oacapture/oalive 1.8.0 released

[JamesF]

I'm pleased to announce that oacapture and oalive 1.8.0 are released!

Changes in this release include:

• Add support for Omegon cameras
• Update to latest ZWO libraries
• Update to latest Altair libraries
• Update to latest (non beta) QHY libraries
• Fixes for RPI cameras (standard and HQ)
• Fix for QHY camera support on MacOS
• Fix for IIDC camera support on MacOS
• Fix handling of 16-bit IIDC image frames
• Fix handling of 10-, 12- and 14-bit unpacked frames for FITS
• Improve handling of auto-exposure control
• Add support for FITS ROWORDER keyword
• Improve YUYV and UYVY to RGB colour conversions
• Beta support for Basler cameras on Linux
• Update Spanish translations
• Fix handling of Flycapture on/off and auto controls
• Fix 16-bit mode (I hope) for cameras supported by libqhyccd
• Enable 8-bit mono-as-raw for Neximage 10
• Various other bugfixes

I have no Omegon camera to test with so support for those cameras may not be perfect. However, as they appear to be rebadged Touptek cameras similar to those of Altair, Risingcam and Opticstar, all of which do work, I feel fairly confident about it.

I’m not sure the RPi cameras are supported in ARM Ubuntu releases, so the RPi cameras may only be available in Raspbian/Raspberry Pi OS.

Support for Basler cameras is via the Basler Pylon libraries which will need to be downloaded from Basler’s website. This has only been tested with a single, quite old, Basler monochrome Gig-E camera so there may well be issues with OSC or USB models.

There’s a new camera setting to allow frames that are reported as being 8-bit greyscale to be treated as 8-bit raw colour. This is because the Neximage 10 appears to do exactly that. If this option is enabled for any other camera it’s going to have unpredictable behaviour.

Some people have reported problems saving images in MacOS, but I can't reproduce it so if it doesn't work for you and you're able to provide more information, please do.

In release 1.8.7 of the INDI library, there was a breakage that affected the installation of oacapture (as well as the GIMP and a number of other applications).  I've not yet checked to see if this is resolved in the very latest INDI release, but unfortunately there's nothing I can do about the problem

Downloads are here: https://www.openastroproject.org/downloads/

My intention is to have the next release done fairly soon with a small number of changes, possibly including beta support for the SVBony SV305.

James

[CedricTheBrave]

Hi James can I ask a support question on here or is there a place dedicated?

[JamesF]

Here is fine if you wish.

James

[CedricTheBrave]

just cant appear to get OACApture to save an avi only a ser file

it comes up with the error 'Unable to create file for output'

[JamesF]

What camera are you capturing with?  The ASI290?  And what OS?

James

[CedricTheBrave]

yes Asi290mc on astroberry latest build 4mb rpi4

[CedricTheBrave]

any joy on this James?

[JamesF]

Been looking at another problem that Stuart1971 raised, also on the RPi, and then this one is next on my list.  Had to download Astroberry first, which takes a fair while with my internet connection

James

Edited January 4, 2021 by JamesF

[CedricTheBrave]

4 hours ago, JamesF said:

Been looking at another problem that Stuart1971 raised, also on the RPi, and then this one is next on my list.  Had to download Astroberry first, which takes a fair while with my internet connection

James

cool

[Shimonu]

So what's the idea behind oacapture? Is there something it does better than other software or is this more of a fun project? It seems to be compatible with Linux which I like a lot.

[Davey-T]

5 minutes ago, Shimonu said:

So what's the idea behind oacapture? Is there something it does better than other software or is this more of a fun project? It seems to be compatible with Linux which I like a lot.

It works on Mac OS, a lot of astro' software only works on Windows.

Dave

[JamesF]

9 minutes ago, Shimonu said:

So what's the idea behind oacapture? Is there something it does better than other software or is this more of a fun project? It seems to be compatible with Linux which I like a lot.

I started working on oacapture about eight years ago because I wanted to use Linux for planetary capture and there wasn't really anything else out there at the time, and what was available was often very limited in which cameras it would support.  And I wanted to do something that was open source.  After a few releases I also ported it to MacOS so now it runs on both and supports many different camera models, including one or two "awkward" ones that I've reverse-engineered drivers for.  It's also gained a few more "niche" features along the way.

James

[JamesF]

Ok, I think I see the problem here.  Does your camera perhaps return frames as BGR24 rather than RGB24?

James

[CedricTheBrave]

ah if i select RGGB8 OR RGGB16LE it will work

they are the only other options over BGR24

so you are correct top man

[kaelig]

Hello James,

I use astroberry where I have discovered oacapture. I want to install it on my other setup with stellarmate.
Could you give me the indications in order to install it on my SSD with SM. Thank you for your help.
I want also to test oalive because I practice visual assisted.

Thank your for your help.

 

[JamesF]

From the downloads page here: https://www.openastroproject.org/downloads/  you may find that it's sufficient just to install the Raspian 10 32-bit oacapture .deb file, assuming StellarMate allows you access to a command line and the root account.  I can't be certain because I've never used SM I'm afraid, but that would be a good place to start.  You may not need any of the other libraries as oacapture and oalive should use the ones that are already present for INDI.

Oalive is something of a work in progress.  Sadly there have been very few opportunities to do any proper night-sky testing for many, many months :(  I'm very happy to have feedback about things that don't appear to work or ideas for new functionality however.  I'm even getting some useful coding done at the moment because I have no work right now and it always seems to be raining :)

James

[kaelig]

Thank you James for your answer 😉

I will try, I could make commands line in SM. I will try the installation.

I will give news as soon as I have installed it.

Kaelig

[kaelig]

Hello James,

I have download oacapture_1.8.0-1_armhf.deb 

I have placed it in /usr/share/repertory

I have made: sudo dpkg -i oacapture_1.8.0-1_armhf.deb

I have installed all the dependencies: libhidapi-libusb0, libqt4-network, libqtcore4, libqtgui4 without problems

But I have one with libraw19 ... it block the installation, but libraw20 is yet installed on the SM (1.5.6)

If I want to replace libraw by the 19 version, the soft installation request to remove all indi libs. So I have

stopped the try. Could you give me some advices for this issue?

the message are:

"sudo dpkg -i oacapture_1.8.0-1_armhf.deb 

(Lecture de la base de données... 127196 fichiers et répertoires déjà installés.)
Préparation du dépaquetage de oacapture_1.8.0-1_armhf.deb ...
Dépaquetage de oacapture (1.8.0-1) sur (1.8.0-1) ...
dpkg: des problèmes de dépendances empêchent la configuration de oacapture :
 oacapture dépend de libraw19 (>= 0.19.0) ; cependant :
  Le paquet libraw19 n'est pas installé.

dpkg: erreur de traitement du paquet oacapture (--install) :
 problèmes de dépendances - laissé non configuré
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour gnome-menus (3.31.4-3) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour desktop-file-utils (0.23-4) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour mime-support (3.62) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour menu (2.1.47) ...
Des erreurs ont été rencontrées pendant l'exécution :
 oacapture
"

 

[JamesF]

Oh dear   This is because of a requirement to support new DSLR raw frame formats which Jasem has made in a way that is less than ideal.  It breaks other software.  That's fine on StellarMate, but not so great everywhere else.  I assume Radek must have worked around this somehow for Astroberry.  I'll see if I can find out.

James

[JamesF]

No, looking at Radek's version of oacapture it doesn't appear to do anything different, so presumably that would also fail on StellarMate.  Perhaps he has arranged for both libraw19 and libraw20 to be installed at the same time without breaking things.

At the moment I don't know what I can do I'm afraid.  I think it has to be fixed in the INDI packages.  I know Jasem is aware of the problem, but I don't know how important he considers it.  It also breaks gimp, shotwell, siril and more

James

[kaelig]

Hello  James, 

thank you for your answer,  It could not possible to install raw19 & raw20 in the same time.

If I want to install raw19, a lot of libraries (some indi) are uninstalled. I will not do that, I have

not the level to build it again. So I will wait. 

If you have any informations and/or answers about this issue, could you inform me in this topic.

Many thanks,

Kaelig

[Pete6]

I am not sure if this is the right thread.  If it is not then please move it.  I have a Pi 4 with 4GB memory.  It boots from a 1TB SSD and has no microSD car in the device.  I run the latest downloadable of astroberry and have done all the updates/upgrades.  I also have a QHYCCD PoleMaster on the mount.  If this is connected to a USB port neither oaLive or oaCapture will run.  Clicking them does nothing.  Running them in terminal gives the errors shown in the image.  Cutting the USB power to the port with the PoleMaster allows oaCapture to run.

I am running oaCapture 1.8.0 and oaLive 1.9.0 as delivered with the astroberry image.  This problem is quite repeatable as my USB 3.0 hub (connected to a Pi USB 2.0 port) has a switch for each port.  Thus power on = oaCapture not running, poer off = oaCapture runs.

Has anyone got a fix for this please.

Thanks

Pete

Edited February 25, 2021 by Pete6
typo

[JamesF]

Hmmm.  Segmentation faults are never good :(  I wonder what's going on there.

The "Open QHYCCD error" is a message from the QHY library rather than oacapture or oalive.  At the moment the only thing that occurs to me is that the application doesn't have permission to open the USB device for the camera.

Could you try unplugging and re-connecting the camera, and perhaps if that doesn't work rebooting the RPi?  If that doesn't work then some deeper digging may be required.

James

[Pete6]

I have tried both powering down and unplugging the PoleMaster camera.  The result is the same. Once the PoleMaster sees power (or plugged in) oaCapture gives this error and won't run in the GUI. My fix is to use one of my power system control relays to cut the USB 5V supply to the USB  hub in question.  Of course this means give a 4 port USB hub over to the PoleMaster but, it renders the system functional.

I will do any tests you define to see if it helps.

It might be possible for you to VNC into my astroberry Pi if necessary.  Let's see how it pans out.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Pete6
typos

[JamesF]

Hmmm.  I wonder if the PoleMaster isn't being correctly configured when it is plugged in and then the QHY library is failing because it can't talk to the camera?

Could you give me the output of "lsusb" with the camera plugged in, please?

Thanks,
James