Feature Requests for oaCapture

[Fivel]

Hi James.

Thanks again for all your hard work fixing the issues.

I have a few feature requests, that I hope are not to intense to code. I did post this first one at the end of the issues thread.

1. Add an auto stretch for the preview to aid in framing and focusing. That will be only for the image preview.

2. For the focus aid maybe change the colored line segments to a couple of rings of different colors. When focus is achieved, they will overlap.

3. Add an auto focus capability. I realize it will require a method to integrate focuser drivers. Since your app finds and utilizes the camera drivers, maybe it is possible to do the same for the focusers.

As soon as we can get some decent nights, I will look forward to using oaCapture for DSO imaging.

I will also use it for planetary videos when the season arrives.

Thanks again.

Fivel

[JamesF]

Thank you.  I'll add these to my list

James

[Fivel]

Hello again James.

I got to test the new version of oaCapture last night.

It looked good until I checked the saved tiff file (attached). I also attached the text file with the camera and app settings.

The camera settings were the same as I used (successfully) with the older version (1.4.1) that did not crash.

What caused this strange rendering of the GRBG 16 bit image?

Fivel

oaCapture-223440-20190524-000000.txt

[JamesF]

Hmmm.  You shouldn't be able to save a raw colour image as a TIFF, so hopefully it's actually been converted to RGB48.  Could you email me the TIFF file directly so I can have a look at it myself?

Thanks,

James

[Fivel]

James, thanks for checking this issue.

Here is the TIFF image.

oaCapture-223440-20190524-000000.tiff

[JamesF]

Thanks.  I'll look into that, but possibly not this evening as the Sun is about to set and we're forecast clear skies for the next four or five hours

James

[JamesF]

Right, problem found and hopefully fixed.  I'll sort out building a new MacOS version shortly (and if anyone is suffering the same problem elsewhere let me know and I'll rebuild for that too, otherwise the fix will be in v1.7.0).

James

[JamesF]

Ok, can you try this one now?

http://www.openastroproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/osx/oaCapture-1.6.2.dmg

James

[Fivel]

Thanks you James. I will try it out the next clear night we have (rare these evenings).

Thankfully.

Fivel

[Fivel]

Hi JAmes.

I tried the new (and older) version tonight and here are two issues.

1. The app no longer provides the tiff save format (the previous version had the tiff option)-all the settings were the same as previous.

2. I could not save any capture. The error "Unable to create file for output" is displayed.

Here is the format for the files "oaCapture-%DATE-%TIME-%INDEX". It is the same as for the older versions that do save the captures.

Since all the versions are doing the same issues, I may need to delete the preference files, o see if that helps.

I attached the text file for the camera settings, but it obviously does not show the app settings.

Fivel

oaCapture-20190603-234813-000001.txt

[JamesF]

Odd.  It is working fine for me.

The TIFF option is disabled if output files are not demosaicked or demosaic is not enabled, because there's no way (certainly that I can find) to save raw colour as TIFF.  So it's worth checking that is enabled under Preferences->Demosaic and Options->Demosaic.  Also make sure you're using the bilinear demosaic method for the moment as I still need to implement 16-bit modes for some of them.

If you've done that and you're still getting the "unable to create file" message then I'll think of what to do next.

James

 

[Fivel]

James, thank you for the quick and helpful reply.

I set the "Option" (not preference) to Demosaic and all is well.

The only item that I noticed is that the Option is not saved, so each time i open the app, I need to select it again.

How are the feature requests coming  (to provide auto stretch of the image preview and two more) , that I suggested? Will it be included in version 1.7.0? See the requests in the top post in this thread.

Thanks again, and now that it should be working again, the weather is stormy. Thanks Murphy.

Fivel

[JamesF]

I'm giving the new features some thought in terms of how I'll go about implementing them.  Time to do the coding is always the tricky part though :)

James

[SwissTony]

Hello James, In a quiet day at the office, I just ran through the entire Observatory building post (all 39 pages!!) Good effort!! Hope you get to enjoy it before building the next one!!

Anyway, before being accused of straying off topic...

I'm a Mac only household with a new toy... Nexstar 9 and NexImage 10...

Over last few days I've had some super views of both Jupiter (+4 moons) and Saturn and wanted to capture them in a bit better detail than I have been able to with Nikon DSLR...

oacapture v1.6.3 won't load anything in the preview window (just a white/ grey screen depending on exposure) although v1.6.2 (and v1.5) does. 

Appreciate this is not the day job... what is best way of providing feedback to help?!?

Aidan

Mac Mojave 10.14.5

[JamesF]

I think I can try that out here.  I'll give it a go and see what happens.

James

[JamesF]

Just tried out v1.6.3 and a Neximage 10 on a 13" MBP running 10.14.5 and it seems to produce images ok.  I have small lens in the camera so I can test it on my desk.  The frame format is set to GRBG8, gain is up quite high, frame rate is 6fps and the exposure time is 40msec.

The differences between v1.6.2 and 1.6.3 weren't huge so I'm not sure what might be causing the problem at the moment.  Might be worth adjusting the controls to see if anything changes.  I'll have a look at what I did change for 1.6.3 to see if anything springs to mind.

James

[SwissTony]

Hi James,

Think maybe the exposure was just waaaayyyy too high and it was all a white out... (tried out first in daytime)... all good now 

Could you maybe give  ballpark settings for... say... a moon shot or Jupiter... if everything is off (exposure, gain, brightness, fps AND focus)... i'm floundering to get images...  Here's an idea for a Feature... preset buttons for 'Terrestrial daytime shots', 'Moon', 'Planet', 'DSO'?!? Would that be relatively straightforward??

...and I'd rather use 'oaCapture' on my Mac rather than iCap on work PC, or, God Forbid, have to go and buy a PC just to do this... 🙂

[JamesF]

It's hard to say what would be right for any given situation because it depends so much on the other kit you're using and the sky conditions, too.

Where I usually start is to get the image centred and in focus, leave the brightness alone because all it usually does is compress the available dynamic range, and then adjust exposure and gain so the maximum histogram values are around 80% to 90%.  I'd guess at an initial exposure time of around 30ms for Jupiter, perhaps less on the Moon, though my preference is not to let the gain get too high.

The maximum frame rate of 6fps isn't great for planetary imaging though perhaps shouldn't be as big an issue for lunar.  It may be that if a smaller frame size is selected that the frame rate can actually be increased, but I haven't checked if that's possible and don't have support for it at the moment.  I'll add an issue on github to check.

James

[JamesF]

Oh, whilst I remember, I have noticed that scaling the image so it fits on the screen can make it look quite horrible.  It's possibly better for focusing etc. to view the image at 100% zoom and scroll around the preview window if necessary.

James