Messages

106

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Chronos 1.4 Footage Thread

« on: January 01, 2018, 11:34:54 PM »

Looking at a Phonograph stylus under a microscope lens, and a discussion on the challenges of getting these shots:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYE67fVny4c

107

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta

« on: January 01, 2018, 11:20:30 PM »

We've experienced the same issue over the Christmas break, with the camera saying there's no free space when there clearly is enough. We'll be fixing that first thing when we go back to work tomorrow. I'll post here when we have a fix.

108

Chronos User Discussion / Re: How to achieve fastest save times.

« on: January 01, 2018, 05:00:23 AM »

Will the USB speed increase as well as eSATA?

Somewhat, but not as much as SATA. It would max out around the same speed as you get from your PC to the drive, perhaps 30-40MB/s

109

Chronos User Discussion / Re: How to achieve fastest save times.

« on: December 28, 2017, 12:39:35 PM »

You're correct, on 0.2.3 beta you'll get about 35MB/s max. This is limited by code provided by the CPU vendor TI, we'll be working on speeding it up, but Etherent is priority right now for development. It should be possible to get much faster save speeds, perhaps up to 200-250MB/s over eSATA, once things are optimized.

110

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 27, 2017, 09:58:17 PM »

Code deep dive is up next. Need to figure out how to grab the preview video data and push that via Ethernet so I can view it on a PC and control the camera from there.

Once it's working I will be happy to show what I have and share if anybody is interested.   

We're also working on this, in fact pretty much all our effort now is devoted to getting Ethernet remote control and video download working. It's a very nontrivial task to just get the video into a RAM buffer, which is one of the reasons why it's taking so long.

The video system is built on a framework called OpenMax (OMX). Most of OMX is run internally by a separate M3 core in the CPU. This runs a binary blob provided by TI, the source is available from TI under an NDA, ask for the "DM8148 EZSDK Overlay Package". This handles pretty much everything related to video input, processing, and output to the display. There's another M3 running a different binary blob which operates the H264 encoder. We've modified the former M3 code somewhat to add features like the video save throttling.

In the camApp, OMX is used directly for live display, and saving is done using gstreamer. Internally, gstreamer uses OMX as OMX is the only way to do anything with the hardware accelerated video pipeline. There is currently a problem with the gstreamer component that allows you to get frames into a RAM buffer, foobar or Loial could comment further, but we believe that the component that provides RAM buffers doesn't properly handle shutting down the pipeline, which crashes the M3. This issue needs to be solved before we can get RAW saving over Etherent working.

gstreamer currently supports streaming compressed video via RTSP, if you just want live display that should be significantly easier than getting RAW.

Take a look at videoRecord.c to see how the gstreamer pipeline is set up. There's also a way to run gstreamer pipelines from the command line, Loial has some examples of doing this.

111

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 27, 2017, 03:37:07 PM »

Try removing the Check for Free Space before deployment, I recall that not working. See screenshot of my Run configuration, see if yours is the same.

112

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 24, 2017, 12:17:52 PM »

I have those files in mine, we did change the SD card image after serial number 00049, I believe those older cameras may not have the include files on them. I've attached a tar with all the includes, extract it to /targetfs/usr/

Let me know if this works.

113

Software Dev / Re: Access OS card with Windows PC?

« on: December 24, 2017, 12:40:51 AM »

Thanks David, EXT3 was the keyword I needed! After a quick search I found a program called Paragon ExtFS for Windows which allowed me to access the partition and open the resolution file in Windows 7. Thanks again!

Perfect! Do note that there's a bug where the cam app will crash if you put a horizontal resolution below 640 pixels in the resolutions file, it's probably a simple bug but we havn't gotten around to squashing it yet. 640 and up works fine. Also, havn't tested what it will do if you put in an invalid resolution.

What other company gives customers this level of service? None that I can think of.

Thanks! I strive to give the service I would like to receive, and rarely do, from other companies.

114

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 23, 2017, 10:29:10 PM »

Did you copy from the Linux EXT3 partition? I can make up a tar with the entire filesystem on it if needed.

115

Software Dev / Re: Access OS card with Windows PC?

« on: December 23, 2017, 10:25:51 PM »

There are two partitions, a FAT32 for boot and an EXT3 for the Linux OS. You need to access the card from a Linux system to see the second.

Edit: See post below, there are solutions for accessing the Linux partition from Windows.

116

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 23, 2017, 11:51:46 AM »

Thank you.
QT builds fine now and I can connect to the camera via SSH.
Next obstacle.
When trying to build the Camera app in QT creator I get an error in video.h originating from line 42 where OMX_Types.h is included.
I can't find the file so I assume that is a legitimate error and not the usual path problem.

You've copied the contents of the boot MicroSD card to the targetfs folder, right? There are some header files in there that are needed. Also, what OS are you using as your build host?

117

Software Dev / Re: WB kelvin temp selection feature request

« on: December 23, 2017, 01:34:52 AM »

After Ethernet is done, one of the next updates will be revamping the color processing and white balance settings. You'll be able to select your illuminant spectrum (daylight, LED, etc) and it will white balance based on that. Also in the cards is automatic detection of a Color Checker test card to determine the proper color correction matrix for white balance.

118

Software Dev / Re: Software V0.3 Beta

« on: December 23, 2017, 01:31:51 AM »

So what does the "Partial Ethernet" mean in the change log?

That just means you can connect the camera to a network, and with some scripts, you can scp saved videos over the network to a remote server. Far from full Ethernet control but it's something for now.

119

Software Dev / Re: Chronos Cam App open source build discussion

« on: December 23, 2017, 01:21:09 AM »

Running the script conf.sh to setup the QT build generates an error. I tried to Google it, seems lots of people have fallen i this trap but failed to find a solution. I am sure it's fixable but also guess it will take a lot of time. Any chance you could update the readme with the steps required to build tslib for the Chronos apps processor or maybe even include the necessary files in the target rootfs so we don't have to build it.
The error ...
"The tslib functionality test failed!
 You might need to modify the include and library search paths by editing
 QMAKE_INCDIR and QMAKE_LIBDIR in
 /home/davor/work/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.7/mkspecs/qws/linux-omap2-g++.
"     

I knew there was a step missing from the instructions! You need to put tslib.h in /usr/include in your targetfs directory. Using the paths shown in the instructions, that would be ~/Work/chronos-sdk/targetfs/usr/include. We forgot to include that on the filesystem shipped with the camera.

File is attached.

Hooking up the mini USB to a Linux machine to get an ETH interface works fine. The camera responds to ping.
But
"You can then log into the camera using root/<no password>"
user=root, password=<nothing just press enter>
Generates an "Access denied" response.

I am using Putty as my terminal program.

The camera uses an old version of SSH, and only supports a deprecated (insecure) key exchange algorithm. You need to use the following command to connect to the camera with SSH from modern systems:

ssh -oKexAlgorithms=+diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 [email protected]

120

Chronos User Discussion / Re: Recording Under IR illumination?

« on: December 20, 2017, 01:10:22 PM »

The camera will work under infrared, as BiduleOhm said, if you remove the IR filter. This is shown in the manual, and is quite simple.

The spectral response is also shown at the end of the manual.

David