chdkptp - alternative ptp client

reyalp

lyzby
It apparently means that imagemagick was compiled without JPG support (as shown by "convert -list format" and also "convert -version--no Delegates listed). Also without PNG support. Now I'm searching for how to add those.

That sounds right. Quite why anyone would want it jpeg support is a mystery, but assuming your linux has a package system, I would guess it's just a matter of installing libjpeg or a different variant of imagemagick.

Or as mentioned earlier you could use the netpbm tools, they include pnmtojpeg http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pnmtojpeg.html

lyzby

Thanks for the suggestions, reyalp. Maybe getting closer.

So I got netpbm on my dockstar with "apt-get netpbm". "pnmtojpeg -verbose foo.ppm > foo7.jpg" works, giving the stretched image you would expect with 720x240 interpreted as square pixels.

Then I tried to change the jpg to 4x3 with "pnmtojpeg -verbose -density=4x3 foo.ppm > foo7.jpg". This failed saying the "density" option was unknown.

The help page you linked to says that debian uses a (13+ year old) version, 9.25, which reports as 10.0. The "density" option was provided in 10.15. So I downloaded netpbm, did "make", which asked many questions. Knowing no better, I took the default for each. Then I ran "make install", which ran for a long time, but finally failed producing no new pmntojpg.

I have more digging to do for both imagemagick and netpbm. Why (he asks of no one in particular) is nothing ever as straightforward as one thinks it might be?

lyzby

Conversion to GIF is supported and works.

 convert /var/www/foo.ppm -verbose  -resize 640x480! /var/www/foo2.gif
/var/www/foo.ppm=>/var/www/foo2.gif PPM 720x240=>640x480 640x480+0+0 8-bit Palette sRGB 241c 166KB 11.470u 0:11.480

Not altogether a happy solution, since 166KB instead of 54K, but I can proceed.

Still haven't found a way to get jpg and png to work on the dockstar.

lyzby

For now, this 2-step process goes from 720x240 ppm to 640x480 jpg.

# convert /var/www/foo.ppm -verbose  -resize 640x480! /var/www/fooz.ppm
/var/www/foo.ppm=>/var/www/fooz.ppm PPM 720x240=>640x480 640x480+0+0 8-bit sRGB 922KB 1.860u 0:02.220
# pnmtojpeg -verbose /var/www/fooz.ppm > /var/www/fooz.jpg
pnmtojpeg: Input file has format P6.
It has 480 rows of 640 columns of pixels with max sample value of 255.
pnmtojpeg: No scan script is being used

First a resize to 640x480 ppm with "convert", then to jpg with "pnmtojpg".

reyalp

lyzby
For now, this 2-step process goes from 720x240 ppm to 640x480 jpg.

Note you might want to use 720x540, to keep the horizontal resolution unchanged (though in the actual viewport, this only refers to brightness values, since it's YUV411)

Thinking about this, there is probably a way to go directly from the YUV data to jpeg, without going through RGB first.

What distro do you use on the docstar? I would really expect there is some way to get a version of imagemagick with jpeg support. Debian appears to offer a fork of imagemagick call "graphicsmagick". In the debian description I'm looking at, it explicitly says it supports jpeg. Imagemagick is also there, and claims jpeg support.

lyzby

I'm using squeeze on the dockstar. I did "apt-get install graphicsmagick"

gm convert /var/www/foo.ppm /var/www/fooz2.jpg

Works, but with a stretched image. So far, non of the "-size" or "-resize" options I've tried have worked.

bigboss97

I'm running PTP v2.6 (camera S100). When I click on [shoot] there's always a delay until the picture is taken. I want to minimize the delay. I tried to click [shoot half] before shoot. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
My question, can I fix all the settings first and then next click will only take the picture, i.e. with minimal delay.
Maybe using the console commands? Which I've never used before 😀

Thanks in advance,
Phuoc

reyalp

bigboss97
I'm running PTP v2.6 (camera S100). When I click on [shoot] there's always a delay until the picture is taken. I want to minimize the delay. I tried to click [shoot half] before shoot. It doesn't seem to make any difference.

Yes shoot_half just presses and releases. The shoot button presses half shoot, waits for everythign to be ready, and then presses full shoot.

My question, can I fix all the settings first and then next click will only take the picture, i.e. with minimal delay.
Maybe using the console commands? Which I've never used before 😀

Yes

.press('shoot_half') ; m=read_usb_msg(-1) if m == 's' then click('shoot_full') end

Will hold down the shoot_half button and wait indefinitely for a message. You can then use

putm s

to take the shot, or putm with anything else to cancel.

If you want to take multiple shots quickly, you can use the rsint command discussed earlier, but it current does not work in the gui.

Also, you asked earlier in the thread about mirroring the live view. It turns out this is possible, see https://chdk.setepontos.com/d/6231/575

lyzby

lyzby
I'm using squeeze on the dockstar. I did "apt-get install graphicsmagick"

gm convert /var/www/foo.ppm /var/www/fooz2.jpg

Works, but with a stretched image. So far, non of the "-size" or "-resize" options I've tried have worked.

The following works to resize. The "!" tells it to absolutely use the dimensions given. Omitting that means you will still have a stretched image.

chdkptp -c -e"lvdumpimg -vp=/var/www/foo10.ppm"
gm convert -verbose -geometry 768x512! /var/www/foo10.ppm /var/www/foo10g.jpg

(Regarding imagemagick, even after following the process to install "delegates" for jpg and png (not clearly documented that I could tell), I couldn't get imagemagick to report that they were available--so I'm giving up on that.)

lyzby

(Mistakenly submitted)

jhfelectric

Hello reyalp,
After days of working with chdk and chdkptp, between my A2500 and my raspberry pi, I am stuck 😀
The idea of my project is to have 2 or more cameras of same model connected to a RPi and synchronised using multicam.lua. I run the commands I need from chdkptp using -r option and a txt file.
All is well so far. At the end, I would like to retrieve the last image from each camera. Getting the last image name, and downloading that image, is something I manage too. But I need to somehow script a loop through all possible devices and download the images.
So my question is: how do I select and connect to a camera using a script ? I have read all the docs I guess, and you write on your assembla page

The chdkptp CLI only supports one active connection at a time, but using the local Lua (! command) you can manipulate the con variable to switch between multiple connections.

How would one do that ? can you help ?
Thanks in advance.

reyalp

jhfelectric

The chdkptp CLI only supports one active connection at a time, but using the local Lua (! command) you can manipulate the con variable to switch between multiple connections.

How would one do that ? can you help ?
Thanks in advance.

Two cameras

$ chdkptp -i
___> list
-1:Canon PowerShot D10 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0001--0x04a9-0x31bc v=0x4a9 p=0x31bc s=...
-2:Canon PowerShot A540 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0002--0x04a9-0x311b v=0x4a9 p=0x311b s=nil

Make connections:

___> !con1=chdku.connection{dev='\\\\.\\libusb0-0001--0x04a9-0x31bc',bus='bus-0'} return con1:connect()
=true
___> !con2=chdku.connection{dev='\\\\.\\libusb0-0002--0x04a9-0x311b',bus='bus-0'} return con2:connect()
=true

The 'return' tells you if the connection succeeded. The extra \\ are for windows device names, on linux you won't need them.

___> list
+1:Canon PowerShot D10 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0001--0x04a9-0x31bc v=0x4a9 p=0x31bc s=...
+2:Canon PowerShot A540 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0002--0x04a9-0x311b v=0x4a9 p=0x311b s=nil

The '+' shows that the connections are connected, but not currently associated with the cli con variable.
Now to switch between them, you just do something like

___> !con=con1
con> list
*1:Canon PowerShot D10 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0001--0x04a9-0x31bc v=0x4a9 p=0x31bc s=...
+2:Canon PowerShot A540 b=bus-0 d=\\.\libusb0-0002--0x04a9-0x311b v=0x4a9 p=0x311b s=nil

The * shows that camera 1 is now connected to the cli, so a download command will download from that camera.

You could also write the whole download process in lua, something like

___> !for i,dev in ipairs(chdk.list_usb_devices()) do local lcon=chdku.connection(dev) lcon:connect() lcon:download('A/DISKBOOT.BIN',i..'_DISKBOOT.BIN') lcon:disconnect() end

obviously substitute your own filename for diskboot.bin, and possibly add some error checking.

tpont

The chdkptp CLI only supports one active connection at a time ...

A simple workaround is to make a copy of the chdkptp folder and use the two chdkptp in parallel for one camera each in separate terminal windows.

reyalp

tpont
A simple workaround is to make a copy of the chdkptp folder and use the two chdkptp in parallel for one camera each in separate terminal windows.

FWIW you don't need to copy the folder to run two instances.

Running multiple instances of chdkptp is a valid approach (edit: though not if you want synchronized shooting with multicam.lua as jhfelectric described), but you do have to be careful because the list and connect commands can cause the other instances connection to be reset. See this post and following https://chdk.setepontos.com/d/6231/292

tpont

reyalp
FWIW you don't need to copy the folder to run two instances.

Ok, will test that. Might save 3MB of disk space. 😛

reyalp

I've uploaded snapshot build r511 to the files area.

The linux builds now include "readline" support for editing and history in the cli. If you are building yourself, you will need to update your config.mk to enabled this. See config-sample-linux.mk for examples.

There are also some improvements to remoteshoot: You can use rsint from the GUI (using CLI commands, an actual GUI for this feature would be nice), and if you are using chdk 1.3, failed connections are handled better in rs and rsint.

All the GUI builds now use CD 5.7 and IUP 3.10.1. Building with older libs should still work.

Raspberry pi users who want the GUI will need to update the library package to chdkptp-raspbian-libs-20140331.zip from the files area. This library package now includes everything you need to build chdkptp with the gui. I have also improved the documentation README-RASPI-LIBS.TXT.

chdkptp now supports Lua 5.2. This is currently experimental and optional, but will likely be mandatory in the future since it will allow significant improvement in the GUI.

jhfelectric

Reyalp and others, about the multiple connections,

Thanks a lot for your reply, I managed to make it work easily with your input.
Here is (part of) the code I can run successfully:

	
        devices, devices_error = chdk.list_usb_devices()
	for device, devinfo in ipairs(devices) do 
		printf('camera %i:', device)
		a_connection, a_connection_message = chdku.connection(devinfo) 
		connection_status, connection_error = a_connection:connect() 
		exp_count_status, last_number = a_connection:execwait([[return get_exp_count()]])
		printf(' last image number is %i...', last_number)
		if exp_count_status then
			image_dir_status, image_dir = a_connection:execwait([[return get_image_dir()]])
			if image_dir_status then
				temp_file = string.format('%s/IMG_%04d.JPG', image_dir, last_number)
				image_file = string.gsub(temp_file, string.format('/ETC_%04d.TMP', last_number), '')
				printf('downloading %s...', image_file)
				download_status = a_connection:download(image_file, 'IMAGE'..device..'.JPG')
			end
		end
		disconnection_status = a_connection:disconnect()
		printf('done\n')
	end

The above will retrieve the last image from all available cameras.
You have noted that the "get_image_dir", which is supposed to return the current image directory, actually returns a temporary folder name, based on the last image's number. I could not figure out how or why, so I needed to skip out that part. Fyi, all my cameras are A2500.

reyalp

jhfelectric
The above will retrieve the last image from all available cameras.

Glad you got it working.

note there is some possibility that things will break if the camera increments the folder number, I'm not certain whether the image dir will refer to the current or previous folder. This is somewhat annoying to test for obviously reasons...

You have noted that the "get_image_dir", which is supposed to return the current image directory, actually returns a temporary folder name, based on the last image's number. I could not figure out how or why, so I needed to skip out that part. Fyi, all my cameras are A2500.

This sounds like a bug in the port, elph130 had a similar issue which I worked around with this hack:
http://trac.assembla.com/chdk/browser/trunk/platform/ixus140_elph130/shooting.c#L143
If you have the ability to build your own CHDK, you can try this same thing. If not, I can make a test build for you.

reyalp

In r516 (svn, no official build yet), I moved rsint into the standard cli, so the require'extras/rsint'.init() is no longer required and will result in an error.

edit:
r521 adds camera selection to the GUI. The dropdown to the left of the "connect" button keeps a list of available cameras. You can have multiple cameras connected and use the dropdown to switch between which one you are controlling.

This is preliminary, there are some known issues and probably some unknown ones too.
The list is just bus:device rather than camera names
The files tab collapses any time you switch cameras, to avoid showing the wrong file list. Really, the tree should have a branch for each camera.

srsa_4c

The new readline support is really useful, one doesn't have to mess with the clipboard any more. I'm wondering if it would be somehow possible to not request liveview data until the previous frame has arrived? The linux GUI still jams when the requested framerate is larger than what's physically possible.

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