midi, sound)
<ysionneau>
it applies transformations at each frame : rotations, zoom in, zoom out, translations, and some kind of vertex shader
methril has joined #m-labs
<zumbi_>
ysionneau: all 2D transforms, or does it also do 3D (openGL/GLES?)
<ysionneau>
2D
<ysionneau>
well, by playing with zoom in/zoom out you can make some kind of 3D effects
<ysionneau>
ah and you have some blur effect
<ysionneau>
and maybe some that I forget
<GitHub180>
[artiq] sbourdeauducq pushed 1 new commit to master: http://git.io/QSzJ_g
<zumbi_>
ysionneau: 2D transforms happen on the HDL CPU? or is there some clever IP for FPGA to do that part?
<ysionneau>
all the graphic processing is done by a 2D graphic unit in the FPGA
<zumbi_>
mainly wondering if 2D transformations hog the CPU at 100% usage
<ysionneau>
CPU is just scheduling the computations, which happen in the PFPU (programmable floating point unit) and in the TMU (texture management unit)
<zumbi_>
ah! I see, so more IP blocks
<ysionneau>
yes!
<zumbi_>
is it zero-copy?
<ysionneau>
cpu does not intervene as far as I know
<zumbi_>
also I wonder how is everything interconnected, is it using wishbone bus?
<ysionneau>
so 0 copy
<ysionneau>
let me give you a schematic of the SoC
<zumbi_>
sure
<zumbi_>
I am amazed by all the work done
<zumbi_>
I'd need a couple lifes to complete all that starting from scratch
<ysionneau>
CSR is just low throughput for just configuration of the cores (writing/reading registers)
<ysionneau>
FML is for high throughput transfers to/from DDR SDRAM
<ysionneau>
and wishbone is the main interface to the CPU
<ysionneau>
well, it took a few years to lekernel (Sebastien) to achieve this
<ysionneau>
with help from the community
<zumbi_>
really nice
<zumbi_>
have you tried to run kickstarter campaign to get funds to manufacture an ASIC?
<ysionneau>
no
<zumbi_>
no interest?
<ysionneau>
well, there was something like 80 M1 manufactured (at least in the last run afaik)
<ysionneau>
and it was hard to sell it
<ysionneau>
the target "buyer" didn't bite
<ysionneau>
target was either VJ or open source hw hacker
<zumbi_>
right.. I guess that's a blocker
<zumbi_>
target customer does not ship billion devices
<ysionneau>
also, there was much much less buzz around Milkymist than around a lot of very stupid arduino projects
<ysionneau>
there was some buzz also, but not that much
<zumbi_>
well, arduino probably gets external founding, like those rpi boards
<ysionneau>
arduino, rpi, all those stuff get a lot of press coverage
<zumbi_>
while Milkymist seems to be a one man story (yeah, plus a nice willing community)
<ysionneau>
anyway, the interesting part of Milkymist was that it went very deep in open source
<ysionneau>
a complete open source SoC
<zumbi_>
there was one other interesting project like this one but aimed to home automation, iirc, flukso.. but he did not go that low level
<ysionneau>
compared to arduino projects where you only have a bit of schematics + your firmware which are open source
<zumbi_>
yeah! true open hw! :)
<ysionneau>
and the fact that this nice open source SoC was also useful for something pretty cool like VJ was a very nice achievement :)
<ysionneau>
it was not just a nerd toy
<ysionneau>
I actually enjoyed playing with the VJ part even if I'm really not an artistic person
<ysionneau>
and know nothing about VJing
<zumbi_>
yeah, I wanted to feel that :) same here
<ysionneau>
anyway
<zumbi_>
and try to modify audio stream in real time
<ysionneau>
now there is MiSoC which is very cool also
<ysionneau>
it's a bit like Milkymist SoC, an open source SoC, but it's not written in Verilog : it's written in Migen
<ysionneau>
a Python library to do FPGA design
<ysionneau>
it's wayyy easier to read, to write, to simulate, to debug
* zumbi_
lost neurons
<zumbi_>
python to bytestream?
<ysionneau>
actually it's python to verilog
<ysionneau>
it also integrates nicely the Altera and Xilinx tools, so that it goes from your python, generates the verilog and runs the tools for you, and generates the bitstream
<zumbi_>
sounds like fun! I am just unable to see how a programming language can be used to describe hardware :)
<ysionneau>
so in fact it goes from python to bitstream
<ysionneau>
but it uses the closed source tools from manufacturer to do that
<zumbi_>
right
<zumbi_>
I'll check it out sometime
<ysionneau>
it's very powerful
<zumbi_>
has anyone run that on zedboard?
<ysionneau>
also MiSoC is very configurable, you can even chose which CPU you want
<ysionneau>
(between openrisc/mor1kx and lm32)
<ysionneau>
yes, Migen has been used on zedboard
<zumbi_>
nice.. btw, someone ported debian distro for or1k