MS Lifecam long exposure Mod

[Mick UK 41]

Has anyone made any headway on this yet? it sems to have gone very quite lately discussion wise, has everyone given up on a long exposure mod for it?

[Mick UK 41]

anyone????

[the_laughing_crow 28]

Im following this thread.... just have absolutely nothing to add to it, but wanted to show youre not the only one!

Solidarity brother!

[Starblazer 13]

Yup waiting for this also >..<

Really tempted to have a prod about myself, but know it will result in disaster haha.

[Mick UK 41]

I'll give this a hoof up the board for the afternoon crew..someone must have heard something, it would be a crying shame if the potential of this webcam isnt exploited:(

"Solidarity brother!"

[George 51]

Nothing doing as yet AFAIK

[Deedub 10]

If anyone can post up some hires photo's of the internals showing both sides of the PCB's, then I'm happy to look-see if there's any potential for a long exposure mod.

Cheers,

[Deedub 10]

Looking at the product brief for the CCD (OmniVision OV9712) used on the MS Lifecam Cinema HD, it states;

"...programmable controls:

- frame rate

- AEC/AGC 16 size/position/weight control..."

AEC is the automatic exposure control; so the exposure is programmable with 16 steps.

The product brief also goes on to say it supports an SCCB interface (standard serial camera control bus) which I guess is how the AEC setting can be programmed.

BTW: Is anyone else still following this thread?

[Starblazer 13]

Following indeed.....

[Deedub 10]

Ok, so I got a modded MS Lifecam Cinema HD and the neat adapter case thanks to Billetparts.co.uk

Must say the build quality of the Lifecam is excellent, this really is a top quality piece of kit.

Onboard devices;

The HD CCD sensor - Omnivision - OV9712

SoC CCD Controller - Novatek - NT96120BFG

512Kb Serial Flash - MXIC - MX25L512MC

If anyone can dig out datasheets / pinouts for these it would be a big help.

Anyway, some possible options for a long exposure mod;

1. mod the CCD registers directly via the the SCCB comms bus

But the Product Brief suggests this won't allow any longer exposure than what you get with the standard driver.

Maybe there are other useful registers.

A real datasheet would shed light on that.

2. slowing the clock for the CCD; it's crude but it could extend the exposure time

There's a small connector between the two PCB's where the control signals could be accessed.

>Deedub<

[sbooder 388]

I am new to this, so my question may seem ignorant, which it is.

Is the exposure time limitation for the CCD, a hardware issue, a software issue, or both?

[riklaunim 485]

That sensor is CMOS not CCD, but that doesn't change anything. In SharpCap I was able to set quite long exposures for Lifecam 5000-HD. Probably ~1sec (and I was wondering why IR Pro Planet 742 gives so dim view untill I realized that there is IR/UV cut on the nosepiece ).

To get longer exposures you would have to hack the electronics = understand the circuits and start modding. QHY5 cams and alike may just go cheaper/easier than trying to mod those cams.

[andreaconsole 10]

Good morning, I found this interesting topic while I was looking for hardware informations about this lifecam webcam. I think that this new kind of sensor could be very suitable for astronomic purposes, so I would like to modify one of this cameras in order to achieve long exposure. I think I can do such a hardware modification, but I absolutely need the datasheets of chip listed by Deedub. Few months ago I sent a mail to Omnivision to get their datasheet, but I had no answer. Can anyone find these datasheet for me? I really think that a new era for modded webcams can begin from here...

[Deedub 10]

After digging into the design it is clear that the any mod on the MS Lifecam Cinema HD will be a lot more involved than the relatively simple mod seen on the Philips webcams, for long exposure.

Not impossible but certainly more complex.

The simple idea of changing the external oscillator could slow things down, and extend exposure, but the same resonator feeds the novatek driver chip so could also kill the USB timing in the process. But it's a quick one to try, so will give it a go next week.

The way to do it properly requires modding some registers of the OV9712, if you could know the command set for the novatek driver device you could do this via the USB.

>Deedub<

[andreaconsole 10]

Hi Deedub, how did you "dig into the design"? did you find the datasheets? may you link/mail me? I'd like to dig, too

[NickK 492]

I've done work with other OV cameras directly over PPI with Blackfin 537s. OV are a pain because they don't give out data on the registers very easily. It may be possible to attach the lifecam OV module to the blackfin, however I'm currently busy with AOSX.

[Deedub 10]

Hi Nick,

That Blackfin looks like an excellent & tiny embedded board.

Can you really develop the embedded code using LabView?

Could it handle the high data throughput for the HD imaging?

The only problem is you would be reinventing a lot of the code that is already running on the Novatek SoC device fitted on the MS Lifecam.

Unless of course you already wrote some of that code as you mentioned working with the OmniVision devices before?

In which case - please enlighten me! and I'd be happy to share info.

I was planning on using a controller that I had to hand with an ARM9 core in there. It could certainly handle the data rate but no doubt the development time would be considerably longer.

I'll also look at the OV7620 on an older Trust 320 Spacecam and investigate the registers on that via SCCB (I2C) comms. The datasheet is available for that one.

Yep, a long exposure mod is already made for this webcam here;

Space Cam

I want to see if it's possible to get long exposure time purely in software via the register set instead, as this will be the only way on the Lifecam.

>Deedub<

[NickK 492]

The BF537 is a reasonable chip and will do 500MIPS with SIMD support. You can see the two 'eyeballs' on my stereo robot below:

Each eyeball is a OV camera connected to a BF537 with RAM and SPI Flash memory, they're connected via SPI to each other, the servo controller bridge and a MatchPort WiFi chip. IIRC each has 32MB of RAM and 4MB of flash.

The srv blackfin board doesn't have all the BF I/O available, I'd need to have a look. I worked on creating the first stereo Surveyor SVS with the company but moved away from the development as it didn't really provide me with something at the end of the day.

The Blackfin is quite capable of performing optical flow and feature tracking. It could do it with the HD cam although it would be slower.

All the integration I've done with this is on the Mac/iPhone side (and the blackfin using the gnu c compilter chain).

Edited February 15, 2011 by NickK

[Fred_76 56]

Is there any update on this subject ?

Fred

[Gina 6,667]

Just found this particular thread on the LifeCam. I have one I have used for imaging - took it apart, removed lens assembly, put the works back in the black metal tube and made an adapter to increase the size to 1.25" to fit the scope.

I would very much like to know how it could be modified for long exposure. It has a bigger sensor than the Philips and smaller pixels resulting in a much higher resolution. Of course, it's not as sensitive and would require longer exposures than the Philips. OK as it is for lunar, solar and planetary though.

[riklaunim 485]

It has bigger QE than the ancient ICX098 and if you use the same resolution for comparison the Omnivision sensor should turn out more sensitive than ICX098

[Gina 6,667]

The Philips is definitely a bit more sensitive than the LifeCam - I use both as terrestrial webcams and the Philips is almost as sensitive as the human eye whereas the LifeCam isn't, though it is more sensitive than other webcams I've used. They say sensitivity depends on pixel size though they are different types of sensor. The Philips is 5.6 microns square whereas the LifeCam is just 3 microns.

[grey 11]

has anyone had any success with this?

Edited May 22, 2012 by grey

[Mr TamiyaCowboy 120]

ok i have been sniffing around and pulled out a fairly detailed PDF on a omnivision OV26** cmos ( text says the ov chips are nearly the same in the way data is handled )

also mention of I2C two wire control and plenty of code/script.

now i am no wiz but i did not know if this pdf could be of use for a long exposure control via I2C - SCCB

http://www.kanecomputing.co.uk/pdfs/d_module%20to%20cmos%20image%20sensor.pdf

page 11, 12, 13 ,14 ,15 are interesting. maybe you tech wizards . coding gods could make more heads of it ?

[NickK 492]

ok i have been sniffing around and pulled out a fairly detailed PDF on a omnivision OV26** cmos ( text says the ov chips are nearly the same in the way data is handled )

also mention of I2C two wire control and plenty of code/script.

now i am no wiz but i did not know if this pdf could be of use for a long exposure control via I2C - SCCB

http://www.kanecomputing.co.uk/pdfs/d_module%20to%20cmos%20image%20sensor.pdf

page 11, 12, 13 ,14 ,15 are interesting. maybe you tech wizards . coding gods could make more heads of it ?

The doc provides info on the sensor and shows the i2c operations used. It would be possible to use a blackfin or other micro-controller todo that. It's how the OV on the blackfin works. It would be interesting to understand the chip on the lifecam itself.. and if it's programmable.