Notices

A slit camera is a camera that captures images one line at time (one pixel thick or more, or simply bands of light in analog cameras), with a few modificatios you can turn a flatbed scanner into one.


I would like a program that will take pictures like that, preferably with decent framerate.

Here are some features i would like it to have:

* It should show the image being created live, a lower res/quality preview would be acceptable

* Both scanning different sensor pixels as well as picking a single line/band of pixels and using that for the whole image

* Settings for how thick the line is, and also the time between changing image lines (to change how far in time each line in the image is from the previous) and sensor line repeats (using the same sensor line in consecutive steps for different lines in the image)

* Unlimited witdh mode (used both with looping or pingpong sensor line changes, and with a fixed sensor line), keeps recording lines untill you tell it to stop. Obviouslly there would be a limit due to memory capacity.

* Since its not possible to get the same frame rates as in video recording when using the image sensor at full resolution, offer both modes of capture (video style and photo style), warning about impossible resolutions and/or framerates when necessary and providing suggestions of corrections to work with either mode.


* Both automatic and programable camera parameters (exposure time, sensitivity, focus). For programming i imagine it could be done with somthing like the curves widget in image editing programs where you have a line with keypoints, you can have smooth or polygonal points , you can add and remove points at will as many as you want and move them but you can also select a point and manually type its X and Y coordinates if desired. Ideally, the length of the line, both in terms of image lines and in time (converting between the two field done automaticly), as well as the behavior after the end (loop, pinpong, hold last value etc) should be configurable and independent for each camera parameter.


* All the settings used should be stored as metadat in the saved file(s) when the format allows.

* Option for using either vertical or horizontal lines (horizontal lines would provide higher resolution but would involve turing the N900 sideways to have the resulting image have the right side up)

It would be nice to have the option of all the most popular graphic formats for saving. Another thing that would be nice would be having the option of also saving the source full frames besides the slit photo, either video or as an image sequence depending on user choice and possibility, these are probably already present before the final full resolution and quality image is generated.

Oh, and providing an open plugin system for outputing the lines (both sensor and image) as well as the camera parameters live would be great for those that want to implement some sort of mechanized motion (like when doing cylindrical panoramas)

With all these great ideas you keep having for apps, isn't about time you learnt to code?

Seeing as the N900 sports a rolling shutter, this already happens to some extent when you capture an image.
It captures row after row across the CMOS.

How about just using panorama?

you have only one problem with your request: you haven't noticed that there are major difference between real scanner system (the one in your link is pretty poor btw) and n900's image module.

with real scanner system you have a large format lens fixed and scanner drive head moves at the image plane of the lens just like it would move in scanning plate.

first thing you would need to do is to get a fixture that allows rotation along optical axis of n900. without it the whole stuff is completely useless.

or is there some weird point for it outside getting more resolution out from n900's camera?

I could move/turn the N900 manually, or use the mode that scans across sensor pixels and hold the N900 still dpending on the effect i'm trying to achieve, or using the fixed sensor line mode keep the N900 still and have the picture subject move. And with the plugin system people could hook up some mechanized automated turn table or similar device etc...