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About this blog

The blog also contains updates as I go about AOSX - a mechanism to allow application developers and vendors to quickly and easily develop within OSX for Apple Macs. http://sourceforge.net/projects/aosx/

Entries in this blog

OSX B3 release testing - 4000 & 11000 hardware incoming!

Since B2 behind the scenes, B3 is becoming a hardcore test-fest. * 4-series have now been tested after a minor bug fix with the USB pids - they work (all - including the 490ex!) * Titan and 383L tested independently - working Now the bit that will interest 4000, 11000 owners - I have hardware incoming! (only temporarily!) This means I'll be setting them up on the Pentax and giving them some serious grief as we've noted a problem that I'd fixed at Olly's creep in with changes since then. Addition
NickK

NickK

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Forthcoming OSX ATIK Beta 2 drivers :)

Well, hot on the release of the beta one set - I'll be releasing beta 2 with the following (shortly): Changes/Fixes Bugfix: Titan - image now post-processes correctly. Bugfix: All cameras - timing bug introduced with the timing abort was taking the exposure duration as microseconds not milliseconds now fixed. Feature: Titan auto black-level working (enable using driver with example app switch for your playing pleasure!) Enhancement: legacy connect and disconnect is now threaded. Feature: G
NickK

NickK

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Trying out what a 383L will give with "video" 30 seconds * 27 integration...

Just a simulation at the moment, however attached is a non-cooled integration so I can see what can be done with fast video-like integration. 27x30 second exposures with registration, no guiding, no polar alignment and no cooling (for extra noise!) and sigma integration.. so I picked a nondescript, but darkish part of the sky (straight up to minimise light polution. It bodes well with 9Boo being the brightest and some nice mag 13-15 in there running at 670mm f/6.38.. binnign 2x2 would make for
NickK

NickK

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Bugs!

Well I've been doing some dogfooding.. this time for image processing live in realtime using the titan :D However it appears I have found slightly minor programmer issue.. hands up who can tell me seconds, milliseconds, microseconds and nanoseconds.. in short the beta 1 drivers have a little issue with converting between these after the abort changes I made.. hence the odd timing behaviour. This is fixed (and the programmer supplied with beer for his troubles). Expect an update for beta shortly.
NickK

NickK

2

Apple move out of the OpenGL dark ages! (moan about GLSL)

Well.. at least to support ye-olde 3.3 fully! (3.3 is basically like DX11.. the latest is something like 4.2..) - supposedly it runs 3.2 but I'm not convinced.. I can see the logic of avoiding 4.x as it's too new and a mess... Which basically means that the only thing buying a higher end graphic GPU in an apple is that it goes faster by clock speed and number of pipelines.. nothing about using the (now standard) features available - a PC and linux have more advanced graphics sub-systems! I'm hav
NickK

NickK

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Gearing up for Alpha4 release - the beta candidate

Features (where camera supports) Image exposure Image Binning (up to 3 times in X&Y - this is an artificial limit imposed to shorten automated testing time) Image sub-framing Image preview Setpoint Cooling EFW2 Number of Filters EFW2 Filter selection Camera & Filterwheel Hotplug connect and disconnect Abort exposure time Lots of bug fixes, some improvements too - things such as being able to set the capture location by simply dragging the directory on it.. I should have time o
NickK

NickK

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Nailed the flush..

So I've been quiet - lots of things happening in the real world.. so rather than drop a beta, I've been focusing on a few bug fixes and enhancements as mentioned in my previous blog. One of the outstanding things that has been hanging around is solving the camera start up when something bad has happened - in this case when you pull the cable and the restart the application. Due to the difference in the way windows and OSX work at a low level this caused an the OSX driver to hang if a download wa
NickK

NickK

1

Adding

Many thanks to those that helped with testing the OSX ATIK drivers at SGL8! Added Legacy camera: 16HR Added Modern cameras: 460ex OSC, 314L More dogfooding with the Titan with whitelight solar too!
NickK

NickK

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Updated test application & Alpha3 driver release today!

For the goods: I've been squirrelling away on the commute to bring the test application up to a respectable level. I feel that it's basically usable in order to allow people to test the drivers by simply trying it! Although I've tried the drivers on all the main forms of camera, you always get differences appearing in real life when people attempt to use software and hardware with their own computers. So this will allow people to have some fun whilst my attention, rather like the eye of sauron,
NickK

NickK

1

Update :)

I've been concentrating on a few things at the moment for the Alpha3 release: * The example application - this is smoothing out and I'm rounding out some of the issues/look + I'll be adding the filterwheel into this * The 16IC PC application to read the FTDIChipID - FTDI created a neat little example app in c# which I've been getting to work. Just run and read the id for your camera * Driver bug fixing with the threading - adding disconnect for the alpha3 too Basically I want the beta1 to be usa
NickK

NickK

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Progress of the little test app

The 'little' test app is coming along nicely.. That's all my hardware running :) You select the camera at the side and the current live view is displayed :) I still have the following todo: * Threading - to allow things to happen concurrently. * Duration, temp controls - allowing you to select something in the UI * Image save - well you can play with it but you can't save it through the UI atm * Info tab - a simple table with info about the camera * Debug log tab - making it easy to email the d
NickK

NickK

1

ATIK OSX Alpha3 drivers coming shortly.

I've spent the time between the last release focusing on the 4000/11000 - with some fixes that also apply to other series cameras. Many thanks to Olly for allowing me access to his 11000M for testing during my stay there. Before releasing I just want to regression test the existing cameras and I'll package the new drivers along with a small demo application (including a pre-built version for people to try themselves). This will probably be the last alpha release (with it's specific functionality
NickK

NickK

1

Gearing up for the release..

So I'm 99% on the alpha release.. I still have some daylight photos to take for the manual (demonstrating sub-framing etc) and two 'todo' list entries. I hope to have this done tomorrow.. The 4000/11000 support I've not manage to get a photo yet (I'll worry about that post alpha). I've tried compiling OpenPHD unfortunately the 3rd party package it uses for it's GUI doesn't compile on 10.8.. only 10.6.. so I'll let Craig tackle that headache.
NickK

NickK

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So who's interested in ATIK on the mac? (see here)

I've been asking around to see who's going to be interested, so far: * Craig Stark - Nebulosity & PHD * Software Bisque - TheSkyX If you know of more I'd be interested to know so I can approach them.. The plan is to produce an experimental Alpha release around end of Dec. Let people play and report back before pulling together the feedback for the Beta release. Now the good news is that the driver has parallels with AOSX - so in theory it should plug and play..
NickK

NickK

7

ATIK status update

So I've been ploughing on and I'm finishing some additional architectural changes that affect all cameras. I still want some additional testing around stability - such as performing 12 hours of exposures. The 383L is now setpointing and reporting temps, images with binning, subframe from 0.000001 to minutes are now working nicely. In short - the 383L is very usable (read there's just the beta usage trials on this) :D I've also pinged ATIK about an idea for this camera and I'm hoping that they'll
NickK

NickK

14

AOSX V2 detecting ATIK, EQ6, ...

Got a bit distracted in the last week with work and my birthday yesterday, however the AOSX re-architecture now detects ATIK (and other USB devices), along with serial and firewire. It shouldn't be too long until we start seeing images and mount control that the V1 architecture had :D
NickK

NickK

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*mwahaha* It lives!!! *mwahaha* (ATIK 4000/11000 test specimen)

The hail, dark skies of a storm.. the sparks of a wobbly power connector - my 4000 carcass lives! *mwahaha* So a couple of minor changes and the ATIK 4000 is functioning with the mac ATIK driver :D So, fingers crossed the next AOSX video/photo will have three - possibly four ATIK cameras attached...
NickK

NickK

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AOSX V2 is coming along nicely..

If you've not been following - we have been working on a re-architecting (v2) of AOSX which is starting to appear. Just plugged my Titan in and it's recognised it. Early days but it's always a good feeling to see something to reassure you! I'm also taking delivery of ATIK 4000 carcass for testing. Electronically working to allow testing of the 4000/11000 support in the driver.
NickK

NickK

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