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oaCapture 0.1.0 for Linux and OSX released


JamesF

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I'm not as happy with this release as I could be and it feels like it's taken far more work than the list of changes suggests, but I need to draw a line somewhere so here it is.

Changes include a fair number of bugfixes, support for 64-bit values in the camera controls, cleaning up of the code so it generates no compile warnings in "extra-picky" mode (which probably fixes a few bugs in itself), support on Linux for Xagyl and Starlight Xpress filter wheels and fixes for problems with the QHY5L-II and FireWire cameras on OSX.

No new cameras are supported in this release, but I have a QHY6, Atik 16ic and Lodestar to work on now.

I've tested the OSX binaries on Snow Leopard through Yosemite.  I'm not entirely happy with the performance on Yosemite, but on (64-bit) Snow Leopard up to and including Mavericks it looks ok from my testing (which is probably insufficient).

Support for the Xagyl and SX filter wheels should be sorted on OSX for the next release, if I can get it done in time.  I'd quite like to try keeping up with a monthly release rather than having arbitrary delays because functionality isn't complete.  I'd really, really like to get .deb and .rpm installable packages sorted for the next release, but the amount of work involved in building and testing is a bit scary.  Getting to the point of having to run a continuous integration system to manage a spare-time project is a bit mad :)

Downloads are at http://www.openastroproject.org/downloads/

James

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Hi James - good news. I can help with the ATIK if you need - I'm sure Paul and SX will help with the Lodestar.

Eventually I'll get around to reinstalling 10.6.8 Snow Leopard for a driver release on it! I'm still eyeing up a Linux version.. but it's at a long end of things todo.

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For testing I managed to pick up a cheap first generation unibody Mac Mini that would could run Snow Leopard through Yosemite multi-boot.  Unfortunately our MythTV front end PC died, so I installed Mythbuntu on the Mac and used it to replace that.  It looks nicer than the old one, too.  I've now managed to get my hands on an even cheaper last generation non-unibody Mac Mini that I believe should also do the job.  And it has a FireWire port, so I can use it for testing FireWire cameras too.

James

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Actually Nick, now I'm nearly done with the QHY6 and looking at what's next, whilst I very much appreciate your offer of help with the Atik camera(s) it has just struck me that (as far as I recall) you've signed an NDA regarding their cameras and I do want my work to be open source.  Should I need to ask for help in an area that might be clearly, or even possibly, covered by the NDA, please don't feel embarrassed about saying "I'm not able to help you with that" if necessary.  I quite accept the situation and I'd much prefer that you were up-front if you feel you're unsure of your ground.  It's not a big deal and probably far more beneficial to the community as a whole if you maintain your positive relationship with Atik.

Which doesn't mean I won't take all the help I can get if I need it :D

James

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Actually Nick, now I'm nearly done with the QHY6 and looking at what's next, whilst I very much appreciate your offer of help with the Atik camera(s) it has just struck me that (as far as I recall) you've signed an NDA regarding their cameras and I do want my work to be open source.  Should I need to ask for help in an area that might be clearly, or even possibly, covered by the NDA, please don't feel embarrassed about saying "I'm not able to help you with that" if necessary.  I quite accept the situation and I'd much prefer that you were up-front if you feel you're unsure of your ground.  It's not a big deal and probably far more beneficial to the community as a whole if you maintain your positive relationship with Atik.

Which doesn't mean I won't take all the help I can get if I need it :D

Correct.. the source is covered by NDA however that doesn't stop providing it compiled that you can link - essentially providing the middle bit as a static library for example, then it could be used on OS X, Linux or *insert favoured intel based OS*.  My thinking is: <you usb management> <--uses-- {compiled static library} --uses--> <your low level USB i/f>

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I can't make it to work under (X)Ubuntu 14.10. It connects to ASI120, yet I get no preview and trying to record or change filter results in an segmentation fault and Qt error:

setControl  called with camera uninitialised setControl  called with camera uninitialised setControl  called with camera uninitialised setControl  called with camera uninitialised ASSERT failure in QList<T>::operator[]: "index out of range", file /usr/include/QtCore/qlist.h, line 477Przerwane (zrzut pamięci)piotr@spartapolis:~$ sudo oacapture ASSERT failure in QList<T>::operator[]: "index out of range", file /usr/include/QtCore/qlist.h, line 477
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Hmmm.  Odd.  My development environment is Mint 17 which should be very similar (though based on 14.04 rather than 14.10 I think).  I'll download it and test here.

It might be worth removing $HOME/.config/OpenAstro/oaCapture.conf if it exists.  There were many changes in the configuration for this release and I thought I'd covered most possible problems but it's entirely possible I've missed something.  Actually, don't remove it.  Rename it, then if it does work I might be able to work out what went wrong.

James

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It might be worth removing $HOME/.config/OpenAstro/oaCapture.conf if it exists.  There were many changes in the configuration for this release and I thought I'd covered most possible problems but it's entirely possible I've missed something.  Actually, don't remove it.  Rename it, then if it does work I might be able to work out what went wrong.

Nope, doesn't help. Segmentation fault may be caused by some ABI changes in the Qt packages between Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10.

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Was all set to have a go installing this today in the hope of being able to do capture in Linux rather than Windoze but then the PSU on my machine died :angry7:

Please do let me know if you have problems running it when you get that far.

James

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Nope, doesn't help. Segmentation fault may be caused by some ABI changes in the Qt packages between Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10.

Could be.  I'll see what I can find out.  Building a small set of binaries for so many different OS releases is becoming increasingly difficult now.  I'm just finishing off adding support for the Lodestar and then I might look at setting up a proper build environment so I can create .rpm and .deb files for each different release which should make life much easier (except for me, perhaps :D

James

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Ups, didn't saw the source tarball. When it compiled and installed still has the same problem:

ASSERT failure in QList<T>::operator[]: "index out of range", file /usr/include/qt4/QtCore/qlist.h, line 477
dmesg says:
[30969.728025] usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 41[30971.023306] usb 3-6: new high-speed USB device number 42 using xhci_hcd[30971.363852] usb 3-6: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x82 has invalid maxpacket 1024[30971.364164] usb 3-6: New USB device found, idVendor=03c3, idProduct=120a[30971.364168] usb 3-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3[30971.364171] usb 3-6: Product: ASI120MM[30971.364172] usb 3-6: Manufacturer: ZWOptical company  [30971.364174] usb 3-6: SerialNumber: 00000[30981.660891] usb usb3-port6: disabled by hub (EMI?), re-enabling...[30981.660898] usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 42
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Ups, didn't saw the source tarball. When it compiled and installed still has the same problem:

ASSERT failure in QList<T>::operator[]: "index out of range", file /usr/include/qt4/QtCore/qlist.h, line 477
dmesg says:
[30969.728025] usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 41[30971.023306] usb 3-6: new high-speed USB device number 42 using xhci_hcd[30971.363852] usb 3-6: config 1 interface 0 altsetting 0 bulk endpoint 0x82 has invalid maxpacket 1024[30971.364164] usb 3-6: New USB device found, idVendor=03c3, idProduct=120a[30971.364168] usb 3-6: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3[30971.364171] usb 3-6: Product: ASI120MM[30971.364172] usb 3-6: Manufacturer: ZWOptical company  [30971.364174] usb 3-6: SerialNumber: 00000[30981.660891] usb usb3-port6: disabled by hub (EMI?), re-enabling...[30981.660898] usb 3-6: USB disconnect, device number 42

There's some strange stuff happening there.  Things have to go very wrong for that EMI error message to be generated in my experience, and I've never seen it before with the ZWO cameras.  I have seen it with the QHY5 before I got the driver for that working.  My code doesn't do any of the low-level interfacing for the ZWO cameras -- that's all done using their SDK.  I wonder if there might be some problem with their SDK on 14.10?

I'll try it myself as soon as I can get a copy downloaded.

James

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I downloaded the iso overnight and have just tried to install it in a virtual machine to check if there might be any obvious problems.  The installer crashes the virtual machine :(  Not a good start...

James

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I've just installed Ubuntu 14.10 on a 64-bit Atom-based machine, installed oaCapture 0.1.0 and it seems to work fine with an ASI120MC.  I'll check out the 120MM later, and I'll try updating with all the latest patches to see if that makes a difference.  The only thing I can't really test at the moment is on a machine with USB3.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what to suggest.  Is the camera plugged into a hub or is there anything else you've not mentioned that might be relevant, however unlikely?  Is your machine 32-bit or 64-bit?

James

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In other news, I am now getting images from a Lodestar.  They have a banding effect which is perhaps down to the difference in exposure times between the odd and even frames or something like that, but they are at least recognisable images.  I guess the banding becomes less of an issue as light levels decrease and exposure times increase.

James

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I am deinterlacing each frame as the data is read from the camera.  I think I recall that Lodestar Live had the same problem at one time.

With the ASI120MM problem, is Windows running on the same machine, or on a different one?

James

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I've realised now that the CCD rows are numbered starting on an odd row rather than an even one as I'd assumed.  Sorting that has improved the image quite a bit :)

Still have the interlace issue though.  It seems to disappear after two and a half to three seconds of exposure time, so I think it must be related to differing exposure times for each half of the frame.

James

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Yes, I have a feeling that some of the QHY cameras do that.  I think I can live with things for the moment.  If it becomes a problem later than I'll look at it again.  The Lodestar isn't really the sort of camera that too many people are going to be using for short exposures I don't think.

James

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  • 2 weeks later...

Progress is occuring, albeit a little slowly...

I have now integrated libraries that provide an interface to FTDI serial devices and to HID devices which I hope will allow me to support the Xagyl and SX filter wheels on OSX.  Previously I'd been connecting to those devices directly through libusb and was finding it difficult to get them to play on my Mac.

I've also managed to get to the point of getting data from one of my Atik cameras.  I wouldn't describe it as "an image" yet as I've clearly not got something quite right and whilst I can see "shapes" in the frame they're not what I see under Windows.  I do currently have to initialise the camera from Windows by running Artemis Capture too.  After that I can shut Windows down and the camera seems to work ok

I don't have binning or ROI properly sorted out for any of these cameras, but if I can iron out these last few niggles with the Atik I think I'll go for another release anyhow and come back to that later.

James

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Hah!  I've just realised that part of the reason I'm having difficulty making an image from my Atik camera is that it's 16-bit and I didn't know what byte order it was, nor what CFA pattern it uses, so I guessed.  Looks like I guessed wrong :)
 

James

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