SharpCap - free Astro Webcam Capture Software

[leenewtoastro]

hmm sounds difficult. its the beta you posted the other day.

[rwg]

If you can't get a crash dump or any error text, let me know exactly what you are trying to do and what is happening when it crashes - that might supply some clues.

cheers,

Robin

[riklaunim]

I made a qick test of MS LifeCam studio (the biggest cam they have - 1080p) and it did work nicely (not modded webcam). It can do 1920 x 1080 at max 10 FPS. At 640 x 480 it can do 30 FPS (works like ROI at "max" zoom).

http://i54.tinypic.com/2zi5w85.jpg - single frame

http://i55.tinypic.com/6j0k2d.jpg - stack 40

[astroimpulse]

Sounds spot on. And looks great too.

Last night I discovered my LC Cinema is defected (I thought the inability to focus was the lenses...but it not )

Time to get another.

Just wondering...is the studio the same size as the cinema?

Also...ROI?

[riklaunim]

Studio should have bigger sensor as it can do 1080p (and some reviews state that). OmniVision didn't replied which sensor/board they have used. The housing is metal, and the optics are glass. The camera may be screwed to tripods or piggyback on scopes I'm planning to piggyback it on the SCT and check if it can be a guider (the whole webcam) and what it will see on max gain + max exposure.

As for ROI (Region of Intrest). When you set lower resolution like 640 x 480 then on minimal zoom you see the image from the whole sensor (like on max resolution, but smaller). When you set the zoom to max you see the image in the same scale/size as on max resolution but only from the centre of the sensor - so it must work like a ROI available in industry cameras (Lumenera, Basler, PGR). This works also for LifeCam HD-5000 I have (probably for all HD LifeCams).

[astroimpulse]

Ah yes...Region Of Interest *thumbs up*

I'm going to check the studio as it may have the same sized tube even if the chip is larger.

[michaelmorris]

After dabbling with Sharpcap for a few weeks now, I’ve now started using it in earnest. Wow, what a great program.

I would like to suggest a couple of features that I (and believe others) would find very useful.

USER-DEFINED AUTO EXPOSURE FOR H ALPHA SOLAR IMAGING

I’ve recently spent two very frustrating days trying to image the Sun in H alpha.

The problem is high cloud moving rapidly across the image. Only very small differences in the thickness of high cloud can have dramatic effects upon the transmission of H-alpha through the atmosphere.

The net effect of this is that the image does form correctly-exposed to over-exposed in a few seconds, then back again. Almost every imaging capture is ruined in these conditions.

A way around this would be for the capture program to have an auto-exposure mode that would rapidly compensate for the variable levels of light in these conditions.

I would envisage the user setting the exposure controls manually, then pressing a simple ‘auto’ button so that the software automatically compensates for the varying light levels. The difference between my proposal and the built-in auto exposure mode is that the user can fix various parameters (i.e shutter speed). The custom auto-exposure mode would vary exposure length as it’s primary mechanism and use the gain control to trim the exposure, therefore keeping shutter speed fixed and gain levels to a minimum.

LARGE DISPLAY

The current display of the number of frames captured, time elapsed, dropped frames etc is displayed in small numerals at the base of the window. A far more prominent display of these figures and a bold indication of whether or not one is actually recording would definitively enhance the interface.

Thanks again for the great program

[rwg]

Hi Michael,

glad you are liking SharpCap.

I can see what you are aiming at with your first suggestion, but am a bit confused about the details - you seem to be talking about shutter speed and exposure length as separate things, but they are the same really. Maybe you're thinking of frame rate when you say shutter speed?

Anyway, one problem with this approach with webcams is that the exposure length can only be altered by factors of 2 (roughly) - i.e. the choices are typically 1/32s, 1/64s, 1/128s, etc. This is much too coarse a control to adjust for varying cloud cover levels, meaning that you'd have to adjust gain/brightness instead. Another problem is that the way SharpCap currently runs webcam captures makes it very hard to monitor the image at the same time - that's why the transforms like image boost, focus score, etc only work in preview. This is something I'd like to fix in a future version at some point, and I have some ideas about, but haven't got around to yet.

Interestingly, the Basler cameras (like the ace) do exactly the thing you are suggesting already - you just pop them on 'auto exposure' and 'auto gain' and they will adjust both continuously to keep a target average gray level across the image. You can even set the gray level that you are targeting, although SharpCap doesn't currently show this control in the UI.

One possibility for now would be to use AviStack to automatically drop the cloud affected frames during processing - it has a feature that lets you select a brightness threshold and bin all frames that fall below that - see my AviStack tutorial here :

Large display? Yes, good point - I am already planning a revamp to the UI for v1.5 that will bring in an Office 2007 style ribbon instead of a menu/toolbar arrangement. This will give bigger, easier to hit, buttons for start capture, etc. I will think about how to make the status bar info larger at the same time.

cheers,

Robin

[cds33]

Hello there,

Firstly can I say thanks for creating a great utility!! I'm using it all the time for my imaging and its great!

I recently purchased a Skywatcher autofucser and the FCUSB device ftom shoestring. When I try and fire it up in sharpcap it comes up saying cannot create the focuser FCUSB.Focuser because: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

I don't suppose you could point me in the right direction for a fix could you?

Thanks again

Chris

[rwg]

Hi Chris,

get it to happen again, then bring up the SharpCap log window (Help->Show Log). Copy all the text shown in the log window and send it to me via a PM. It might have more info inside it which would let me work out what's going on.

cheers,

Robin

[JamesF]

wxastrocapture has a "reset camera to factory defaults" option which, as i understand it, resets all the camera settings to their pre-programmed values.

Is there any way to do that in sharpcap? If there isn't, would running wxastrocapture, doing the reset and then running sharpcap achieve the same ends?

Thanks,

James

[rwg]

Hi James,

There isn't currently a feature like this in sharpcap. The best you can do is to save the default state of the camera as a capture profile and then reload that when needed.

Robin

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

[valy]

Hello Robin,

I have two suggestions (sorry if it is implemented or was discussed previously but I didn't see it):

- live histogram

- live focus

Histogram is simple I will not explain how it works.

Live focus is a little bit strange but also simple: like in P&S focus based on contrast. I've made some time ago a "prototype" for auto-focus system but it remains only a software, I did not continue the project with hardware part. Here is something to explain that:

bottom right graph.

Is about contrast measuring in real time. Contrast is defined as difference (in luminance) between two neighbor pixels. Add these differences at image level and you have an number. This number increases when the image become sharper (sharp = bigger difference between pixels). This gives an objective indication about the focus if, in dark, you can view the image or you can't judge the focus (winds blow you eyes, cant' see if the image is sharp or not).

Again, sorry if was discussed already.

Thanks.

LE: ups, my bad

Useful preview transforms - these preprocess each frame of the image when previewing:

• Focus score (measures image sharpness to help focusing)
  
• Histogram
  

[rwg]

Glad you found it in the end

The focus score doesn't work terribly well - I keep meaning to spend some more time on it to try to improve it, I expect I would be best with two separate options, one for stars and one for planets/surfaces.

The current algorithm should work best for stars as it measures the fraction of the image that is dark on the basis that the smaller the stars are, the sharper the focus and the bigger fraction of the image is dark.

I had a contrast based version pretty similar to the one you defined to begin with, but the trouble is that it is actually very sensitive to noise (which gives you contrast between adjacent pixels).

Robin

[MattB]

Hi there,

I'm having a bit of an issue.

I installed the software from MS for the Lifecam Cinema, then plugged in the device and it works fine in the MS Software.

When I try to view it in Sharpcap I get a black preview and a "Error getting frame count information" message on the status bar.

If I try to change the capture mode or resolution I get a second black preview appear in a seperate window and if I try to change it again the application crashes with an out of memory error.

Have I done anything obviously wrong here?

Thanks,

-Matt

Edit: What the.... it's suddenly showing a preview, but still complains about the frame count and still has a second preview window... will try recording.

[rwg]

Nothing sounds obviously wrong, but do make sure you haven't got the microsoft software open too. In fact I uninstall the microsoft lifecam software since it seems to do nothing very useful - maybe that will help?

cheers,

Robin

[MattB]

Hi Robin, thanks for the advice, I will likely do the same!

Sharpcap seems to be fine now, not sure what the problem was, I plugged the camera into a different USB port *shrug*

Anyhoo, video capture is fine so I look forward to modding the cam and trying it out!

Cheers!

-Matt

[astrovale]

Hello,

I just installed a Basler Ace GigE camera (1300/30). I have a few questions:

1) how do I select 8 or 12 bit imaging? I guess it is in the color space menu, but which one is the 12bit? I tried by checking the histogram to see if the reading would change from 255 to 4096, but it doesn't.

2) When I connect the Ace 1300 I get a very "poor" video control panel, where I have only color space, framerate and resolution as possible settings. But if I connect a stupid laptop on-board webcam I get all sorts of controls (contrast, brightness, etc.). Not that I need most of them, but contrast is useful to tweak when focusing, so why don't I get the same options with the Basler?

Thanks

Luca

[riklaunim]

If you want more advanced Ace support use FireCapture (or Genica).

[astrovale]

If you want more advanced Ace support use FireCapture (or Genica).

Yes, I agree, but firecapture is much worse as a GUI and also lets me capture at most at 15fps while sharpcap seems much faster and genika even more (but I wanted to wait before I spend 50€ for something I may have for free). I find firecapture controls very uncomfortable and its zoom feature even more so.

Thanks for you help, but I was wondering why there are so many controls for a lame webcam and not for a camera such as the balser!

Luca

[riklaunim]

FireCapture is quite a standard in terms of planetary/solar system GUI. If that's bad for you then you don't have much choice . Genika on the other hand is optimised for fast 12-bit data transfer, which isn't easy (but it's not free). 12-bit imaging is good for (H-alpha) solar imaging, and in some cases for lunary imaging. For planetary no real difference. Plus your laptop (HDD) must be capable to handle such load (my one can do 1/4" full frame 8-bit at max ~90FPS).

SharpCap uses in general more generic API for the cameras so you have less features. Did you also checked what option you get in the LX mode (which uses Ace API more directly)?

And what zoom feature are you talking about? Those cameras have no zoom by them selves. There is Region of Interest/Area of Interest - AOI/ROI and binning. Bin 1 with ROI will give you something like a "zoom" effect from webcams, and you can set any size for the ROI in FC, and something similar in Genica.

[astrovale]

FireCapture is quite a standard in terms of planetary/solar system GUI. If that's bad for you then you don't have much choice . Genika on the other hand is optimised for fast 12-bit data transfer, which isn't easy (but it's not free). 12-bit imaging is good for (H-alpha) solar imaging, and in some cases for lunary imaging. For planetary no real difference. Plus your laptop (HDD) must be capable to handle such load (my one can do 1/4" full frame 8-bit at max ~90FPS).

SharpCap uses in general more generic API for the cameras so you have less features. Did you also checked what option you get in the LX mode (which uses Ace API more directly)?

And what zoom feature are you talking about? Those cameras have no zoom by them selves. There is Region of Interest/Area of Interest - AOI/ROI and binning. Bin 1 with ROI will give you something like a "zoom" effect from webcams, and you can set any size for the ROI in FC, and something similar in Genica.

I mostly do solar imaging (Gianluca Valentini is my website) and I use ONLY the 12bit mode with my Lumenera and Lucam Recorder.

I will try the LX to see if I get more features. Genika seems the best solution, but I also have Streampix and I will probably try to use that (although it has some problems too with the Ace) before spending more money for Genika which is certainly less powerful than Streampix (but much more user friendly).

The zoom feature I talk about is not a camera feature, but a software feature: you just reduce the size of the acquisition window without reducing how much you see of what you are capturing. I work with a small laptop (but very powerful) and I cannot fit the whole image in my screen. If youopen firecapture and reduce the size of the acquisition window, you'll see that on the top left side the zoom level will appear: that is waht I mean;)

Ciao

Luca

[astrovale]

I got it!! I'm using the GeniCam option in the camera menu. Now the problem is that I cannot find the full Basler support!

The option for the full support is not there! All I get is the Basler GeniCam camera!!!!!

Where is it??

Luca

[astrovale]

I found also why it was not displaying the basler camera: I did not install the .net runtime component. Now it all works!!

Luca

[rwg]

Hi Luca,

Glad you sorted it out - as you found out the Genicam option is a bit rubbish - Basler have made the cameras available in this way via DirectShow, but didn't make many of the controls available.

Now you've got the proper Basler capture driver running you should have control over all the important stuff for the camera. Sharpcap doesn't show some of the weirder options for the Basler cameras, but the selection you get should usually be sufficient.

As you might notice, the histogram is 8 bit only - when you run in 12 bit mode it is applied to the reduced bit depth version of the image that is used for preview display.

Finally, the zoom function in Sharpcap should work fine for Basler cameras for both zooming in and out.

Robin