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Canon System Simulator?

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Offline D@noosh

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Canon System Simulator?
« on: 22 / January / 2014, 14:26:59 »
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Hello;

I'm a computer engineering student who has a group that is making a game, for the game we are making we used a simulator of Android OS called "Bluestack" which simulates android devices so the real ones never crash or something. Then I thought it'd be so cool if we had a simulator of Canon camera devices too.

In order to simulate the focus and exposures we can use a sample HDRI image with virtual blur effect to just simulate the options I said, or we can use a simple 3D environment and have a virtual Canon camera so that we can virtually program CHDK for the cameras without  crashing them in real life. What do you think?

I believe it's quite cool and good, we can use firmware of any models (of Canon cameras) individually in this way if a programmer doesn't have a Canon SX40 HS (for example), he/she can port their CHDK script for it.

I'd help a (group of) programmer if I had time to make the  camera simulator, But I think passionate CHDK programmers won't hate this idea (hopefully) and turn this idea to real one!. :)
« Last Edit: 30 / January / 2014, 08:57:07 by D@noosh »
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Offline D@noosh

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #1 on: 22 / January / 2014, 17:05:11 »
Did I express my idea in a bad way? is it baffle to understand? 22 reads no replies, I thought it's a cool idea anyways ???.
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Offline zeno

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #2 on: 22 / January / 2014, 18:11:07 »
While it makes no attempt to model/simulate the camera actions (like taking a photo or changing the focus) my interactive development environment for CHDK does let you run scripts on a PC, Mac or Linux box.

See http://www.zenoshrdlu.com/kapstuff/zubdb.html
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Offline philmoz

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #3 on: 22 / January / 2014, 18:16:10 »
Too many unknowns.
For example, look at the first few hundred instructions executed at startup, the camera writes to a whole range of IO ports that we have very little idea what they do.
We know very little about the Digic processor - how would you simulate that?
How would you simulate the hardware like the zoom, focus, aperture and shutter?
From what we do know timing can be an important factor and they are also inter-dependant (changing zoom, changes focus and aperture) - your simulator would need to somehow cater for all this. The camera does many checks in the code and shuts down if things are not quite right.

While not impossible (Canon probably has something like this), it would require a huge effort.

Phil.
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Offline reyalp

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #4 on: 23 / January / 2014, 01:24:16 »
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/GPL_Qemu

But as phil says, without emulating all the camera hardware, it isn't terribly useful.
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Offline D@noosh

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #5 on: 30 / January / 2014, 08:32:26 »
Quote from: zeno on 22 / January / 2014, 18:11:07
While it makes no attempt to model/simulate the camera actions (like taking a photo or changing the focus) my interactive development environment for CHDK does let you run scripts on a PC, Mac or Linux box.

See http://www.zenoshrdlu.com/kapstuff/zubdb.html

Cool, but that could be so awesome if you "visually" simulate the camera with CHDK scripts!


Quote from: philmoz on 22 / January / 2014, 18:16:10
Too many unknowns.
For example, look at the first few hundred instructions executed at startup, the camera writes to a whole range of IO ports that we have very little idea what they do.
We know very little about the Digic processor - how would you simulate that?
How would you simulate the hardware like the zoom, focus, aperture and shutter?
From what we do know timing can be an important factor and they are also inter-dependant (changing zoom, changes focus and aperture) - your simulator would need to somehow cater for all this. The camera does many checks in the code and shuts down if things are not quite right.

While not impossible (Canon probably has something like this), it would require a huge effort.

Phil.

100000000% agreed. That's - as you said - not impossible, but is cool if we just known the unknown questions.

Quote from: reyalp on 23 / January / 2014, 01:24:16
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/GPL_Qemu
But as phil says, without emulating all the camera hardware, it isn't terribly useful.
Good one, but still not prefect. Hope some group would make a prefect visual camera simulator that simulates each camera with it's individual firmware.
« Last Edit: 30 / January / 2014, 08:33:58 by D@noosh »
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Offline Microfunguy

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #6 on: 30 / January / 2014, 08:41:58 »
Quote from: D@noosh on 30 / January / 2014, 08:32:26
I'd help ..... if I had time

Aaaahhhh .........
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Offline D@noosh

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #7 on: 30 / January / 2014, 08:52:48 »
Quote from: Microfunguy on 30 / January / 2014, 08:41:58
Quote from: D@noosh on 30 / January / 2014, 08:32:26
I'd help ..... if I had time

Aaaahhhh .........
:D So what?  :D I might be available in summer or vacation days. :) BTW, I'm just a computer student  ::).
« Last Edit: 31 / January / 2014, 11:19:15 by D@noosh »
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Offline reyalp

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #8 on: 30 / January / 2014, 17:31:22 »
Quote from: D@noosh on 30 / January / 2014, 08:32:26
Hope some group would make a prefect visual camera simulator that simulates each camera with it's individual firmware.
I don't think you are grasping how hard this is. You mentioned android emulators, but there is a very big difference, the people who make those have detailed specifications for the hardware or software interfaces that need to be emulated.

The cameras are packed full of completely undocumented proprietary hardware. To make a fully functioning emulator, you would need to reverse engineer all of it. IMO, this be far more work than than has been put into chdk development to date.
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Offline D@noosh

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Re: Canon System Simulator?
« Reply #9 on: 31 / January / 2014, 11:04:31 »
Look people, I know how hard it is. That was just an idea.  ;).

@reyalp: 100% agreed.
« Last Edit: 31 / January / 2014, 11:22:23 by D@noosh »
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