Chronos V0.3.2 Beta - Updated June 25th 2019 with beta-6

[foobar]

In this release we are making changes to improve the camera's image quality by addressing the vertical banding issue that some users have reported and adding some new features to the power controller to make unattended operation of the camera a little easier.

Note that this update will affect your camera's factory calibration, you should back up your factory calibration before applying this update if case you have to revert back to v0.3.1 at a later time.

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Notable Changes:

• Automatic ADC calibration during black calibration, which should reduce column banding across a wider temperature range.
• Add a storage tab to the util menu to view, eject and format the attached storage devices.
• Speed boost at most resolutions, with a top speed of 1069fps at 1280x1024, and 40420fps at 320x96.
• Configurable automated power-on and off depending on the AC adaptor status.

Minutae:

• Factory black calibration is now user accessible from the Factory tab of the util window.
• The software update button has been moved to the storage tab of the util window.
• Shipping mode to disable power-on by battery until an AC adaptor is attached.
• Add a watchdog to reboot the camera in case of power-on boot failure.

Fixed Bugs:

• Memory leak in the M3 video coprocessor which could lead to a crash after lots of H.264 encoding.
• Ignore video which was recorded during black calibration.
• Changes to exposure may be overwritten during black calibration.

Known Issues:

• After applying this update, software versions v0.3.1 and earlier may no longer be able to receive battery data or utilize the power button.

Updating Your Camera:

• Extract the .zip file into the root directory of a FAT32 formatted USB drive.
• Turn on your camera and insert the USB drive.
• From the main window, tap the Util button to open the utility window.
• As a precaution, tap the Backup Calibration Data button on the utility window before starting the update.
• When the backup is completed, a pop-up window will be displayed.
• Tap the Done button to close the pop-up window.
• From the utility window, tap the Apply Software Update button to begin the software update.
• A warning message will be displayed, tap the Yes button to confirm and begin the update.
• During the update, the screen will go blank and an Applying Update message will be displayed.
• After approximately 60 seconds, the update will be complete and the camera will restart.

[foobar]

Because this update includes some major changes to the calibration routines of the camera, for the best results we recommend re-generating your factory calibration after applying the update. You can do this by navigating to the factory screen and tapping the "Black Calibrate All Resolutions" button.

This procedure should be performed only once the camera has warmed up to its normal operating temperature, and the lens or body cap is in place.

[nik282000]

Update was easy enough and I like the new storage Tab in the utilities.

Black cal at 1x works well but with any more than that I get significantly more banding than 0.3.1 at higher frame-rates. I'll keep poking around to see if anything I do can make it better or worse. I have also noticed that there is some flickering, at higher gain is is more visible but it can be seen at 1x as well.

I also had "No Batt" after the first restart but that has gone away, not really worried about it.

Sorry for all the negative feedback but I am still impressed at the work that is going into the 1.4 and I am glad you guys are still working towards more features!

[foobar]

Can you attach some images to show us what the banding looks like at higher gains and framerates? Does the banding appear to change either for better or for worse after attempting a black cal at those settings?

[nik282000]

I'm going to restore a known good version then try the update again. If I get the same results I'll make some example files for you.

[NiNeff]

Wow, almost 5% speed increase at the lower resolution. And it just feels good to be able to say "it does 40k FPS" instead of "roughly 40k FPS"
Will test the new software soon-ish.

[nik282000]

Ran the camera on an older version and everything looked fine, updated and found the same black calibration issues, so here's what I found.

#0 It only happens at frame rates above ~27kFPS
#1 It gets 10x worse at 4x analog gain, at 1x and 2x the image is pretty good. At 16x I get only gibberish for an image.
#2 The flickering seems to be related, it is most apparent when the vertical banding is present. I haven't measured the period of the flicker yet to see if it is the same at every resolution/fps.

Below I have attached 4 images taken at the 320x96 40420.4fps 20.08us 4x analog gain (worst case scenario but the effect is very similar down to ~27Kfps. I let the camera warm up (it seems to do that a lot faster now, the fan ran at full speed since the update) before taking the images. I had to convert them to PNG because the forum didn't like .TIFF files made by the camera.

0th image is taken before doing a black cal and before doing the factory cal.
1st image is after a black cal but before the factory cal
2nd image is after the factory cal but before doing new black cal
3rd image is after the factory cal and after a black cal

Hopefully this is helpful.

[foobar]

Thank you so much, that does clearly demonstrate an issue with the new calibration routines when operating at high gains. I've been able to reproduce the problem and I'll be looking into it.

[nik282000]

Awesome, glad I could help!

[Buddlich]

40.000 FPS ... awesome how far the camera has come.



... from 21.500 max


PS: I also have those problems with the flickering even after black cal. with the higher frame rates.
Also the fan seems to go crazy and goes full power from the first second on...

[foobar]

Thanks for the testing and feedback everyone. I have updated this thread with an updated build of the beta software. Please see the first post for a link to the camUpdate-v0.3.2-beta-6-gd0ce2a6.zip installer package. As a brief description of what has changed since the beta-1 backage:

Notable Features:
 - Reverted to two-point (linear) gain correction. After further testing the 3-point correction just seems to cause problems at the more aggressive gain settings.

Minutae:
 - Add a watchdog to reboot the camera in case of power-on boot failure.

Fixed Bugs:
 - Memory leak in the M3 video coprocessor which could lead to a crash after lots of H.264 encoding.
 - Ignore video which was recorded during black calibration.
 - Changes to exposure may be overwritten during black calibration.

[NiNeff]

Sorry for the delayed test, but here are my findings (just to be safe I let the cam warm up and did black calibration for all resolutions)

- in 0.3.2 b6 i now have vertical bands for the first time, never had them in any version up to 0.3.1 (images available on request).
- lowering the framerate while keeping the resolution the same dramatically increases the noise level. I'm not sure if this was always the case, but it seems new. I experienced this after doing a black cal on 1069 fps and with the lenscap still on then changing to 1000 fps.
- changing the shutterangle sometimes leads to horizontal bands on the display, haven't tried recording while changing the shutter yet.
- I really like the new util screen, especially for the storage!
- also had the full power fan on the first boot, now it seems to behave normally.

[foobar]

Do the vertical bands and the increased noise level issues persist after performing a black calibration? Note that changing the framerate will cause a change in frame timing that may invalidate the black calibration. In particular, framerates above 1053fps at 1280x1024 will need a different black calibration from framerates below 1053fps.

As for the horizontal lines; There is a horizontal artifact that appears in the raw image that corresponds to timing of where the shutter signal changes relative to the frame readout. The line of the image where this occurs is normally corrected by the black calibration. However, if the shutter is changed after black calibration then the calibration data will no longer correct for this artifact. The result is that you will see one or two horizontal lines on the image that will persist until a new black calibration is performed. This issue has existed in all previous software releases of the Chronos.

Another possible cause of horizontal lines that we are aware of when changing the shutter from the main window. If the shutter is changed in the middle of a frame it can result in a change in brightness partway through the image and this appears as bright flashes while changing shutter. However the issue should not persist for longer than a single frame.

[NiNeff]

Do the vertical bands and the increased noise level issues persist after performing a black calibration? Note that changing the framerate will cause a change in frame timing that may invalidate the black calibration. In particular, framerates above 1053fps at 1280x1024 will need a different black calibration from framerates below 1053fps.

They mostly disappear after back calibration, and I'm now actually unable to reproduce the really noticeable ones I got on the first tests. Maybe doting several black calibs helped.

As for the horizontal lines; There is a horizontal artifact that appears in the raw image that corresponds to timing of where the shutter signal changes relative to the frame readout. The line of the image where this occurs is normally corrected by the black calibration. However, if the shutter is changed after black calibration then the calibration data will no longer correct for this artifact. The result is that you will see one or two horizontal lines on the image that will persist until a new black calibration is performed. This issue has existed in all previous software releases of the Chronos.

Not really a problem though as I'm not intending to change the shutter during recording.

Another possible cause of horizontal lines that we are aware of when changing the shutter from the main window. If the shutter is changed in the middle of a frame it can result in a change in brightness partway through the image and this appears as bright flashes while changing shutter. However the issue should not persist for longer than a single frame.

While testing I never got bright flashes but sometimes completely black horizontal bands in the recording, but again understandable and not really an issue for "reasonable" usage. If i ever need to change the shutter during recordings it might be also achieved by changing the aperture and so on.

[CR0M3]

Stuck Previewpicture. (Record > Play > Close > Profit)