Bring PureView to N9
 

I've just seen the new PureView features present on the latest lumia phones and i'm wandering if it is possible to get a fake OIS using FCam library and the accelerometer built inside the N9 to get best photos and stabilized videos.
Also it will be great if we can make a camera applications that supports third part extensions like the lumia one.

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

I guess the hardware of the N9 camera has reached its limit. The only tweaking we can do is post-processing. I don't see how the accelerometer can aid in stabilizing videos as it's just a sensor..

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

I guess that OIS is also related to a mechanical system , an anti-shock system ... not only software side .

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

That's right. You can't get more out of N9's camera, especially OIS. The hardware is just not there.

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

Maybe OIS is out of the question, but the idea of using the accelerometer as an anti-shock / stablising mechanism aint a bad idea :)

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

and how would you do that?
just brainstorming, here...

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

i'm in a "sea of tranquility" mood, so don't expect too much, but...

that image stabilisation business is quite current in the video industry :eek:
yup, 007s & other action heroes move sometimes too far too fast to be able to catch it with static cams...
well, most of the time, in fact :rolleyes:
thus the camera stabilizers that the industry has been using, well, for years
do you think Hollywood would use much heavier and expensive versions of...this if they could do the trick with a motion sensor and some software?

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

tbh honest, i would not know :) But a quick google using the term "addin accelerometer to qt camera " has bought up an interesting link... http://www.developer.nokia.com/Commu...etition_2012Q2

I'm looking through the list of entries ATM, maybe there is some snippets that might be of interest?

I'm a big fan of AR anyway but this has some good use of giro+camera details http://www.developer.nokia.com/Commu...e_camera_in_Qt

Still reading though, I might be way off the mark :)

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

In fact there are many possibilities if you spend enough time with fcam, especially for stabilization, and I am thinking to implement some of them on rawcam, after the feature freeze period passes.

Two ideas are already possible and showcased on the N900:

1. Fcam allows for very high framerate burst, so Fcamera on the N900 performs a kind of stabilization by shooting 5 frames really fast and choosing the best one of them automatically. This is simple to implement but can increase stability significantly
2. Lowlight for the N900 takes one blurry shot with low iso and one steady shot with high iso, and combines the contrast of the steady shot with the color information of the blurry shot to produce a very good quality final image.

Some more ideas that I've been thinking.

1. Optical Image Stabilization works by moving the sensor to the opposite direction of the movement of the camera thus compensating for the shake. Maybe it could be possible to do this digitally by compromise a part of the sensor. Instead of taking one frame, say with 1/15th of a second shutter speed, we can take 4 frames at 1/60, align them with software and produce an image from the overlapping portion. We'll then lose the edges of the picture (thus we'll have less MP) but the overlapping image will be correctly exposed. I have no idea if this is possible (to capture frames so quickly) or if it will have the desired effect (or if it is just as if we adjust the brightness of one frame in gimp)
2. The mention of the accelerometer gave me another idea. While capturing, use the accelerometer to check when the phone is most stable and start the capture then. If the accelerometer gives us values as fast as fcam provides frames (30Hz) then we should be able to shoot when the acceleration goes below a certain point, or after 0.5s, whichever comes first. Combining this with the methods in the above list may have impressive results.

Re: Bring PureView to N9
 

2nd link seems to do pretty much that except... would it be accurate enough to compensate shaking or vibrations?