Software for 12-bit Monochrome Imaging

[pmlogg]

I've ordered a CCD imager with the ICX274 chip which can output in 12-bit.  My main use will be solar imaging.

What I'm trying to figure out is what software can 1. convert the stream of 12-bit greyscale images into a greyscale video file that retains the 12-bit information and 2. process, stack etc. the resulting video file.

Any suggestions would be welcome as I've not found anything suitable yet.

[cgarry]

I would capture your data in SER format (not AVI) using either FireCapture or SharpCap.

SER Player will act as a video player for SER files.

AS!2 will stack the SER files.

If you already have a stream of images PIPP should be able to convert them to a SER file depending on the image format.

Cheers,

Chris

[pmlogg]

Chris

Thanks for those suggestions.  For the first step, capture, I had looked at the FireCapture site before and have now looked at SharpCap.  At the moment neither seem to support Lumenera cameras directly.  I noted reference to Ascom supported cameras and found a driver that has been written, but it's not on the Ascom site and it is a bit uncertain which cameras it supports, and how well.

Further searching came up with Lucam Recorder Professional and Premium which might do the trick.  Once I have the camera they offer a 30-day trial before having to pay 150 euros.

Thanks

Peter

[cgarry]

Hi Peter,

I am not familiar with the Lumenera and which capture software supports them apart from Lucam Recorder.  Heiko Wilkens, the author of Lucam Recorder, originally devised the SER file format so you can be sure that his software does support it and that is the format that you want to be using for your data.

Cheers,

Chris

[pmlogg]

Chris

That's good to know - and the name of the software clearly suggests it is intended for the camera.

I see from the website:  http://www.lucamrecorder.de/ that it supports DMK imagers too.

A message back from Firecapture suggests that support for lumenera is not something they are working on.

Thanks

Peter

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have used SharpCap and FireCapture, and have switched to the latter. I frequently use the 16bit mode of FireCapture which allows getting the full 12-bit resolution of the ASI174MM I have

[GreatAttractor]

On a side note: if you can capture raw video as (or convert to) a sequence of 16-bit TIFFs, AviStack 2 can stack it.

[pmlogg]

It's the camera support that may be the issue but the supplied software might be able to do the saving of the TIFFs - so thanks for the tip on AviStack 2.

Interesting email from Firecapture recommending Lumcam Recorder.

[Purplehayze104]

I would capture your data in SER format (not AVI) using either FireCapture or SharpCap.

SER Player will act as a video player for SER files.

AS!2 will stack the SER files.

If you already have a stream of images PIPP should be able to convert them to a SER file depending on the image format.

Cheers,

Chris

just wanted to ask is .SER format a better way to capture images rather than .AVI for solar, lunar etc then ? curious to know the benefits as always looking to improve my images.

regards

john

[cgarry]

just wanted to ask is .SER format a better way to capture images rather than .AVI for solar, lunar etc then ? curious to know the benefits as always looking to improve my images.

regards

john

If you are only capturing 8-bit data then you will get no improvement in using .ser format over .avi with a lossless codec.  SER files can hold up to 16-bit data and each frame is timestamped which is useful (though not essential) if you ever want to incorporate WinJUPOS in you planetary imaging process.

As an author of software that handles these files (PIPP) I personally hate AVI files.  Some of the software that generates them is awful, generating broken files and it is up to the software that reads these files to handle a multitude of broken AVI files.  If everybody moved over to capturing in SER format instead of AVI format I would be very happy, which is part of the reason I wrote the SER player application.

Cheers,

Chris