December 16, 2021 Software Update

New shared sequences

We’ve published new and updated shared sequences that perform complex FarmBot operations in one step of Lua code:

Photo Grid allows you to take photos of the entire garden without any configuration, point group, or long complex sequences required. This v2 release uses a new Lua helper built into FarmBot OS called photo_grid() which makes the Lua code for taking photos in a grid throughout the garden much simpler than in the v1 release. Taking photos at night? Just add a Lights ON control peripheral command as the first step before the Lua code!

Weed Detection Grid and Soil Height Grid are zero configuration sequences that run the weed detection or measure soil height softwares in a grid covering your entire garden. Instead of creating your own grid of points from which to take photos at or long sequences that cover the entire garden, just use these sequences to do it all in one step!

Water All does just what it sounds like - waters all your plants! For folks who are growing a lot of one crop type, this sequence allows you to easily water every plant in the garden without even having to make a plant group! And hey, look at that, this sequence uses a new number variable allowing you to adjust the watering time in seconds! Full use of the new number variables are coming very soon to the full sequence editor, stay tuned!

Plant Identification with Plant.ID takes 6 photos of a plant and uploads them to the Plant.ID API - a 3rd party service that uses machine learning to identify crop type, health, and more. This sequence is for advanced users only right now who sign up for and get a token from Plant.ID directly.

Circular Movement will instruct FarmBot to move to waypoints in a circle of a certain radius around the current position. This could be used to perform preemptive weeding around a plant, watering a larger plant, taking photos of larger plants for later stitching, etc.

Angular Movement uses two of the new number variables to move FarmBot to a new location based on an angle and a distance. Fun tip for the trigonometry pros out there: try negative distances!

Image Bulk Deletion will delete all images from your FarmBot account. (Caution: this cannot be undone!) This may be particularly useful for researchers who generate lots of images and need to periodically clear their account, say, between experiments. The Lua code can also serve as an example for how to use the API to perform other bulk operations on account resources.

Featured shared sequences

A new page is available to quickly find all of FarmBot Inc’s publicly shared sequences in one place: my.farm.bot/featured. Next year we plan to integrate this functionality into the app with a more full-fledged “Sequence Store” where you can browse public sequences from the entire community.

Weed detection auto triaging

Three new parameters have been added to the weed detection settings allowing FarmBot to:

• Ignore any weeds detected outside of FarmBot’s bounds (X/Y coordinates less than 0 or greater than the axis lengths)
• Ignore weeds smaller than a certain diameter
• Ignore weeds larger than a certain diameter

These new settings go hand in hand with the new Weed Detection Grid public sequence, allowing you to automate more of the weed detection task with fewer clicks.

New variables UI

As you may have already noticed, there is a new UI for variables. We figured that with the full release of new number and text variables just around the corner, the app was overdue for a visual refresh to better handle many more variables than before in one sequence. The new UI is more information dense and removes the need for horizontal scrolling which didn’t work well on all devices and operating systems. Enjoy!

Find home map indicator

A new graphic of a yellow FarmBot now shows in the farm designer map at the home position whenever FarmBot is finding home, providing just a little bit more insight into what FarmBot is doing while watching remotely.

Documentation updates

• We get a lot of requests for how to simulate a FarmBot device without having the full machine, so @RickCarlino wrote up this guide on how to use just a Raspberry Pi and Arduino Mega to simulate a full FarmBot.
• There is new and updated documentation for all of the new Lua helper functions including photo_grid(), the optional SPEED argument for move_absolute(), and collectgarbage().

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a bug where clicking in the map would select an incorrect location whenever the map was vertically scrolled.
• Improved the display of sequence descriptions and the public sequence preview panel.
• Moved the virtual FarmBot TRAIL setting into the map legend and turned it ON by default.
• Turned CROP MAP IMAGES to ON by default.
• Turned the CAMERA VIEW visualization ON by default and moved the setting into the map legend.
• Fixed a bug preventing sequences from being saved after deleting the description.
• The maximum height of the Lua code editor has been increased when using the FULL EDITOR.
• Groups with only manual selections (not using the object type filter) are now shown in an UNCATEGORIZED section on the plants panel. Thanks @wcrawford for the tip on this one.