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Capture software for Linux

JamesF

By JamesF
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Eddy_J1

Eddy_J1

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Oh nice work James :) Good to know you've got it working on a Rpi, hopefully I will be able to then :D


And once I do i'm going to start requesting features from you to help make an all sky cam a reality with it :p most likely something just like a delay of 1 minute between several second captures

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JamesF
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Well, the lack of support for stuff I wanted finally got to me and over the last week or three I've been pounding the keyboard writing a new capture application for Linux.  There are quite a few reaso

JamesF
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Laydeez an gennelmun! I present to you a screenshot of data captured from my ASI120MC This is using the 2.1mm lens that was originally supplied with it. I still have some way to go with support for

JamesF
JamesF

Well, I'm getting there with the histogram: Now I want to add some text to display the maximum pixel value and percentage of maximum, and then to do the same for RGB images (this one is from a greysc

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JamesF

JamesF

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Oh nice work James :) Good to know you've got it working on a Rpi, hopefully I will be able to then :D

It was a bit of a pain to get working, I have to admit.  The V4L2 interface in Raspbian is some what behind what is in Mint 15 and initially it wouldn't even compile.  Looks to be all ok now, but the proof will be when it works :)

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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And once I do i'm going to start requesting features from you to help make an all sky cam a reality with it :p most likely something just like a delay of 1 minute between several second captures

Actually, this should pretty much be possible with the new release.  The bit that really needs adding would be to write a file format that's useful.  I'd guess you don't particularly want the output writing as an AVI or SER file and even FITS might not be that useful.  Could be handy to have it throw out a load of PNG files or something in this case, perhaps?

James

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Eddy_J1

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PNG would be good with maybe auto levels(or predefined in some sort of config) I'd most likely just set up a web page locally to view the images which just pulls in the last modified image from the destination folder.


You're getting me rather excited about trying it now :)

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JamesF

JamesF

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Woo!  We're nearly there.  Testing is pretty much complete.  Just need to write a final few notes and pack up the files now.  And here is a picture of it running on the RPi:

raspberrycam.png

It was a bit slow because I was running the display over the network to my desktop (for some reason the RPi didn't want to talk to my HDMI monitor).  But it certainly works :D

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Oh awesome nice one James :D, fps max of 2, actual 5 that's impressive ;) 1fps would be fine for my project hehe.

Yes, not at all sure why the RPi won't talk to my monitor any more.  I might have to see about a new HDMI cable.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Monitor problem solved.  It appears RPi had decided it would prefer to use the composite video output rather than HDMI.  Easily fixed.  And to celebrate here's a Raspberry PI "selfie":

raspberrycam2.png

James

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kirkster501

kirkster501

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I think it is too much bother personally, despite being a past Linux admin.  Windows all the way for capture "at the scope" software.  Straight off the shelf without fiddling and scripting.

Again, each to their own so good luck to those wanting to use Linux.

Steve

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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Monitor problem solved.  It appears RPi had decided it would prefer to use the composite video output rather than HDMI.  Easily fixed.  And to celebrate here's a Raspberry PI "selfie":

raspberrycam2.png

James

That made a difference to your frame rates - very respectable performance here at 640x480x8bit?    Though not sure the SD card will keep up at these sort of rates, though probably sufficient for time lapse and all sky cam use - could you push these off to a small NAS or would the additional network processing overhead kill performance?

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Eddy_J1

Eddy_J1

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oooo that's looking good James :D and nice one on the fps, before I was joking about the 5fps :) as you managed to get more fps than the max hehe.

It's nice to know it could potentially be useful for actually capturing, as 20 odd fps aint bad at all, with a 32gb sd card you could get a decent planetary run, combine it with the low power the rPi draws, a small low power screen and your sorted for an awesome portable rig that can fully run of a battery

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JamesF

JamesF

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Yes, I realise you were joking :)  It's quite hard to control the application when you're running the application on the RPi and the display on a remote desktop, but I have ideas about that.  That's for another time though.  My "todo" list for the next release is getting a bit on the large side already.

It will be interesting to see how people will use it -- even more so when I have the camera library interface tidied up and it's feasible to use that in other applications too.

James

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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Almost James, but not quite enough power on the USB bus to run the camera with keyboard and mouse (even with wifi adaptor removed) - the camera fails to initialise fully and I loose keyboard and mouse.    Just need to find a powered USB hub.

post-26731-0-13248900-1391861986_thumb.j

Great documentation and easy install with the script - just needed the last dependency with my new Raspbian install.

The U/I is great and very responsive, despite the limited system resources available on the Pi.

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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All working - I just swapped the Pi's USB Power adaptor for a 5V 1000MA rated USB adaptor.   Not quite enough power on the USB bus for the wireless as well, but works fine with the wlan dongle removed.   The VL42 device was immediately recognised and worked without tweaks, at least for AVI's at full res and ROI of 640 x 480.     I'll post my Pi selfie later once I can get the PC running to take a single frame from the 24MB, 20 sec AVI on the laptop.

I was expecting a bit more trouble with this - thanks for making it all work so easily!

And here's the selfie:

post-26731-0-32724800-1391871668_thumb.p

60 Frames recorded at 640x480 in 20s, so 3FPS achieved writing to the SDHC card.

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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That's excellent news :)  I don't tend to use unpowered USB hubs myself as I've found them to be unreliable in the past.  I have to admit that I completely forgot to try even one out.

James

I do have one of the Startech Industrial USB3 powered hubs, but it kinda looks silly up against the PI at almost twice the size - I'm hoping I can run WLAN and camera directly from the 500MA USB power allowance, using the 1000MA supply - and then write the video directly back to a small NAS in the house.   Once setup I can dispense with the keyboard/mouse and remotely access the Pi if needed, then again will depend on the power consumption of the final camera as I don't think the xbox live cam is sensitive enough to make a useful all sky cam.

I will have a tinker around some more to see what I can get.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Tonight I finally cleared my "todo" list for the next release with the one exception of updating the documentation.  Hopefully that shouldn't take too long as most of the changes I've made don't affect the UI because they mainly involve extending the existing functionality.  I now have a big pile of testing and a load of binaries to build, but I hope the next release should be sorted within the next week or so.

I already have a fair-sized list of ideas for the following release, but I think that must at least include support for the QHY5II.

James

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  • 2 weeks later...
JamesF

JamesF

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Well, it's been slow work as I've actually had the opportunity to get out with the scope recently, but I'm getting close with the support for the QHY5L-II.  I am at least now getting images out of it.  They're just not quite right.  As tonight's "clear sky" is full of fogginess, instead I have used it to image a light switch :)

qhy5lii.png

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Couldn't swim at the same time as the kids tonight because on Fridays the club takes the entire pool, so instead I took the laptop and QHY5LII, sat in the sports centre cafe and ironed out most of the remaining issues with the camera.  I need to sort out reading the temperature and do some tidying up, but I think the hard work for supporting this camera is all done now :)

James

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