omg omg omg. I just found out rebrickable has an all inclusive Lego pieces and sets database updated monthly FREE and under a CC license!! And their API is also available for use under CC. And I'm so excited I could pee because this just made it possible for me to jump right in on a personal project I've been wanting to start and my SO/friends just look at me and smile politely when I try to explain to them what a goldmine it is to find a library that does exactly what you need and is free too. So I needed to come somewhere and share my news and know I'd be understood. <3

That's awesome. I'm a huge Lego fan. What kind of project are you going to make?

It's really... ambitious. An automatic sorter. Dump pieces in, use the simple GUI to select the set you want to build, they pass on a conveyor and get identified, and pushed back to input bin if they aren't in the target set, output bin if they are. We own 100+ sets and can't build any of them any more because it takes too long to locate all the pieces. (Except for the Hobbit collection which is displayed and out of reach!) with little ones they are typically taken apart the same day. So we want to spend less (or no) time sorting and more time building :) I don't even know if it'd be shareable because of copyright infringement but if it means we can build and not sort for the rest of our lives it's worth every minute I spend on it! My basic strategy behind the logic of identifying the pieces is getting rgb of pixels in controlled lighting to identify color and controlled distance of camera to piece/multiple cameras for 3d rendering to assess shape.

@mags24 woah, that sounds awesome. Your collection sounds amazing. It sounds ambitious but anything is possible!

Do you know what you're going to use to drive it? Seems like a RaspberryPi could be good or even Lego Mindstorms!

the windstorms are so fun but they only have 6 color recognition I think? I'll write it in Java and put it on a beaglebone black :)

Ah didn't know that. Beaglebone looks pretty neat.

It is! I just went downstairs to take a pic of our hobbit legos since you share my enthusiasm for them, incoming :)

That's a super cool idea! Keep us updated on your progress :D

Perhaps you can use weight also for sorting. Easy to implement and measure.