KronTalk
Chronos => Software Dev => Topic started by: DDR on July 31, 2018, 05:35:13 PM
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What is happening with the Chronos' software? What is in the works, and when will it be available?
Keeping in mind "The best laid plans of mice and men will often go awry", here's what we have planned:
- 0.3.1 (expected late August)
- Improved image demosaic for .mp4 (less colour-fringing around high contrast areas)
- Overlay frame number on video.
- Save .dng for raw video.
- HDMI port supports video out.
- Basic remote video control. (play, pause, seek)
- Save more than 45 videos.
- Possible raw video save speed increase.
- Additional minor bugfixes and tweaks.
- 0.3.x (expected mid-September)
- Power controls (turn on when connected to power, turn off when not)
- Basic overlay controls. Maybe.
- 0.4.0 (expected late October)
- Debian replaces Arago as the camera operating system.
- Python is available to script the camera.
- External HTTP API available for custom scripting. (may be delayed)
- Internal D-Bus API available for custom scripting. (may be delayed)
- UI is ported to Python, prettied up (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=135.0), and made to use the D-Bus API.
- 0.4.1
- Bugfix release for 0.4.0.
- APIs, if delayed.
- 0.5.0
- Remote control app, using the HTTP API.
Behind the scenes, the main delay is that we've discovered that it's impractical to continue development using our current operating system, Arago Linux. It lacks some basics such a C compiler, a scripting language, and several basic Linux debugging utilities. Arago's video subsystem also crashes after saving 45 videos.
For example, developing the back-of-camera user interface using Arago entails a ~5-minute delay between making a change and seeing the change in the UI. Using Debian, changes made to the UI are live in seconds.
We've been working on getting Debian running, on and off, for the past year. However, a few months ago a combination of near-success and issues with Arago's video system meant we decided to officially devote engineering time to the problem. This, naturally, delayed the progress we were making on the internal D-Bus API for 0.4.0, because now we were working on something else.
Currently, from my user-interface-centric perspective, here is how our progress is looking for version 0.4.0. The new UI and APIs will be debuted when this is complete.
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=316;image)
tap for full resolution ↗️ (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=316;image)
Green means "completed", yellow is "in progress". Arrows show what depends on what. For example, the final implementation on the right depends on the D-Bus API, which has had the video control component made, and the D-Bus API Mock, which is currently being developed. Implementation is done by adding behaviour to a laid-out UI (labelled "Shell & Nav"), which I sketch up in Designer as a separate step. Each screen can be done more or less independently.
I hope this helps clear things up. I'll try to keep this thread updated as things progress. One of the big reasons we don't like to announce things is that they frequently turn out to simply be untrue. For example, we thought we'd fixed raw save speed, but then it turned out we hadn't a few times. We really don't want to promise something we won't deliver on, so we keep to ourselves quite frequently. What are your thoughts on this?
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Thanks a lot for publishing the Roadmap for the Software.
Only Question left for me is:
Is the HDR-Mode still planed to be added to the Chronos?
Can´t find it on the List.
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It is a thing that we would like to play with in the future, after 0.5. There's a handful of stuff like that we'd like to do at some point.
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You guys are awesome for your continuing development work and I am super excited to hear that you picked Debian as your next os (completely unbiased Debian user here). I continue to flog the Chronos every chance I get to potential buyers.
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Awesome!
Now whe have even more to look forward too. It's also very nice to have a rough idea what you guys are working on istead of having to pry every little bit of info out of you ;)
If I hadn't already, I would go and throw some piles of money at you... ;)
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Thanks for the road map, very useful. When it comes to the "basic remote control", will that be via Ethernet and an app you will provide?
Will the initial implementation of that effectively allow us to use the Chronos 'tethered', so we can effectively start, stop, save, play clips and see the camera's live output remotely on a laptop?
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That is an excellent run-down of upcoming releases. The De-mosaic improvement in H.264 and HDMI out are things that will make the camera workflow improve greatly.
One feature I would love to see implemented is having shutter speed (EXPOSURE) in 1/60 1/100 1/500 1/1000 1/XXX instead of it being in Micro Seconds (us) as an option. For camera operators, it would be a big deal to be able to match shutter speeds with other cameras without doing time-consuming conversions. :-X
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When it comes to the "basic remote control", will that be via Ethernet and an app you will provide?
Will the initial implementation of that effectively allow us to use the Chronos 'tethered', so we can effectively start, stop, save, play clips and see the camera's live output remotely on a laptop?
Yes. The initial version of the basic remote control will be via Ethernet. Visiting the camera's network address from a laptop or cellphone will bring up a basic web-based UI. It will support start/stop/save and live video display. It should support playback of saved files as well. You may make your own HTTP API calls as well if you want to write scripts to control the camera.
If we can find a wireless USB dongle for sale that is supported by Debian 7, then wireless remote control will work as well. We haven't found a compatible dongle yet, the ones which do work are no longer for sale. However, something may yet turn up.
One feature I would love to see implemented is having shutter speed (EXPOSURE) in 1/60 1/100 1/500 1/1000 1/XXX instead of it being in Micro Seconds (us) as an option.
… That is an excellent suggestion. I've added it to the mockup for the new UI, so it should make it into 0.4.0.
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Small update - after about a month of work, we've got all our core requirements compiling for our hardware architecture. This vastly increases certainty that my last three months of work will actually... work. :D
Next step is to see if this can be copied to the camera and run. Will it pick up and use the Framebuffer?
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If we can find a wireless USB dongle for sale that is supported by Debian 7, then wireless remote control will work as well. We haven't found a compatible dongle yet, the ones which do work are no longer for sale. However, something may yet turn up.
You might look into the "Netgear N150 Wireless Adapter (WNA1100)" This one is reccomendend for the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Brick. It should run on any more or less modern Distro.
I have this dongle and am willing to test with debian 7 on a laptop for you.
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ooo, if you could do that, that would be great. It would be great to have one known option, regardless of what happens. :)
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ok I now did the following:
Nuked my beloved ARCH installation and got Debian 7.11 working, which was surprisingly difficult.
While installing I was browsing around and found some interesting sites:
here compatible adapters are still for sale:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog/wireless-networking-gnulinux
and here you'll find a link to a huge number of WLAN adapters and their compatibility
http://linux-wless.passys.nl/query_alles.php
I then managed to get the USB dongle to work, which required the "Non-free" Debian repos to be enabled and the installation of the "firmware-realtek" package. This had me confused for a while because the aforementioned website lists the chipset as Atheros and I was fooling around with the "firmware-atheros" package for way too long.
Also my laptop has an interal WiFi adapter, which I disabled using a hardware switch so I'm pretty sure I'm using the USB dongle instead.
TL,DR: The Netgear one works with some non-free packages.
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This looks like a gold mine! We'll have to see what's available in quantity, but it all looks very promising. :D
Thank you, NiNeff!
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Oh -- if anyone's curious about the gritty details, the UI is open-source. There's a commit log up at https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/commits/master, for example. :)
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… That is an excellent suggestion. I've added it to the mockup for the new UI, so it should make it into 0.4.0.
Thank you DDR, that is a big deal in my case!
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Work on the shell and nav section continues; work on the main screen continues.
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great to see it coming along!
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very exited to see the HDMI out coming, this really will change the camera for me, i can see!!!!
also the dng raw saving and improve debayer sounds great, now just need to find a working flash drive to update the patch
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I'm very interested in this UI project. Any instruction to compile and deploy the application?
Any news for software 0.3.1?
thx
Oh -- if anyone's curious about the gritty details, the UI is open-source. There's a commit log up at https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/commits/master, for example. :)
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Hi Sam!
Instructions for compiling the UI on the camera are up at https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/util/chronos%20debian%20setup%20instructions.txt (https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/util/chronos%20debian%20setup%20instructions.txt). However, they assume you have a camera running Debian 7. Only our development cameras run Debian 7 at the moment, since we haven't done little things like got the camera image sensor working yet. (The 0.3.1 release is based on Arago Linux instead of Debian for this reason.) However, you can - and I am - running the new UI in a Debian 7 VM. I do have instructions (https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/dev%20vm%20setup%20instructions.txt) for setting up the VM using VirtualBox, but they're really not very nice and I think you're much better off following the nicer camera instructions linked at the top.
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As for the software, I have just finished the first real implementation of one of the screens. It's wired into the mock API for now, until we develop the real one. (I haven't implemented the real API yet, because there are several people here who could reasonably implement it, and I'm the only UI person we have, and I'm really hoping to fob it off on one of them. ;) The drivers are *almost* ready for it though! We're so close!)
As an update to the previous progress chart:
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=348)
While it may be removed, a tentative motion trigger screen has been planned. This is not an official acknowledgement that such a thing will ever be made, of course - the UI plan I have will probably grow a number of things which will never be, but which I should at least leave some space for in case they do get added. The act of UI design is overly optimistic in that sense.
The Record Settings shell has been wired into the API. This is a fairly complex page, so it's been a good testing ground for the wiring process. It appears to be a verbose and somewhat error-prone process, without particularly good control over the flow of data. However, it works, and optimistically it appears each page will take about 2-3 days to put together at this point. Perhaps the whole thing will be wired into the real API by the end of October. :-\
I also made the About & Kickstarter page reflect actual camera data, rather than just my placeholders. So that's good, and it counts as done as well although it's not particularly newsworthy. :)
I've attached the full roadmap picture below as well.
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Is there any news about the 3.1 update? See that it was scheduled for late August :')
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hi DDR
thanks for your reply.
Now we have a camera with Arogo linux running on it. Do you mean now it's NOT able to run the GUI app @ https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2 on our camera? But it's able to run at Debian 7 Vm on a computer?
Thx
Hi Sam!
Instructions for compiling the UI on the camera are up at https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/util/chronos%20debian%20setup%20instructions.txt (https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/util/chronos%20debian%20setup%20instructions.txt). However, they assume you have a camera running Debian 7. Only our development cameras run Debian 7 at the moment, since we haven't done little things like got the camera image sensor working yet. (The 0.3.1 release is based on Arago Linux instead of Debian for this reason.) However, you can - and I am - running the new UI in a Debian 7 VM. I do have instructions (https://github.com/krontech/chronos-gui-2/blob/master/dev%20vm%20setup%20instructions.txt) for setting up the VM using VirtualBox, but they're really not very nice and I think you're much better off following the nicer camera instructions linked at the top.
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As for the software, I have just finished the first real implementation of one of the screens. It's wired into the mock API for now, until we develop the real one. (I haven't implemented the real API yet, because there are several people here who could reasonably implement it, and I'm the only UI person we have, and I'm really hoping to fob it off on one of them. ;) The drivers are *almost* ready for it though! We're so close!)
As an update to the previous progress chart:
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=348)
While it may be removed, a tentative motion trigger screen has been planned. This is not an official acknowledgement that such a thing will ever be made, of course - the UI plan I have will probably grow a number of things which will never be, but which I should at least leave some space for in case they do get added. The act of UI design is overly optimistic in that sense.
The Record Settings shell has been wired into the API. This is a fairly complex page, so it's been a good testing ground for the wiring process. It appears to be a verbose and somewhat error-prone process, without particularly good control over the flow of data. However, it works, and optimistically it appears each page will take about 2-3 days to put together at this point. Perhaps the whole thing will be wired into the real API by the end of October. :-\
I also made the About & Kickstarter page reflect actual camera data, rather than just my placeholders. So that's good, and it counts as done as well although it's not particularly newsworthy. :)
I've attached the full roadmap picture below as well.
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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.
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Oh, got Implementation (Front-End) → Power in today! Took me a day or two to figure out how to draw the graph, and I'm still not 100% happy with it. I'll fix it later, though. It's more important to get it working right - and in your hands - than it is to get the colours correct.
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How is it the 0.3.1 version going? Gonna release it anytime soon?
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Where does onboard Cinema DNG Raw recording fit into this schedule?
Might be interesting to look at the new BlackMagic Raw format as a next-tier / next gen codec option.
thanks!
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For several of the applications I would like to use my new Cronos 1.4 it would be really beneficial to have the ability to use the "Run-n-Gun" and the "Normal + Continuous" recording modes mentioned in the User Manual. I didn't see any express mention of them in the Software Roadmap and was curious as to when we might see that feature added to a software update?
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For several of the applications I would like to use my new Cronos 1.4 it would be really beneficial to have the ability to use the "Run-n-Gun" and the "Normal + Continuous" recording modes mentioned in the User Manual. I didn't see any express mention of them in the Software Roadmap and was curious as to when we might see that feature added to a software update?
Unfortunately we don't have a timeline for this right now. Those two modes require the use of dual video ports on the camera's CPU (one for live view, one for saving). We've come to find out that Texas Instruments built in no support for this in their software, even though the hardware has two fully functional video ports. Getting the second port running is a very large amount of effort, and is lower on the priority list compared to major, commonly requested features like Ethernet remote control, image quality improvements, and HDMI.
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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!
Where does onboard Cinema DNG Raw recording fit into this schedule?
Might be interesting to look at the new BlackMagic Raw format as a next-tier / next gen codec option.
thanks!
CinemaDNG Raw recording should be in today or tomorrow, with the new release.
If I recall correctly, I think BlackMagic Raw is off the table for now. I think we can't record it without giving someone a rather large pile of cash.
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Great! look forward to it.
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0.3.1 still not out……
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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 :)
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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. 😜
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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.
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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
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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. :-\
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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.
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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.)
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=397;image) (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=395)
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. :D)
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.
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Great. Thanks for your extensive reply. Look forward to the next version.
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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 ?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...)
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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.)
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Hey DDR,
Great to hear you guys are close, we're a month further and sorry to bother again but we have a deadline for an expensive project where we really need this feature (we don't want to open the camera and solder a switch to the pcb, I think it kinda voids the warranty) ;D
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Hi Thomas. As it stands, @skronstein (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=profile;u=236) is working on a test plan for verification of 0.3.x. So that should be coming in a few weeks, once we've actually checked it does what we say it does. @tesla500 (http://index.php?action=profile;u=2) is working on an improved version of the power-down feature for your use. A more configurable version will be released with the new UI, on the power screen. I myself am busy with 0.5.x UI, which will be served by the API Johan is working on for 0.4.x. (We've experienced difficulty extracting the sensor initialization logic from the old camApp code.)
I hope that helps explain what we've been working on. There haven't been any major milestones to announce, so I'm afraid we've been pretty quiet.
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I see lots of work behind the scenes. I was wondering if we could save Black Cal profiles that can be recalled instead of waiting for the camera to warm up and calibrate several times to reduce the vertical banding every use. To get to a pretty clean image it takes me about 26min and 4-5 black cals. Thanks DDR!
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Hi JamesB.
I've asked around, and the backend guys have told me that saving/restoring black cal images would be "very hard". I'd like to see that feature myself — I've had a lot of difficulty around changing temperature and black cal — so I'm still going to push for it.
There was some unrelated work done to improve the vertical banding problem, however. It should land in either the next 0.3.x beta or 0.4.x, and should help that issue quite a bit. :D
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Glad to know the banding is being improved, thanks for the heads up! :)
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Well, it's been a while since I updated what was going on behind the scenes here. While we've all been working hard, it's been a lot of behind-the-scenes sort of stuff. Nothing very showy, really.
So, some background is in order.
We decided about a year ago that we did not want to keep using the original version of the software, camApp, which ships with the camera and is updated via the betas on this forum (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=423.0). One of the main reasons for this is that we wanted a web api and remote control app. Embedding a web server in original camApp was impractical. An external web server could not reasonably be hacked together with the tools available¹. Some infrastructure needed to be built.
So, Foobar (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=profile;u=145) ported a newer linux kernel to our CPU, and we got access to much better tools. Porting a linux kernel is generally not considered a one-man job, so it took him a few months. During this time, I put together a virtual machine to develop the new UI (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=135.0), called gui2, on. After I'd completed that, Foobar promptly delivered an early version of the new linux to me. While it lacked drivers for all the camera-y parts, I was able to get a modern tech stack up and running and I used this to develop the app for the next half-year.
As this progressed, it became apparent that the tech stack I'd compiled was not one that we could safely upgrade and maintain. Foobar completed his port of the linux kernel, giving us Debian 8 as the underlying operating system, and we decided to backport the infrastructure I was using from Debian 9. This was completed, but we were still several versions behind what I'd developed the new UI on. I am currently finishing porting everything from my new tech stack to the older, maintainable versions of the tech we had. While a few bugs remain, I got the app running in it's entirety, on it's final tech stack, this afternoon.
Near the beginning of all this, Johan was hired to extract the startup logic from the current camApp. (I was hired to do the mobile app promised in the Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1714585446/chronos-14-high-speed-camera), which was deferred due to the technical issues mentioned above, so I wound up extracting the graphical user interface from the camApp.) Extracting the startup logic to initialize the sensor proved to be quite difficult. This was completed this morning, and the camera can now start and show the new UI entirely without having to run the current camApp!
The camera can now also run a nascent HTTP API, which plays well with the new UI. If you update a value via the API, the new value is reflected in the UI running on the camera. However, both the new UI and the alpha HTTP API are still largely disconnected from the hardware of the camera. They are running against dummy values. Since Johan has managed to bring up the camera, he is now implementing the dummy values so the HTTP API and the new UI can actually make changes to the camera. Some tasks are expected to be easy to tell the camera to do, while others will require a bit more work. This implementation is represented by box ❶ in the last progress chart posted in this thread (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=234.msg2186#msg2186)³.
While all this has been going on, Loial has been making significant improvements to the firmware of the camera's FPGA. This has been appearing in the forum betas. We are currently in the midst of working on a testing plan for the next beta, since we'd like it to actually work this time. Unfortunately, there turns out to be quite a lot to our software, so while skronstein (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=profile;u=236) has been working on the testing plan it is still a work in progress. I myself may be pulled aside for a few days to complete that, so we can test and release next beta here. 🙂
If you'd like to talk to us in person and see some cool stuff, we'll be at NAB (https://www.nabshow.com/). It's April 6th through 11th in Las Vegas, though we'll be around a few days longer for setup and teardown.
¹ These tools were Ash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almquist_shell#Embedded_Linux)² scripts being called via CGI.
² Ash is like Bash, but awful.
³ There has been no real progress on the chart (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?topic=234.msg2186#msg2186) since then since both Johan and myself have been been dealing with the underlying work of making our respective technologies run. Since this work was unforseen and unpredictable, it was uncharted.
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Thanks for the update.
I am excited to see hear the HTTP API is coming along, you guys are doing awesome work!
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Wow nobody said it was easy, lots of work behind the scenes. Thanks for sharing your progress and process to get there!
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Any updates?
It's March of 2019...
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Any updates?
No. >_<
This is quite frustrating all around, I think.
Most of the company has been pulled off into NAB (https://www.nabshow.com/) prep. Since it's at the end of this month and we are not strictly speaking ready, that has been where the attention has been.
I myself have been splitting my time between NAB work and writing the documentation for the HTTP API. The documentation is nearing completion, the API is not. To that end, I'm going to announce the dummy API soon, in the hope of gathering some useful feedback. Most APIs are terrible, and I would like this one to be the exception. The real API will be available two or three months after NAB, hopefully. :-\
Actually testing the next beta of the current software is almost done too, thanks to skronstein (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=profile;u=236)'s efforts. :) We hope to issue a release soon. One of the issues testing has turned up that we didn't know about is that we broke white balance at some point. It now makes whites less balanced instead of more balanced.
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=426)
I think the idea of the testing is that we will be able to release new betas without delaying for any new features or bugfixes, since we will know what is wrong. However, perfectionism dies hard. I will do what I can to make sure the release does happen, even with caveats such as broken white balance.
Sorry for the delays. :-[
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Glad to hear you guys are still plugging along, each update and rc has made the camera more enjoyable to use. Good luck at NAB!
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Well, we're back from NAB with the Chronos 2 and the bullet-time Ring announced and successfully demoed! We're turning our attention to the camera control APIs now.
Good news/bad news: The good news is that there's actually some serious progress being made on the API - it has basic working control of the cameras, can set resolution, and take and save recordings. The bad news is that it's not the original API I had designed when I made the new UI, since the new API was developed as part of the Ring project.
Here's the current status of the API and UI:
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=456)
(click to enlarge) (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=456)
From left to right, we have:
- Shell & Nav: Complete, I've designed and imported all the planned screens into the new UI's code. This is still good to go.
- Implementation (Front-End): This is the back-of-camera interface redesign I've been working on. It makes the camera do stuff by telling the internal D-Bus API to do stuff.
- Implementation (D-Bus APIs, v2): Turns commands from the back-of-camera interface and the HTTP API into lower-level commands to the components of the camera, such as the field-programmable gate array or the image sensor.
Most of the screens' implementations have been demoted to being "in progress", since I need to go back and change the API calls being made in all the screens I had wired in. In some cases, this is simply a matter of using a new name. In other cases, such as the recording settings screen, the API works quite differently and the screen will have to be significantly reworked.
We're still aiming to release the initial version of the API in June, so you all can give us feedback and start automating your camera!
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Work continues. About half the stuff we need to expose via the API has been exposed, but the UI has been delayed as I've been busy trying to work out some nasty performance issues.
(http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=472)
(click to enlarge) (http://forum.krontech.ca/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=234.0;attach=472)