FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...


Okay, well, everyone is talking about how stupid this news is. Lemme see if I can break it down to make this pill a little easier to swallow.

What is it?
It is some developer tools to make things much easier to talk to, and process stuff taken from, the nokia N900 camera.

How does that help?

When I was a young C# programmer in college, My programming teacher used to give us homework. One classic piece of homework, was how to write to a file. here is how in C#

//make file stream object
FileStream fs = new FileStream("c:\\WriteFileStuff.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write);

//make stream writer
StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs);

//write lines
sw.WriteLine("Howdy World.");

//close object
sw.Close();


not being expert programmers yet, our first tries were a disaster at best. We'd leave out a semi colon and get compiler errors, we didnt put the lines in the right order (causing things to be undefined when they really were, just further down), we would forget to close() the object at the end, making the file "currently in use" to the operating system forever, untill we restarted the machine.


eventually, a couple weeks later, the teacher taught us this:

System.IO.File.WriteAllText("C:\\WriteFileStuff.tx t","Howdy world");


... that did everything those 4 lines above did. but this one line could do all: the setup and tear down, for us! this meant syntax errors (like forgotten semicolons) and logic errors (like forgetting to close the stream at the end) would never happen again!


This is what API's do. they let you talk to stuff, in a way where either it wasn't possible before, or it was possible, it just took a sh*tload of code to do. and of course, with more code means more room for bugs.


Okay, well what does this "magical" API do then?

Well, it does 2 things. first it does some extra stuff with the camera that would normally take much more code to do and second it sets up the ability to talk to a gyroscope. I personally believe the gyroscope stuff isn't gonna happen, but the camera stuff is still pretty impressive. Here is the list of what exactly the new API allows. (gyroscope or not)

Rephotography
You take a picture in one place, and it can figure out the exact spot you took it in, and you can return days later and it will still know based off of key points in the image.
http://www.outrun.org/shiz/repho.jpg

IMU based Lucky Imaging
The gyroscope can detect what is your shaky hand, and what is actually moving objects in the photo, and makes proper adjustments for that to prevent blurry images.

http://www.outrun.org/shiz/lucky.jpg

Foveal Imaging
The ability to downsample the rest of a video, and make a certain center point in the video sharpest. Bring the quality of everything down except for a certain spot, in that spot, bring the quality up. here's an exerpt:

Downsampling and cropping on the sensor is a capability of the
Aptina sensor in the F2 not exposed by the base API.

As you can see, "cropping" the image sensor is not expose by the normal programming APIs, so this API adds this functionality.

it also allows tracking motion in just one particular area of the camera.

http://www.outrun.org/shiz/foveal.jpg

HDR Imaging
This takes 3 pictures, of varying brightness, and merges the 3, to make an image that looks acceptable while leading lots of play for the lighting and movement problems that most cameras suffer from.

http://www.outrun.org/shiz/hdr.jpg

Low Light Imagine
for low light images, you can increase the gain (but that makes it grainy), or take a longer exposure (but that makes it blurry from movement). the Fcam API takes 2 pictures: one at high gain, and one at longer exposure. It then merges the two together to make a pretty nice shot

http://www.outrun.org/shiz/lowlight.jpg

Panorama capture
Panorama. but this is processed as the picture is being taken, and does not require a wait time for the image to process. secondly, with each "shot" it takes a regular exposure, and longer exposure shot, then merges the two, then after it is all finished they are "stiched" together.

http://www.outrun.org/shiz/panorama.jpg




as you can see, there is some potential for some kool stuff if people put their minds to it. hope this helps some people figure out how kool this thing can really be.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

silly question thats is great but.. step by step install?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

http://fcam.garage.maemo.org/

Follow the instructions to install fcamera, hdrcapture and lowlight applications (fcamera from extras-testing and hdrcapture and lowlight from extras-devel).

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Is this built on top of the camera driver (i.e. read processed data) or does it read raw data like blessn900?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

sony123,

You can actually get raw data through the standard camera driver, if you ask it nicely enough.

In any case, FCam certainly lets you get at the raw sensor data - otherwise there'd be no way we could save DNGs.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

how to use Rephotography? I already installed fcamera, hdr and lowlight.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

HDR seems to work pretty nicely!

http://static.qaiku.com/de6/e45/309/...g?t=1279800951

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

This is great news an thanks that you broke this down for the ney sayers. This will make a good camera even better. Just hope they make it possible in konjunction with Titans Enhanced kernel.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

thanks for either not reading or not understanding.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

This is working great, I'll show some sample images in a bit. But I'm having trouble with the DNG images that are saved by FCamera.

The DNGs have a really heavy cyan tint on them when I view them in Adobe Bridge, which is not removable no matter what settings I use in Camera Raw. This is Adobe CS5 btw.

When I try to view them in Irfan View they display as a red garbled mess.

When I check the option to save as JPG as well, these images save absolutely fine.

Anyone got any ideas why the DNGs don't display properly on the PC?

Here's an HDR image I made earlier, merged in Photoshop CS5. http://the-buccaneer.co.uk/image_edi...1279809203.jpg

EDIT:

Here's a photo captured in FCamera - This is the automatic JPG exported image http://the-buccaneer.co.uk/image_edi...1279809705.jpg

And this is the same image but the DNG generated by FCamera as seen in Adobe Photoshop CS5 http://the-buccaneer.co.uk/image_edi...1279809766.jpg

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

well, with what settings are you viewing the dng?

because dng isn't a picture, it is raw data from sensor that has to be converted to picture in order to view it. i am betting on conversion settings.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Default settings, it doesn't seem to store anything on White Balance. I set WB to 6400k in Fcamera and then viewed it in Bridge and the same problem occured. If you set the White Balance sliders to the extreme right in Camera Raw you can get it almost correct but the sliders don't slide quite far enough...

This is the closest I can get it with a temperature of 50,000 and tint of +150

http://the-buccaneer.co.uk/image_edi...1279811361.jpg

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

I've got exactly the same problem, using Ps CS3 - heavy Cyan tinting on all the *.dng's. As you described above, I can't quite slide the adjusters far enough to remove the tint.

Thought it might be the case that I didn't have the fcam drivers installed, but then recalled that I went root and used the apt-get install command to ensure all dependencies were present....

Strange that the app writes to an Adove format and yet when opened in an Adobe application it all goes a bit..... Well...... Tits up?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

My thoughts exactly!!

Hopefully some clever coder can sort out storage of metadata in the DNG, as currently the only metadata that Bridge/Photoshop reads from the DNGs are aperture and shutter speed, everything else is left blank with regards to camera settings when the image was captured.

I'd love to help code and sort this out, but I only know PHP, mySQL and Actionscript 3 :(

EDIT: Rather than double post, I thought I'd add to this one. I made a post over on the garage page for FCamera and the devs say they also have this problem and are currently working on it!

HOORAY :D I can't wait for the next version to get released!

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Found the bug. We were casting a possibly-negative floating point value to an unsigned integer, so the color matrices stored in the DNG files (required to correctly interpret the raw data) went well.... tits up, as switch puts it.

We've got it fixed and checked into extras-devel. We're making sure we didn't break anything else and then we'll promote it to extras-testing and it should appear as an update in app manager.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

I've got the exactlly same problem as yours mate, it's quite strange, ]http://the-buccaneer.co.uk/image_editor/images/Crugath/1279809766.jpg this one is same as what I've got for preview on my Mac through CameraRaw when I open the DNG with PS CS4

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Here is a great article and video about the Fcam project.

http://www.physorg.com/news199011645.html

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Awesome - thanks for digging into the problem so quickly - those damn negative floating point values and unsigned integers, always causing trouble of some description!

Apologies for the use of adjective too but when blessed with only a limited vocabulary and the eloquence of an ape, "tits up" is deemed to be a fair descriptor.....

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Anyone else noticed that after installing FCam, the screen flashes green every time it rotates?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

How do we make a panorama using fcam ? Or you only offer api for this feature ?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

they released an update, its fixed

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

so you didn't understand what I just said. Color temperature doesn't affect raw image unless the reading app knows how to read the setting.....

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

fcam is the api......

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

how can i see the pictures in the phone?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Swipe up on the "viewfinder" to see images you have taken; swipe down for the Settings page.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Then swipe sideways for a manual slide show.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

umm... they offer the test program. I was asking if it was possible to make a panorama inside that test program. Or I will have to code my own program using their api to make it possible.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Can you save the image?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

All pics are stored in Fcam folder on main flash by default. Don't forget to tick on the "save as jpg" checkbox

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

the test program is called fcamera, and the api is called fcam. I know those are close but please be spesific!

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

My apologies. I understand now, I should probably read up on DNG and RAW filetypes more. Anyhow, this problem has now been fixed by the update last night/this morning.

Took this this morning, this is a conversion of the DNG to JPG in Photoshop CS4 with default settings, Adobe Camera Raw is now interpreting the DNG correctly now.

1.4MB image http://www.the-buccaneer.co.uk/image...1279914739.jpg Nice looking thistle in our garden, it's at least 6ft tall!!

EDIT: I forgot to say, I am absolutely amazed by the detail the N900 camera can capture, I don't understand why devices default camera software can't capture images at this quality when the hardware is obviously up to it. They don't have to save it as RAW images (although that is nice) but the JPGs that FCamera also saves are of a completely acceptable quality. Or is it that FCam and FCamera are pioneers in camera software?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

where is the raw image save at ? anyone know ? couldnt find it.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

/home/user/MyDocs/FCamera

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

You took this picture with N900?? How?

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

i notice that its .dng file how do i view it in N900 or in Compu ? thanks

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Nice picture Crugath. Taking a macro shot is my favorite way to make a cheap camera seem like an expensive one :)

Here's my favorite N900 picture. I took it with an early prototype of fcamera: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.b...53157625190418.

We're not doing anything magic in software. Our post-processing pipeline is fairly simple and standard (it has to be to run fast on the device). No idea why the built-in camera app doesn't look better. Next on the todo list is to calibrate for the vignetting, so you don't get that slight color shift at the corners.

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

On not perfect light condition it still suffers, but on good light it is VERY good.

I've yet to see a good phone camera on poor lit conditions...

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

The Nokia N82 is great in poor conditions with its powerful xenon flash. Without the xenon flash, not so much to see......

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Here's my first shot with FCam, developed using Adobe Camera RAW for CS5. Click for the full-resolution version..

http://api.photoshop.com/home_b05869...fc1f39f0b1bbc6

I must say I'm amazed. I always felt the built-in camera app was too heavy-handed with sharpening and other types of post-processing, and knew there was loads more quality to be found in the camera on the N900.

This was really a quickie hand-held snap with all settings on auto as well, and the flower was being blown around by a breeze, too!

Kudos to the developers of this app and the drivers -- it's easily resulted in the best cellphone camera in existence :)

Re: FCAM thing in a nutshell for non-developers...
 

Try normal (non-macro) shots. You will quickly discover that whatever magic is applied, you cannot improve on the shitty optics and sensor.