scan-manager -- python app for controlling tethered cameras

[og200]

Hi Fab,

Thanks for the detailed report.

What happens if you just shoot JPEG at Fine? Does it download the correct file then?

Having no EXIF isn't normal -- I'm assuming the D90 works differently to my D80 and is somehow sending back a stripped basic JPEG, a full Fine/Normal JPEG (with EXIF) and a RAW file, and that SM is somehow missing the middle JPEG. Can you send me some logs while you were shooting NEF+Fine so I can check what events the camera was sending back?

Re. the different settings for capture target and recording media: as you say, it looks like only capture target has an effect -- I don't know what the two different fields to (capture target is the one that us usually referred to in the gphoto2 forums). I don't know why it freezes when shooting to SD card but I'll try it on my D80 and see what it does.

[og200]

I've just put up v0.4.8.

Change log:

• FIXED [libgphoto2]: bug introduced in 0.4.7 that may have caused capture to freeze on some compact cameras
• ADDED [chdk]: testing wrapper for CHDK-supported cameras (tests live view capability only; only supported on reyalp-ptp-live branch CHDK builds)
• FIXED: corrected aspect ratio for thumbnails
• ADDED: better thumbnail list selection and lables for thumbnails

[Fab52]

Hi Og,

What happens if you just shoot JPEG at Fine? Does it download the correct file then?

No, it download Basic JPEG with no Exif, no matter the setting.

Can you send me some logs while you were shooting NEF+Fine so I can check what events the camera was sending back?

Pm send....

I will try the v.0.4.8 later on today.

Thanks for your work!!!!

Fab.

[Fab52]

Hi Og,

I test the SM v.0.4.8 this morning... PM you the log file of the test.

Fab

[og200]

I'm trying to decide what to do next on scan-manager. There are camera-specific bugs (e.g. the issue with D90 JPEG download) which I'll fix as soon as I can figure out what's causing them but here are some of the other things I've been thinking about doing:

• Camera UI customisation: select which camera controls you'd like to see on screen for each camera and organise them into your own tabs/groups
• Save/restore camera setup: the app should be able to remember what your camera settings were and save them (this involves a config screen so you can specify what to save and in what order)
• Faster processing: a pipeline for processing images that runs in multiple processes rather than just a single parallel thread
• Image viewer enhancements: grid lines, crop box, etc.
• CHDK: finishing off the CHDK wrapper (it doesn't do much yet) - this would be pretty fancy and allow you to attach your own CHDK scripts to custom buttons/dropdows/sliders in scan-manager; the problem here is that I worry that Canon compacts may be too slow, esp. with CHDK running its LUA scripts via PTP

Any opinions?

[daniel_reetz]

[*] Save/restore camera setup: the app should be able to remember what your camera settings were and save them (this involves a config screen so you can specify what to save and in what order)

Any opinions?

This one gets my vote. Once the camera is set up well, in theory it shouldn't have to be changed again. Having the capacity to spec that out would be great.

[og200]

Here is what I've been working on for the next release. I'm still trying to fix an issue with gphoto2 + some Nikon DSLRs but this release is mainly about the CHDK wrapper.

I have CHDK live view working and a handy CHDK interactive console so you can try out CHDK scripts and view the output and any errors.

ScanManager CHDK console

Because CHDK is such a moving target and the differences between cameras aren't very well documented, the CHDK backend is a sort of 'roll your own' backend. There's a configuration screen that lets build your own camera controls using CHDK scripts to determine what each control does, as well as customising your capture process. Here's a view of the configuration screen for this:

ScanManager CHDK configuration

screenshot2.jpg (74.27 KiB) Viewed 1462 times

I just need to add code to have ScanManager download and show the captured file and then I'll release 0.5.

[og200]

I've just uploaded v0.5 to the google code site.

There are a number of improvements/fixes. There's a new configuration screen which lets you do a few things: you can select any camera properties for the app to save on shutdown and restore on startup so you don't have to set the camera up each time. It also allows you to customise the controls that are available for your camera -- this lets you de-clutter the camera interface so you only get the controls you need. The main addition though is the CHDK wrapper:

CHDK backend
The CHDK code should be considered 'alpha' quality for now -- it may eat your images. The CHDK wrapper has live view support (if you use a reyalp-ptp build of CHDK) and it is very configurable -- you can customise the scripts/controls for this UI, e.g. add a dropdown for a particular setting or a button that sets things up on the camera the way you want before starting. I haven't yet integrated it with the main capture button in the app but if you have the camera shoot a photo using a button in the camera controls the app should find it when it is ready to download.

If you develop some useful CHDK scripts or controls you can export them from the configuration window -- that way they can be saved and shared around.

With CHDK downloading works in two ways: automatic (not recommended) scans the camera regularly for new images and downloads them as found -- this is not recommended because it tends to make shooting very slow. (The probelm with CHDK's PTP support is that it doesn't allow shooting to RAM -- you have to shoot to the card and download from there which takes >5secs.) The alternative is to just shoot to the card and use the 'Download new images' button when you're ready (this also DELETES existing images). As far as I can see this means the CHDK backend isn't going to be the ideal choice -- however, my cameras (A640s) are pretty slow all round and perhaps someone with a faster CHDK-supported camera can get better results.

For plain shooting (without immediate review of the images) the CHDK backend is fine of course and can be made to shoot very quickly using AF lock/manual focus.

Change log:

• ADDED: [chdk] major improvements in the CHDK backend (first fully functional version)
• ADDED: [general] configurable camera UIs and configurable save/restore of camera properties
• ADDED: configuration import/export (mainly to allow people to share their CHDK scripts/controls)

Remember to install your libusb-win32 drivers for your device if you're using the gphoto OR chdk backends!

[chrisgage]

The Canon API/SDK for the EOS series has the ultimate drawback ... you can only connect ONE camera at a time. This is a very clearly stated limitation in the source code samples, and is not circumventable except by having two PCS. I registered for this API for the explicit purpose of trying to write a dual camera syncing package. I am a retired software engineer and would be happy to work on this if this limitation were lifted, or if Canon would open-source the code so I could try to fix the limitation. I suspect the limitation is in the underlying USB driver and not in the Canon Camera control API itself.

Note that I have not tried any of the other APIs. I have a Digital Rebel XT which is the entry-level version of the EOS series.

[og200]

The Canon API/SDK for the EOS series has the ultimate drawback ... you can only connect ONE camera at a time.

That's pretty poor really, considering their old PS-ReC API (for older PowerShots) does seem to work with multiple cameras!

I'm mainly using an API based on libgphoto2. You can access multiple cameras at the same time and it should support Canon EOS DSLRs well. You can try the app or look at the code on the google code site or get in touch if you want to get involved.