maemo.org - Talk - ρcam 1.0.7 now in extras -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization (N9 version still on 1.0.4)

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Re: -- now with stabilization -- ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls

Please clarify, did disabling DNG fix the problem?

Re: -- now with stabilization -- ρcam raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls

I'd like to request a timer feature to help making timelapse videos.
Logic would be: Take total of n photos at x resolution at interval of y seconds.

For example so I could take 3600 images of 854x480 at 1s intervals.

Can someone recommend already existing app for this N9? I just bought Fastmotion pro and it fills the ram+swap until the OS freezes, which makes it unusable.

Edit: Being able to have files named sequentially eg. img000001.jpg, img000002.jpg, .. would be also useful. Ability to toggle screen blaking is probably a must to prevent screen burning and useless battery drain.

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

@qwazix, please changelog for Rawcam 1.0.4 Maemo?

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

rawcam 1.0.4
* Fixed the creation of the DCIM folder which was accidentally commented out
* Fixed the accelerometer based stabilization to work in all conditions
* Added a combined Accelerometer&Burst stabilization mode
* Now N900 version is again on par with N9
* N900 when quitting by closing lens cover still inhibits the regular camera from working until reboot. Currently only workaround is to go to switcher and press the x button.

Get harmattan binary from my repository and fremantle from extas-devel

I was hoping I could incorporate the function of the fremantle application lowlight into rawcam but unfortunately lowlight is not open-source. I found however this pdf which explains the algorithm. I don't know if I will find the time to decipher it, but if anybody wants to help you are very welcome to provide pseudocode for this, and I will include it in rawcam.

@Ladoga, I remember that there was a way to capture camera frames with gstreamer on the N900, specifically screen-sized ones. Writing a shell script to run the command should be trivial, and the command should work on the N9 too. This fulfills all your requirements and is easy to implement. I suggest you search for the relevant command and if you are not familliar with shell scripting, start a new thread asking for help. The result will be useful to many people.

Now it's time for a shameless plug :)

I was on a nokia exhibition stand and they had a "dark room" so that potential customers could compare the Lumia 920 with their mortal cameraphones, so I took the bait and tried my luck with rawcam and the N9. Here's the result
L920http://play.qwazix.com/photo_compari...121122_019.jpg http://play.qwazix.com/photo_compari...4.18.48.22.jpgN9

Now the comparizon isn't completely fair because I just snapped with the L920 and I tried several times with different settings with the N9 to capture the second image. On the other hand that dark box was tailored to suit the L920 camera (thus the better whitebalance).

The L920 photo still looks better, but it seems they've gone the Kodak/Canon way and they've applied a bit more post-processing otb. It seems like some of the details have been lost (too much NR). Unfortunately I didn't take a raw picture with the N9, only JPG.

So I applied some quick steps of enhancement in gimp and got an even more close result. (Meaning that with a little optimization on the software side we can almost match the 'amazing' L920 camera)
http://play.qwazix.com/photo_compari....48.22-mod.jpg

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

Thank you qwazix for making rawcam! With the Shutter speed priority, and the Manual mode's spot focus it might just be the only digital camera I will want to use. I love it!

I have 2 questions:
1) does the rawcam behave differently with and without a screen protector? I already have the protector on when I installed rawcam, and wonder if the controls will feel different without it. If so I'll take it off.
2) When it says to "cover the proximity sensor to focus" is it for all types of operation whether AF or MF ?

Thanks again!

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

HLing, thanks!

I don't know about the screen protector, I don't use one, maybe a fellow user can help you with that.

About the focus: Short answer: autofocus only. Both full-auto & point.
Longer answer: I hated the lack of camera button on the N9. The default way of focusing, press to focus release to snap is a major way to introduce camera shake because it's a transition from a stabler to a less stable situation. Let me explain. On a real camera, in low light conditions the best way to operate is to hold the camera as stable as you can, half-press to focus, wait for the best moment, the one you feel most stable, press the button and keep it pressed (that is why the cameras have a seperate burst mode instead of always bursting when you keep the button pressed, even if at first thought it makes sense). The movement is from a loose grip to a firmer, while on touch-only phones it's from a firm grip (right thumb pressing against the screen) to a looser where the right side of the phone is practically in the air while the snap is captured. When you try to capture one-handed it's even difficult to not drop the phone, let alone take a steady picture.

So I decided that the best thing to do is to provide a separate focusing mechanism, and covering the proximity sensor can be done without blocking the viewfinder, and easily when holding the phone with both hands.

Arie requested to include the default touch to focus functionality too so that came in an update but is disabled by default on the N9. On the N900 it's of course enabled as we have a real two-step camera button. However you can still pre-focus with the proximity sensor anyway.

In manual mode the focusing is controlled by the slider only (except if there is a bug)

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwazix (Post 1302814)

rawcam 1.0.4
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.
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* N900 when quitting by closing lens cover still inhibits the regular camera from working until reboot. Currently only workaround is to go to switcher and press the x button.

Would you elaborate on what is the exact problem, maybe I could help with some ideas or code.

EDIT:
Going to give it a try.

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

Thanks freemangordon for stepping in.

Detailed description of the closing problem on fremantle:

In rawcam, I have a trigger that when the user closes the camera lens cover the application quits. I have investigated the problem pretty thoroughly and I thought I had all the right things before closing. Obviously, this is not the case. In my code you will find many qDebug's printing messages in various stages of the exit process because of that.

After closing this way, if you launch camera-ui it quits before being able to show the viewfinder with

Code:

Internal error. Application 'camera' closed.

When I am testing the latest version rawcam segfaults at the latest stage of closing, but during trying to fix the issue this wasn't always the case, but the problem remained the same. I had managed to prevent the segfault but I was still getting a

Code:

QThread destroyed while running

in the console. As I was just trying to fix the issue and my changes broke the N9 closing sequence I reverted to the segfault situation.

On the N9, and when you ctrl+bkspc -> close on the N900, there is no such problem.

More info:
Fcamera (which works as intended) uses this code to handle the closing sequence

Code:

   // Connect the threads together in a daisy chain to get them all

    // to stop and then quit the app

    QObject::connect(cameraThread, SIGNAL(finished()), 

                     &IOThread::writer(), SLOT(stop()));

    QObject::connect(&IOThread::writer(), SIGNAL(finished()),

                     &IOThread::reader(), SLOT(stop()));

    QObject::connect(&IOThread::reader(), SIGNAL(finished()),

                     &app, SLOT(quit()));

full listing here

My relevant code:

Code:

    //when the lens cover closes stop the camera thread

    QObject::connect(cameraThread, SIGNAL(lensCoverClosed()),

                     cameraThread, SLOT(stop()));

    //and show a message that we are about to shut down

    QObject::connect(cameraThread, SIGNAL(lensCoverClosed()),

                     closing, SLOT(show()));

    // Once the camera thread stops, quit the app

    QObject::connect(cameraThread, SIGNAL(finished()),

                     &app, SLOT(quit()));

full listing here, lines 405 - 415

I have also made my custom app class derived from QApplication so that I can reimplement the quit function to make sure all the threads have quit before quitting the app, but with no results.

Code:

void RawcamApp::quit(){

    qDebug()<<"preparing to exit";

    cameraThread->wait();

    delete cameraThread;

    delete overlay;

    QApplication::quit();

}

full listing here

Despite all of the above if there are images in the pipeline to be saved, and somebody closes the window (currently the only way to exit on harmattan) the app quits forcefully so I needed to include the following line after the app.exec(); clause

Code:

while (cameraThread->writer->savesPending() > 0) sleep(1);

Thus the app stays open without gui until it saves all images.

Actual console output in the current version

Code:

stop false

preparing to exit

out

Segmentation fault

* code on github is one version behind, but there are no changes to any of the relevant parts. Latest source exists in extras-devel, and I will push one of the next days to github anyway.

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

Hi, I have a n950 and I installed rawcam 1.0.4. When I try to launch it I get a black preview and the user interface on top. When I take a picture (although it is black on the preview before taking it) the picture is saved and is not black.
Is it the viewfinder problem mentioned in the first post?
How can I solve this black preview problem? could it be a dependency problem although I checked that everything required is instsalled. (I also tried versions 1.0.3 and 1.0.0 and it is the same)
Thanks!

Re: ρcam 1.0.4 -- raw/jpg camera application for N9 and N900 with manual controls and image stabilization

It's not a dependency issue.

Unfortunately the N950 uses some kind of different overlay so I cannot make it show anything, I tried whatever could pass from my mind without sucess. I managed to get some different results like green window and totally black (without GUI) but no real picture.

Although, the picture is taken, the colors are wrong, as showcased n the first post. This problem requires reverse-engineering the fcam drivers and fixing N950 support. One dev from #nemomobile tweetes that he did that but I haven't contacted him.

This task is up for the taking. For now my priority is fixing N900 support and adding some new things.