Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!! - page 9 - Hello, I'm a NEWBIE - HELP!! (Newbies assistance, User Guides and thank you notes)

reyalp

12938

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #80 on: 19 / April / 2018, 17:26:28 »

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Quote from: cpat83 on 19 / April / 2018, 16:37:12

Please forgive my noob brain, but do I just take the codes you've written, and enter them into CHDKPTP command line prompts? And if so, do I need to do it every time I start the program or just once? Thank you.

I assume you currently use mc:download_images to download images. The examples I gave are options that would be passed to mc:download_images. So you would use it like before, but with the additional stuff in {}. If want to use just the image name, you could use

Code: [Select]

mc:download_images({dst='${name}'})

You've asked essentially the same question a few times before:
https://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=13226.msg134435#msg134435
https://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?topic=13226.msg134747#msg134747

I would really encourage you to spend some time trying to understand how these commands work.

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cpat83

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #81 on: 19 / April / 2018, 17:32:29 »

Thank you Reyalp. You're right, I keep asking that same question. Sorry about that. This is all new to me, from top to bottom. So while I do try my best so learn the terms and vocab, it's a continuously uphill process for me. I appreciate your patience :-)

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reyalp

12938

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #82 on: 19 / April / 2018, 22:11:15 »

Quote from: cpat83 on 19 / April / 2018, 17:32:29

Thank you Reyalp. You're right, I keep asking that same question. Sorry about that. This is all new to me, from top to bottom. So while I do try my best so learn the terms and vocab, it's a continuously uphill process for me. I appreciate your patience :-)

If the explanation is unclear or didn't work for some reason, it would probably be more useful to describe what specifically didn't work or ask for clarification rather than asking the same thing a few months later.

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cpat83

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #83 on: 09 / March / 2019, 10:01:27 »

How do I set the program to NOT download images that have already been downloaded? Currently, If I download images from a camera, then disconnect and reconnect a camera, it will download all the same images again, but the newly downloaded images start with "02_". How do I get the program to skip images that are already downloaded? My current script is:
!mc:download_images({dst='C:/Users/colin/Documents/TC-PS/Watch Folder/${id}_${subdir}_${name}'})

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reyalp

12938

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #84 on: 09 / March / 2019, 16:51:02 »

Quote from: cpat83 on 09 / March / 2019, 10:01:27

How do I set the program to NOT download images that have already been downloaded?

multicam does not know whether images have been downloaded before. You can control whether images that have the same name are overwritten or skipped using the overwrite option, but I think this defaults to false anyway.

You can also filter the images by name, date etc, so you could exclude images that are already taken that way. Or you could delete images after downloading, so they aren't there to download again.

Quote

Currently, If I download images from a camera, then disconnect and reconnect a camera, it will download all the same images again, but the newly downloaded images start with "02_". How do I get the program to skip images that are already downloaded? My current script is:
!mc:download_images({dst='C:/Users/colin/Documents/TC-PS/Watch Folder/${id}_${subdir}_${name}'})

This sounds like your real complaint is that the name is changing, specifically ${id} which is the multicam camera ID part.

If this is the case, then you need use one of the ID management functions to ensure the camera gets it's original ID back after you reconnect. The best way to do this probably depends on how you are managing IDs and the connection/re-connection process.

For a manual approach, assuming you know the old and new ID (I.e. the camera was 01 before and is 02 now), you should be able to use the mc:set_id function. See the source for documentation.

If you are using serial number lists to manage IDs, there's probably a better way.

If you want more specific advice, I'd need a bit more information about what commands you use to connect initially and reconnect.

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cpat83

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #85 on: 09 / March / 2019, 17:15:30 »

Thank you. Below is the total of the code I am using. This is for a 14 camera rig at events. I turn on each camera, and run through this process. If a camera turns off or gets disconnected, I restart them all and then restart the whole process from the beginning. I dont need the file names to change from the camera at all. All I want is the program to not download duplicates when it restarts (so I guess Skipping would be best?). I hope this helps. :-)

cd..

cd..

cd Users\colin\Desktop\TimeCurveFromJasonsLaptop\CHDK Install\chdkptp-r735-win32\chdkptp-r735

chdkptp -i

!mc=require'multicam'

!mc:connect()

!mc:start()

!return mc:cmdwait('rec')

!mc:init_sync()

!mc:shoot()

!mc:download_images({dst='C:/Users/colin/Documents/TC-PS/Watch_Folder/${id}_${subdir}_${name}'})

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reyalp

12938

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #86 on: 09 / March / 2019, 19:05:21 »

Quote from: cpat83 on 09 / March / 2019, 17:15:30

Thank you. Below is the total of the code I am using. This is for a 14 camera rig at events. I turn on each camera, and run through this process. If a camera turns off or gets disconnected, I restart them all and then restart the whole process from the beginning. I dont need the file names to change from the camera at all. All I want is the program to not download duplicates when it restarts (so I guess Skipping would be best?). I hope this helps. :-)

Thanks, that makes things clearer.

The way you are doing things now, the cameras will be numbered arbitrarily every time time you connect. So, the camera that was #1 the first time might be #2 the second.

Again, your problem isn't really "the program downloading duplicates". The only case where the program would know anything about duplicates is if it tries to download files with a name that already exists. Your problem happens because the camera numbers change, making the names different.

Some options:
1) Use ID lists to ensure the cameras always have the same ID. You can then tell it not to overwrite duplicates, but it will still spend some time listing them. This is a good option if you care about which photo corresponds to which physical position on the rig.

2) Use camera serial numbers instead of multicam IDs in the name. This is essentially the same as #1, except you use the serial numbers directly so you just have to change the download command rather than using the list commands. The full serial number is long and ugly, but assuming, e.g. the last 4 digits are unique, you can use that.

3) Delete files after they have been shot, either immediately after download or after reconnecting. Can't have duplicates if there are no old images on the camera. However, if a camera crashed before you downloaded files, you might lose them, and if you want to keep the images on the camera for whatever reason, you can't. It might also upset number on the cameras, but can probably be worked around.

4) Download only files taken in the current session. It looks like I haven't implemented options to filter by date/time, but lastimg=N should download the last N images shot. It might have some problems when the counter resets for camera folder changes. Adding date/time options would be pretty simple, but cameras clock drift and other timestamp issues might make it unreliable. It would also be pretty simple to filter the last N images in multicam.

In options #3 and #4, you still might get name collisions if your download directory has files from the previous session, but this could be worked around. #1 and #2 won't work if your cameras are very old and don't report a serial number.

If you let me know which option sounds best for your workflow, I can provide additional instructions.

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cpat83

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #87 on: 11 / March / 2019, 13:10:05 »

You mentioned that "The only case where the program would know anything about duplicates is if it tries to download files with a name that already exists." So, is it possible to have the program download images from the camera with the original file name? Currently, if an image on the camera is named IMG_0599.jpg, it downloads as 01_100CANON_IMG_0599. So if it just downloaded the file with the name as-is every time, would that stop it from downloading duplicates? If yes, how would I do that? Would I just remove ${id}_${subdir}_ from the download command? :-)

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reyalp

12938

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #88 on: 11 / March / 2019, 17:06:23 »

Quote from: cpat83 on 11 / March / 2019, 13:10:05

Currently, if an image on the camera is named IMG_0599.jpg, it downloads as 01_100CANON_IMG_0599. So if it just downloaded the file with the name as-is every time, would that stop it from downloading duplicates? If yes, how would I do that? Would I just remove ${id}_${subdir}_ from the download command? :-)

If you remove ${id}_ then the 01_ will go away. If you remove ${subdir}_, the 100CANON_ will go away. However, the names will then no longer be unique among your cameras. If two cameras happen to use the same file number in a session, you will have missing images instead of duplicates. If two cameras generate IMG_0123.JPG, chdkptp sees that name already exists and either doesn't download it, or overwrites it.

If that's really what you want, just take those parts out of the download command, but I don't recommend that.

I'd suggest using option 2:
Replace ${id} with something like
${s_sub,${serial},-4}

That will use the last 4 digits of the serial number. You should verify those are unique among your cameras, by looking at the least of serials after mc:connect()

There are two caveats to this approach:
You need to be using current chdkptp Lua files from SVN (later than r798 at least) to use s_sub.
Your cameras must be new enough to report serial numbers (all but very old ones doe)

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cpat83

Re: Multicam Rig for Events - Step By Step Help Please!!

« Reply #89 on: 12 / March / 2019, 11:32:39 »

Thank you. I'll check to see that I am using r798 at least and try option #2. But if that doesnt work, removing ${id}_ and ${subdir}_ should work for me. I made sure all of my cameras are 300 digits apart, so there wont be overlapping numbers for at least 299 shots. Thank you Reyalp!

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