Thanks Rob. I really appreciate it and look forward to the progress you guys make.

On a side note - I like the ObscureCam site. You guys have certainly loaded it with information. Is it possible to add these sort of questions to the FAQ? I am sure there are others interested in possible release dates as well (maybe I just missed this).

Thanks.

If you look at the 10 bit 4:4:4 thread of Obin's you will find footage and screen grabs galor (well at least a really lot of MB's of them). His camera protype is working.

New Sumix cameras.
 

Nothing extra special, some new micron models, no Altasens yet.

http://optics.sumix.com/products/cameras/index.html

Wayne.

Dear Wayne thank's for the links. I know you like linuxdevices.com
like me. I know good code is hard to write, too much memory nowadays, anything too fast.

20 years ago all had to fit to 64K up to 640 K, that was the way to write good, fast code. Look at Windows XP ton's of pure waste here.

Go to gentoo Linux anything open to be compiled by you up to your needs, maybe the hardest way to install a Linux OS but fast,slim, if you need

Yes, places like Linux devices and Windows devices, make it easy to do research, they gather news and links in one place ;)

64K of code space, that is luxury, I thought you were 1-4K crowed ;). I once knew a guy that did a whole IDE disk interface code in something like 30-40 bytes, now that is economical. Admitedly that instruction set was 5 bits long packed in 20 bit words, and the guy was a grand master Forth based stack programmer.

That is why I think Linux and Windows is so bloated, and prefer things like Geoworks/Breadbox that can fit a full GUI OS and office in something like 7MB (even that is bloated). Seriously, you should be able to fit that into 1MB ;) I think an objective floor for a fully functional OS is 100KB (1-10KB core) add to that all the bells and whistles and it should be 1MB-10MB. People don't think this way nowdays, they think quick in and quick out, like the military, and "just as messy" ;) Why bulldose a path in with a big big tank, when you can ride a puish bike in and out, lot less damage, a lot less messy ;). They fight themselves (and much code is victim of friendly fire!). Handcrafted code is thought to be no longer needed, and is generally restricted to places that are real about programming, like realtime embedded situations where precision and efficiency is the only way to survive in the consumer electronics market place, or mission critical stuff like Nasa. The truth is few programmers can do it propperly.

Dear wayne and all the others:

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4887107636.html

that is only on of the board but is has RAID SATA, GIGE Ethernet, LOW power Fanless usb 2, Firewire, Graphics typical VIA stuff, they do have a dual fanless MOBO too and Linux ready and preloded

Yes this is the stuff Tim from VIA told me about when I spoke to him months ago. As you can see it is a way to get lots of processing for low power (the extra processor could indeed do image processing much more effectively than a second motherboard). But since the announcement of the faster Pent M's people have gone cold on VIA, but thier 2 GHz cpu's will be coming sometime as well, and from some prices I've seen the top level Pent M stuff seems a lot more expensive.

So what was the speed of the CPU's and what is your assesment of the boards suitability Ron ?

Wayne.

Sumix Summary thread
 

For all those still interested in the soon to be released Sumix camera I have posted a new thread, with some updated information.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45081

Hi, i would like to talk to Steve Ipp about this. but anyone else who might know please reply.

I was wondering about the web cam you were talking about steve.
http://vgear.com/products/list1.asp?...2&SUB_NUM=2030

it is one like this correct? it can do 1280, 1024 at 15fps. and 640, 480 at 30fps. Thats pretty good for a cheapo. and you said it is about $68 USD
It would be awesome if someone knew how to get 1280, 1024, or even 720 out of it at 30fps. CAN THIS BE DONE? whether it requires the right software, hacking, whatever. can it still be done? I know there a bunch of genius's here. Does anyone know how to get 1024 or 720 at 30fps out of this little cheap camera. it uses USB 2 i mean, messing one up isnt a big hit on the wallet either. Im just wondering if it can be done. becuase i would love to make it work for me. Any help?? thank you so much everyone.

I hope Steve replies to this, I would love to hear from him again.

Evey body from the Sensor manufacturer to the camera manufacturers have an interest in making this difficult. So it is either near impossible, or very difficult requiring much expertise. First hunt sensor information down, if they have designed a chip to allow you to do the resolution out at the desired frame rate (probably through windowing and binning) then get programming information from the sensor manufacturer, then from the camera manufacturer. If they won't let you, it might use a systems documented somewhere around the Internet, or by another camera manufacturer. In a rare case a Camera manufacturer might give you hardware design information, but it is probably unlikely. If you don't have any of these things, it is going to be very difficult to reverse engineer the hard ware and software.

If you want to experiment on the cheap, here is a cheap VGA uncompressed RAW Bayer firewire camera based on it's Web camera, for around $119. Make no doubt of it, this is the price a 720p camera could be, but nobody seems interested. They also do cheaper uncompressed web cams. Using pixel shift even these could be made into a hi-res 3 chip camera. The Apple isight is listed, and it would be worth seeing if the newest Apple Isights are hi-res and still uncompressed.

http://www.1394store.com/eshop/produ...5&pf%5Fid=2059
http://www.unibrain.com/Products/Vis.../Fire_i_BC.htm

http://damien.douxchamps.net/ieee1394/cameras/index.php
http://damien.douxchamps.net/ieee139...ras/search.php

Thank you so much Wayne! Your posts are very straight foward and informative. i am really interested in that camera you showed. this one:
http://www.1394store.com/eshop/produ...5&pf%5Fid=2059

you stated this could be a 720p. and that noone seems to take interest in it or your idea. well i am interesed. I have no doubts of a persons ability when they put their mind to it. and i want to build a high resoution camera out of this. How would i go about getting a 720p frame signal out. i know it does 480p. is it just require the correct computer speed and special software to get that frame size?. or am i gonna have to hack the camera's components, and try some reel-stream type configuration. If i can figure out how to send 720 video out. I can do the rest. Ill build a camera for you guys that kicks some major butt for cheap. But ill need your help Wayne, to figure it all out first.

Sorry, I meant that manufacturers should do a 720p camera at that price, but don't want to, the camera is only 640*480, but worth playing around with if your interested. If you want HD, you could get three of them and arrange them in a home made 3chip prism with each pixel shifted, that could be processed into a 1920*1460 HD image. I have been thinking
of doing that for a while (couple of years) but am looking elsewhere. It is probably less technical and hard than hacking most cameras without docs. But probably less easy than if you had all the docs. A monochrome sensor would have to be used for the 3 chip, but you will probably get better results.

To do so, you would have to research prisms, first surface mirrors (very important) and birefringence (is that the word very late) filters (will allow one primary through and reflect the other) optics, chromatic aberrations, and Pixel shift conversion methods. The chromatic aberration results might not be perfect, but your working with low 640*480 resolution so maybe we can get away with it. Yes, the board does 30fps max, no 24/25fps, a hack of the board might be able to change that, but if the timing is locked in the chip, that is a different matter.

there are better sensors but trying to get hold of them at such a cheap price is not funny. You could check out the security cameras, but then you need a high performance analogue video recording device, or computer capture (gets messy). I have a few ideas, but have yet to research for the ideal cost effective sensor.

Now the bad side, yes you could probably do it, but you are probably going to have to carry a laptop or a small boxed computer around (maybe less than 10*10cm*5cm. If it could be reprogrammed to respond to keys and output in a format that a generic external firewire caddy could record then you would have a camera. From what I remember they do have camera that can be synchronised and daisy chained together into three cameras. Interesting isn't it? But this will probably turn out optically not any better than many of low end HD cameras, but it has other advantages. This is not the ideal sensor for this sort of thing, just cheap for experimentation.

If anybody ever wants to talk to me privately about anything on one of my threads, or has any proposals, drop a message in the thread and I can use your email link to email you (I am subscribed to over 215 threads).

Anyway, it is very late and I sense I am starting to talk garbage, so I'll bid you bye.


Thanks

Wayne.

Thank you again wayne! i just thought of something that seems like a stretch but it might work. if i use a 35mm adapter. imagine splitting up the image on the ground glass into 4 sections. top-right, top-left,bottom left, bottom right. now, what if i daisy chain the firewire cameras together... explained in their pdf:
http://www.unibrain.com/download/pdf..._Board_New.pdf
and focus each camera on their indivudial section of the glass. then later in post add the images together. is this even remotley possible. i thought of this earlier today at school, becuase ive heard of the idea before.

but i am also interested to learn what you mean by pixel shift, and getting an hd resolution output with only 3 cameras. if i can daisy chain 3 cameras, how do i get that size of image? where do the cameras focus? thank you very much.

Forrest, I did something like that on my Double cam (or dual cam, never got a word for it) I used two camcorders to film the left and right part of the GG. It works very good, but as you say, it means that you have to stitch everything together in post.
I know someone who is doing something similar as you suggest. A problem is the sync between the cameras.
Besides this, has anyone of you seen the image quality of that HD webcam? Nothing is posted on the site.
Too bad that 15fps is just too little to work with, maybe 18fps with added motionblur or frame blending could even give a film effect, but I guess you can't go any lower than that.

multiple cams
 

It seems like a combination fo cameras could create a low cost solution one of two ways.

1) 4 cheap firewire cameras recording 4 sections of the ground glass simultaneously. Couldn't software sync this properly, then you could create an app to stitch them together into one video file.

2) 2 higher resolution firewire cameras with slower frame-rates. Use software to syncronize them so that they record alternately, doubling the frame rate.

i like those ideas alot. especially number 2. now that one seems like it can seriously work.

maybe
 

http://www.alliedvisiontec.com/index...=77&a=selectid

1920x1084
resolution 14bit
frame rate 30 fps
IEE 1394b

cheaper as a viper anyway

awesome, i can only cringe at the cost though. Wayne, i am going to probally get that fire-i board camera. and focus it onto my GG. If i later want to add more, whats the best way to get more resolution out of it? thanks

How much is it? I couldn't find any pricing info.

we dont even need to check. i can tell that thing is well over $4000 USD. with those kind of features! even industrial cams 1/3 that good are over $3000. i couldnt find any price info either. but i first want to try a cheap solotion. dont get me wrong, if i had the money. id buy that thing in a second

hey, how bout this also

http://www.visioncom.co.il/cameras/M...r_PL-A654.html

i dont know the price at all though. Its a firewire camera, uses a 1/2" cmos sensor. uses c-mount. and is uncompressed video. it can do 1024 x 768 at 23 fps. how much is this imaging module??? comes with software. anyone know the price? if its not much more, id go with this one.

If you guys haven't found them before, Edmund Optics has quite a few cameras like this (and with prices too!) with all manner of features, frame rates and connection types. I've already got a camera so I'm not particularly looking for another, but maybe eventually I'll replace the one I've got with a custom-built one...

As far as I can remember I think there is a syncing mechanism between the cameras. Yes. Forrest's system can work, the Olympus 8Mp ENG camera uses a prism to do the same thing. Thermal expansion and physical bumps can put them out of alignment, prism is better. Getting them to line up pixel perfect side by side is best, but not so easy, unless you make special cross hair chart for alignment. After you buy 4, you might as well experimented with www.Elphel.com HD compressed security camera for less than $800.


Pixel shift
-----------------------------------------------
How pixel shift works is that you get 640*480 VGA images planes of red green and blue. The images are aligned so that (for instance) what the green plain is recording is offset 1/3 rd a pixel down and left from the red plain, and what the blue plane is offset 1/3 rd a pixel down and left from the green plain. You do this by shifting the sensors. It produces three times more virtual pixels in both the horizontal and vertical directions (I.E. 9 times more pixels). Unlike Bayer there is no missing data to guess (interpolation) as all layers cover everything except for a few lines on the edges of the screen, where there are only one or two planes working (use interpolation techniques there).

So instead of the red green and blue plains being exactly aligned there overlap is offset. Because they are overlapping they record (this is very similar to how a 300dpi ink jet printer can get 1200dpi edges) a slightly different location in the images. But what happens in the overlap is that now each pixel on the different plains sticks out slightly from the last plane, giving a fine detailed artificial edge. Confusing, I am not really upto explaining it. But because this is done in horizontal and vertical directions the horizontal edges split across the vertical edges, making a fine series of sub-pixels. So unprocessed, this will give you a HD image. But on a resolution chart you will find that it seems to blur pixel edges. But because light and colour across objects follow predictable patterns in nature, you can make the software identify details and edges, and scale the resolution up and remove or add to the pixels to move the edges and details into their correct resolution.

Pixel shifting is done a fair bit on cameras, but usually only the green plane is 50% shifted. Pro SD ENG cameras might move the green plain to cover the space in between the pixel that produces the screen door effect etc. The Canon XL1 used it, that is why it got better low light performance and bigger latitude in it's day. The Panasonic AGX100 uses it, that is how the Andromeda conversion gets HD from it, by using the pixel shift to do it. The Sony Z1, Canon (don't know about the JVC) and I think the HVX200 use it. The cheap 3chip Panasonic have been using it. I think it was the GS120, people were not so impressed with the resolution charts (blurring) from the pixel shift. I think the GS120/65 use 1/3rd pixel shift.

What I am saying is that processed the, results probably won't be any worse than debayered or 4:2:0 video. Unprocessed, maybe de-Bayer can look better, but I think it might turn out better than 4:2:0.

I'm not too on the ball at the moment, if anybody can explain it simpler, please do.

-----------------------------------------------


About the two cameras taking alternative frame thing, somebody was looking at dong that with still cameras in recent months. Search for all threads I have posted to and you'll probably find it. Might even be a Red thread.


If Ronald posted it, it is worth looking up.


I would like to suggest that you start up a new thread on this topic and post a link here, as this is a thread on the extinct Sumix camera ;)

I got ya, thanks wayne! ive got a couple of choices to think about right now. so imm gonna have to settle on one.

Does anyone know more about these Elphel camera's?
These sample images look very impressive.

wow. looks promising. to a completely untrained eye.
I'm eager to learn more. Did you e-mail him Oscar?

I noticed an SD resolution at 60fps.

I wouldn't mind combining 4 of these focusing on four segements of a ground glass, synced up to a fast laptop yielding uncompressed 60p HD

I have been emailing him over converting his cameras to cinema use, I actual have mail waiting from him. He is content with the security camera business, though there is much opportunity, I can appreciate that it must be very hard to move in more than one direction when your business is not large. I've been in occasional contact with him since 2004.

You would be in the same position as with a Sumix, or a Silicon imaging camera (except you get a lot more for your money and the software development stuff I think is free, not many hundreds of dollars) and no capture card needed for many computers. It probably would be best to contact the Ogg people to find out about capture and editing with the Ogg codec he uses. The Linux open source community networking with open source programmers, particularly with ones interested in things like the Cinelerra editor/capture program, might find somebody interested in helping. If you look on the source forge for Elphel, you will see somebody offering to party programmers to develop a application for industrial inspection use (well that's what I think they are doing). So Elphel community, Cinelerra, Ogg open-source community would probably be the best place to try.

Another word, without expanding the FPGA to record directly to disk, the next best option to by pass a computer, would be an embedded board that controls a external caddy hard disk and passes the data directly to it (automated pref no processor intervention all) at he same time copying the information to it's memory for a preview function to run off an external LCD, also controlling buttons and menu system and passing commands to the camera. All easier said than done. Small Arm/Mips/micro-controller boards may have all the integrated systems needed to do this, including video output.

I see a member called Larry Liang posted about their camera on this board:

<<<<<Elphel's camera use the micron's 1.3 Mega and 3 Mega sensor. It can output Motion-Jpeg stream with a speed of 22 fps@1280*1024, 31fps@1280*720.

With Elphel's camera, it is much easier for storage, because the video has been compressed before output, but hard to display: you need additional CPU capacity of decoding the JPEG picture. Generally, To display the video with full speed and resolution, a 3G P4.CPU is needed.
>>>>>>

Does anyone know how good or bad the compression is? How about using such a camera (or other) and using a separate viewfinder to eliminate preview during capture.

He has also moved to Ogg Theodore in his latest camera, I don't know anything about the codec, but if you look up sourceforge you can find information, and the website for Ogg and more information. On the Elphel site (also look at their wiki and source forge, they have sample footage).

1920x1080 33fps GigE
 

http://www.imperx.com/machine_vision...ion/index.html

have a look there may not be cheapo but
1920 x 1080 pixels @ 33 fps
8/10/12 bit data
Gig E (Gigabit Ethernet

Ronald,

Does it have a proper video capture application? Is there any reasonably priced camera that has one?

Have you guys noticed that most of the info on the Elphel 333 model is located on this site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/elphel
They have an interesting forum, someone is actually using it to film footage for his bike-race simulating software (for home-trainer bikes). It means he films the road from a car or something, I guess those are long takes.
I downloaded all the info incl. pricing of the 333 model here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=391625 (elphel_docs-2006-02-07.tar.bz2)

More about the sensor site is here: http://www.micron.com/products/imagi...s/MT9T001.html

Is it me (who knows too little about all this) or is this really promising?
What do you people think would be the minimal system requirements to capture (without preview) from this camera, say 22Fps at 720p or more?

I think this camera is very promising, when i get the cash, and the know-how about making a portable recording solution. im going to buy one and make it into a cinema camera.

Actually, this camera is probably one of the easier ones for recording, the stream is somewhere below 100Mb/s, so drives that can sustain this and processing bus requirements are easier. The previews is another thing though, that I do not know about. I suspect an embedded board that passes the stream to an Ethernet Hard drive caddy, and does a preview, as a possibility.

About previewing the image.. My idea would be to integrate such a camera in a 35mm adapter (possibly a good microwax GG) and use a two way mirror or just a piece of anti reflective glass, between the GG and the camera, to either make an optical viewfinder on top, or a (cheap)small B/W CMOS camera and use an LCD to view the image on the mirror. I got the idea from Dan Diaconu, so it should be worth a shot.

Focusing this way won't be accurate enough, I'm sure, but for me it'll be fine to measure the right distance to the subject. (maybe with a laser measure or something)

I wrote an email to the Belgian guy who uses the camera to capture cycling races to his laptop. I'll come back to this when I know more.

keep up the work oscar, i am very interested in this camera also. let us know what he says . a question, how do you put a mirror or glass between the lens and adapter, does it have to move out of the way before we start recording the image? how do film camera viewfinders work? thanks . cuz, i would also need a view finder if i was going to use this camera.

I didn't got a reply yet, but to answer your question..this is what Dan wrote(sadly, he's still suspended - he had some clever idea's)
<<<<mount a MC filter (that will act as a mirror) at 45 deg (closest to the GG) and a tiny CMOS surveillance type on top to capture the image of the GG (reflected in the filter)and display it on a monitor (of your choice) You can mount the CMOS so you see it up right. They (CMOS) do not need A LOT OF LIGHT to give you an image (remember, it "steals" the image of the reflection in the filter) they are cheap (less than $20) and your camcorder will not suffer any amount of light loss or image degradation.
(this is kind of a tiny prompter or videoassist for film cameras)>>>>


Of course it means you have to use a 35mm adapter for this, I hope my wax glass gives high enough resolution (that's not the right word) because it is small and doesn't loose much light.

By the way, have you noticed at the bottom of the price info on the Elphel 333 model the note on a free or discount camera if you're doing an interesting project?
Maybe we'll get a discount if some people here (including me) would order together and present it as a project...which it would be unless we don't share our findings here of course...just a thought.

yah i know what you mean, i saw that note a while back, and so i did email him with my lengthy presentation of what i planned to do with his camera. (the whole 35mm adapter and everrthing) he wrote back and it seemed as almost i was going to get the camera at free/discount. but he said he needed to talk it over with his friends before he could make any decisions. i said, "sounds good, lemme know what happens" and he said he will. but thats the last i heard from Aundrey. perhaps he didnt like it and he was just trying to be nice. i hope he doesnt just blow me off. but what can i do, i gave it my best. but yah, perhaps as a team, we can convice him. thanks

If you go for a group discount. I might be in.
Thanks for your work on this guys.

external trigger possible on these?
 

Oscar,
Do any of these usb cmos cameras have the ability to take a frame when an external trigger tells it to ?
I am searching for one that I can sync to a flashing light, and I can provide a TTL signal for the 'take a frame now' signal.

I can write a c program to control it, if needed, but the frame has to happen pretty much right when the trigger happens. The strobe is about 30 ms light duration. Any ideas ?
Thanks!
-Les