Table of Contents
PixyMon v2 Overview
PixyMon v2 is an application that allows you to configure Pixy2 and see what it sees. It runs on several different platforms including Windows, MacOS and Linux, as well as other smaller embedded systems like Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black.
You can download the latest version of PixyMon v2 here.
Here's what PixyMon v2 looks like:
- Buttons: these are the most common PixyMon actions, conveniently located at the top of the main window.
- Video window: this is where PixyMon renders various types of raw or processsed video.
- Status bar: this is where status messages are displayed.
- Frames per second: as part of the status bar, the frames per second (fps) are displayed.
- Cursor location: moving the mouse cursor across the video windows displays the image coordinates of the cursor.
- Console: the console isn't normally displayed. It can be displayed by selecting it in the View menu in PixyMon. It allows commands and queries to be sent to Pixy2.
Menu and toolbar
- Stop/resume: pressing this button stops the program that's currently running. This is useful when grabbing a frame or typing commands into the console window. Press this button again to resume the program.
- Default program: pressing this button runs the default program, which is the program that executes when Pixy2 powers up. The default program (by default!) is the color connected components program, but the default program can be configured.
- Raw video: pressing this button displays raw, unprocessed video.
- Configure: pressing this brings up the Configure Dialog, which contains various configurable parameters for Pixy2 and PixyMon.
- File: This menu contains items for saving, loading and restoring configuration parameters.
- Program: This menu contains the list of available programs on Pixy2, and allows you to change programs.
- Action: This menu changes based on which program Pixy2 is running. It contains the program-specific actions that are available to you. Refer to the specific program reference for the available actions and what they do, but common to all programs is an action to toggle the lamp. Try it by selecting Toggle lamp.
- View: This menu changes based on which program Pixy2 is running. It allows you to select what PixyMon displays. Refer to the specific program reference for the available views and what they display.
- Help: This menu contains a help link and an about dialog.
Configure dialog
Clicking on the gear icon 
in the toolbar or selecting Configure in the File menu brings up the configure dialog.
Tuning and Expert tabs
The configure dialog changes dynamically based on which program is currently running on Pixy2, but mostly the Tuning and Expert tabs change when switching programs.
The Tuning tab contains the parameters you are most likely to want to adjust when running a particular program. For example, when running the color connected components program, the signature ranges are in the Tuning tab, because these are commonly tweaked to improve the object detection accuracy.
The Expert tab contains the parameters that are less commonly adjusted but can still be important for a particular program to function at its best. For example, when running the color connected components program, the maximum number of blocks allowed are in the Expert tab because this is commonly changed once or twice and left alone.
Refer to the particular program references for what the Tuning and Expert tabs do for each program.