Software Roadmap - 0.3.1, 0.4.x, etc.

[edmond]

0.3.1 still not out……

[ThomasYiPP]

How is it the 0.3.1 version going? Gonna release it anytime soon?

Very soon. It's been in pre-release testing for a few days and nothing catastrophic has happened yet. We'll be able to release it today, with luck!

I guess something catastrophic happened...

It's great to see the progress on 4.x, thanks for keeping us in the loop with the nice roadmap

[DDR]

0.3.1 still not out……

There were... issues. 😒 In fact, there still are issues, but those will be fixed soon. Foobar's fixed a DNG import issue… as of 7 minutes ago now, we think. (It's still got to be tested though. From what I've heard around the office, it should be possible to imperfectly fix the DNG files recorded with the current beta. We haven't tried, though, so take this with a grain of salt.)

This sort of delay is why we try to avoid saying we'll do things. We're very wrong, very often, and it is never in the direction of "sooner". 😭

On that note, I myself am trying to get the jog wheel to work with *absolutely everything*. If I can get this working as I'd like, we'll be able to do stuff like use the camera with mittens on during cold weather.  I'm currently trying to figure out how to read from the FIFO file which reports jog wheel position, and then how to interpret that to a rotation, and how to get THAT into a reasonable event in the QT framework… and then I need to actually make the widgets behave correctly. It's a surprisingly long road, I've been at this particular task a few days now.

I miss the web. It would have been onscroll="whatever()" there. But of course, the web has other issues. 😜

[NiNeff]

I miss the web. It would have been onscroll="whatever()" there. But of course, the web has other issues. 😜

That's why an increasingly high number of devices just use HTML/CSS/JS for their UI and slap a basic webengine on there to display it. not as fast as natively coded ui's but allso much less hassle and the same tech on all platforms.

[Bernard Rousset]

Hello,

You are very efficient and it is very nice to see how the software is getting better and better. I have bought one black and white (in fact grey) camera for scientific purpose. I do not want to make pretty photos and at the end I use a threshold to obtain only two colors black and white to define particules I will track though the frames. One. Anyway at first I need raw data and one Of the issues is the number of frames inside one record and also the time to save it. I will be very pleased to check the raw cinepack option.
I also wonder if a recording and saving in 8 bits (corresponding to low light) could be an option in the future ?

Have a nice day (or night depending on which side of the sea you are...)
Bernard

[DDR]

I also wonder if a recording and saving in 8 bits (corresponding to low light) could be an option in the future ?

It is hurting saving all the nonessential data, isn't it? We do like the idea of saving at a reduced bit depth, but it would be a fairly far future thing if we did it. Unfortunately, there are several other things that need our attention first. Motion triggering, (most of the) text overlay, power control, etc.

That's why an increasingly high number of devices just use HTML/CSS/JS for their UI and slap a basic webengine on there to display it. not as fast as natively coded ui's but allso much less hassle and the same tech on all platforms.

I was considering that, actually, but rejected it for performance reasons. Even the new native app I'm working on is having trouble rendering at a decent framerate right now. It's usable, but it's not ~buttery smooth~ like the old one is. Since most of it isn't my code, and I haven't done anything obviously wrong, it seems like it's some combination of the new libraries, the upgraded framework, and the easier-to-touch styling.

[SamL]

HI DRR,
Can you please update the new release schedule for software 0.4 and 0.5. We are looking forward to using External HTTP API to integrate into your platform. thx.

[DDR]

Hi SamL. I'm not sure when the HTTP API will be released. However, for you and everyone else curious, an explanation is is order.

Here is a map of the tasks we're working on. (Click for larger version, or see attachment 1.)


Green = done
Yellow = in progress
White = not started

The blue circles denote areas we're actively working on. In order:

❶ One of our engineers, Johan, is implementing the underlying D-Bus API right now. The HTTP API (not pictured) will act as a wrapper for the D-Bus API, so as the timing works out, when the D-Bus API is done the HTTP API should be done as well. Johan has so far implemented reading the power controller for battery charge, and is currently porting reading/writing to our FPGA. Soon, we can do actual useful stuff with the API, but how soon is unknown. Johan hasn't done this before, and therefore can't produce an accurate estimate. I'm guessing it will take him at least few months to work through everything. Assuming we can get out some sort of gimped HTTP API built on that work, which won't run simultaneously with the touch-screen user interface on the camera, I would very roughly estimate "late January" for basic HTTP control. This should not include video streaming, but should include video download and basic file management.

❷ I am continuing work on the new back-of-camera user interface. I've spent the last two weeks working on one of the two great unknowns of the process, jog wheel input. The other great unknown, the software keyboards, I will start work on tomorrow. I don't know how long the software keyboards will take. They could take a few days, or they could take a few weeks. The jog wheel still needs roughly a week or two of work, as each widget needs its own behaviour implemented. (Menus are going to become a heck of a lot easier to select. )

❸ Foobar has effectively ported the current UI forward to our shiny new Debian-based operating system. This is a major milestone for us! It means we can abandon our old operating system, which was sucking up a lot of our time. It also means we can do a more piece-wise release of the new features as they're built out, so we may see useful parts of the HTTP API available well before the full HTTP API is finished.

[SamL]

Great. Thanks for your extensive reply. Look forward to the next version.

[hungkhungbo]

In the software update roadmap I do not see audio recordings for the video, what's going on? It looks like this feature will be available on version 1.0 ?

[DDR]

In the software update roadmap I do not see audio recordings for the video, what's going on? It looks like this feature will be available on version 1.0 ?

Audio will be one of the later features to be added. It should be in by 1.0.

[SamL]

HI DDR,
just wonder when and how we can get a real Debian OS and the chronos-gui-2 from  https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2
to run a real chrono camera?

thx
Sam

Hi, SamL. You are correct. The GUI app, chronos-gui-2, currently only runs on a computer. This will be fixed in version 0.4.x. (0.3.x is the latest currently released version.)

Currently, chronos-gui-2 does NOT have the ability to record video or play it back on our camera. It's a work in progress.

[DDR]

Hi, Sam. We could get the new UI and OS up and running as-is now, they just wouldn't be able to do anything. I think you'd find the old, C++-based camApp running on Debian to be much more useful. What do you want to do with the camera?

[edit]
We should have 0.4.0 by January. Possibly February if things go really badly.

[ThomasYiPP]

Hey DDR,

Will 0.3.x ever see the light of day?
Originally planned to be released mid-september... but 0.3.1 got released in November instead of late-August and with the idea 0.4.0 will be released in January.
It looks like either 0.3.1 will be skipped or January is very optimistic for 0.4.0 (given the track record...)

[DDR]

Will 0.3.x ever see the light of day?

We discovered last weekend, during testing here, that the internal candidate we had for release was outputting a solid green video and nothing else. This ultimately ended up being an upgrade script error, which we since fixed. The only thing we know of that's broken now is an off-by-one column gain error which Loial is currently working on fixing. Hopefully, if nothing else breaks, we should be able to release beta 0.3 in the next week or two. Fingers crossed.

We might still make the January release date for 0.4.0. 🤞 0.3.x has been a real pain in the neck, but we've continued work on 0.4.x as 0.3.x has been going through testing. We should have a release candidate out for 0.4.0 by Jan., at least. (This will probably include better sensor calibration, a better operating system, and however much of the HTTP API we have implemented by then.)