New Open-source Camera Could Revolutionize Photography

Chris H wrote:
In message
s.com, Rich writes

Charles wrote:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) 0 reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an open-source
digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the
chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks.
Take note, Nikon, Canon, everyone. The first company that goes this
route out of your bunch will RULE the camera world

Not a chance. It will rule the small world of geeks, like Lunix does.
99% of the world still uses the Great Satan (Windows)
Only if you count desktop PC's. A very high percentage of
internet servers are Linux based, and there is a very high
chance that you own one or more devices that use embedded
Linux - eg some GPS units, some broadband routers & modems,
photo viewers etc.

All the professionals want to USE the camera not program it.
All the masses want AUTOMATIC P&S
Most to the semi-pros don't have the expertise
Most of the ammeters don't have the expertise
It is not likely to be the users who would be the ones
reprogamming the device. More like specialist developers,
who will then release the device to the public. We may see
things like the rebadged sanyo's that almost every company
released to the public under the guise of their brand(Kodak,
Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, and probably a few more I've left
out). But probably more likely I see the device would be
used in specialist applications, where the developer can
option and reprogram the imager to suit the application. Eg
dental and medical imaging. Previously they have had to
shoe-horn existing designs onto their equipment, work around
limitations, and often had to redesign their equipment when
a new model was released.

so haw big a market does that leave? Bearing in mind open-source == free
or very low cost to most people
I doubt very much that there'll be many of these on the mass
market, unless 1 or more of the big manufacturers decide to
use it as a base of a camera. But indeed I am quite sure
that they will be around and will be an important player in
the world of imaging - but not mass market photography.




--
What is the difference between a duck?

In message 4aa373ed$0$27579$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-
01.iinet.net.au, Doug Jewell writes
Chris H wrote:
In message
s.com, Rich writes

Charles wrote:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) 0 reinvent digital photography with
the introduction of an open-source
digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the
chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks.
Take note, Nikon, Canon, everyone. The first company that goes this
route out of your bunch will RULE the camera world
Not a chance. It will rule the small world of geeks, like Lunix
does.
99% of the world still uses the Great Satan (Windows)
Only if you count desktop PC's. A very high percentage of internet
servers are Linux based, and there is a very high chance that you own
one or more devices that use embedded Linux - eg some GPS units, some
broadband routers & modems, photo viewers etc.

So servers are going to use open source cameras?

All the professionals want to USE the camera not program it.
All the masses want AUTOMATIC P&S
Most to the semi-pros don't have the expertise
Most of the ammeters don't have the expertise
It is not likely to be the users who would be the ones reprogamming the
device. More like specialist developers, who will then release the
device to the public.

Realy...

We may see things like the rebadged sanyo's that almost every company
released to the public under the guise of their brand(Kodak, Nikon,
Pentax, Olympus, and probably a few more I've left out).

OK but they won't release the source. There are people who provide OEM
kits of HW and SW to many players now. The only thing is the SW part is
not Open source. You get the source and can modify it, rebadge it and
ship.

But probably more likely I see the device would be used in specialist
applications, where the developer can option and reprogram the imager
to suit the application. Eg dental and medical imaging.

That happens now. The people who do it are Kodak, Nikon, Pentax and
Olympus.....

Previously they have had to shoe-horn existing designs onto their
equipment, work around limitations,

What limitations? You are clearly not in this market. The SW/HW
currently available for the low end OEM market does more than most need
it to.

The specialised stuff for the high end market is developed in close
relationships to the camera manufacturer. There is a lot of IP involved
on both sides and none of it will ever be open source.

so haw big a market does that leave? Bearing in mind open-source ==
free
or very low cost to most people
I doubt very much that there'll be many of these on the mass market,

I agree.

unless 1 or more of the big manufacturers decide to use it as a base of
a camera.

Not likely. Well they do that already at the P&S end but neither the HW
or SW is open source.

But indeed I am quite sure that they will be around and will be an
important player in the world of imaging - but not mass market
photography.

I am not.

--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Charles wrote:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) — Stanford photo scientists are out to
reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an open-source
digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the
chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks.

more http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0903163953.htm

Here's a little blurb the researchers did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psi_njPBryE

I like the idea of being able to add iphone-like apps. That's where most
of the features they are talking about will actually become popular. It
is flaky of them not to acknowledge existing similar projects though,
like chdk.
Hmm, more info:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4768
"...because the new camera is based on a Nokia N95 smartphone, whose
software is licensed by the open source Symbian Foundation, it can
become a lot more."

http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/camera-2.0/
"Despite these encouraging trends, there are computational photography
experiments that simply cannot be implemented on today's cell phones.
either because the cameras' sensor or optics aren't good enough, the
computing resources aren't powerful enough, or the APIs connecting the
camera to the computing are too restrictive. We are therefore building
an open-source camera platform that runs Linux, is fully programmable
(including its digital signal processor) and connected to the Internet,
and accommodates SLR lenses and SLR-quality sensors. Our current
prototype (3rd and 4th images above) is constructed from off-the-shelf
parts, in some cases borrowed from dead cameras. It's also ugly - hence
the name. Our goal is to distribute this platform at minimal cost to
computational photography researchers and courses worldwide."

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Paul Furman wrote:

Charles wrote:
ScienceDaily (Sep. 4, 2009) — Stanford photo scientists are out to
reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an open-source
digital camera, which will give programmers around the world the
chance to create software that will teach cameras new tricks.

more http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0903163953.htm

Here's a little blurb the researchers did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psi_njPBryE

I like the idea of being able to add iphone-like apps.


http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4768


http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/camera-2.0/



There is a case for many digital cameras to have some form of
app interface that could be scripted or programmed even if the
camera had a protective software layer.

The obvious interface being programs transferred to the camera
on sd and compact flash already being used for image storage.
A personal computer hosted development environment has the
potential to open a new facet to photography.

A far less aggressive form would also be useful by just bringing
out the camera's individual functionality and programming from
menu's in a camera specific programming language.

This has been happening with many of the Canon point and
shoot camera's with the CHDK project.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
The CHDK project has matured quite a bit from just a camera
hack to a more organized feature and programs

Recently 3 MIT students implemented a low cost high altitude
photography project by using CHDK to program a Canon A470
to take periodic pictures.
http://space.1337arts.com/

Canon (and I assume Nikon as well) have a third party developer
program. The real problem when my company looked into it was it
opened the doors for applications developed for a specific industry,
(astronomy for example) it still made the development costs for
applications very high.

An app interface that protected the basic camera software from
inadvertent alteration to protect the camera would allow creative use
of software with very little down side. This coupled with appropriate
support tools would have a lot going for it.

I live in a dark sky area and my astronomer friends would love to be
able to shoot programmed sequences. Multi frame stacked shots
(like some of the Nikon low light current software)

The mechanics and optics of an open source camera keep the
project at little more than a high priced toy. Software support for
a well developed platform would truly open some adventurous
photographic door.

Walter Banks

Walter Banks wrote:
There is a case for many digital cameras to have some form of
app interface that could be scripted or programmed even if the
camera had a protective software layer.

The obvious interface being programs transferred to the camera
on sd and compact flash already being used for image storage.
A personal computer hosted development environment has the
potential to open a new facet to photography.

The first step and sometimes more useful would be a remote control
interface of all funtions via the USB instead of proprietary remote
controls.

jue

"Jürgen Exner" wrote:

Walter Banks wrote:
There is a case for many digital cameras to have some form of
app interface that could be scripted or programmed even if the
camera had a protective software layer.

The obvious interface being programs transferred to the camera
on sd and compact flash already being used for image storage.
A personal computer hosted development environment has the
potential to open a new facet to photography.

The first step and sometimes more useful would be a remote control
interface of all funtions via the USB instead of proprietary remote
controls.

The real problem is the nature of USB host side app. A
generic camera protocol (like usb memory drives) would open
a lot of doors for creative use of a camera.

There is third party usb host support but unlike image standards
there hasn't been much effort to standardize controls.

Wireless controls are another approach through bluetooth or
wireless networks. There are a lot more tools to communicate
through wireless networks than create host usb support. Something
like a blackberry could then be used as a remote. At this point
there are a limited number of cameras with wireless network
support.

Walter Banks

Jürgen Exner wrote:


The first step and sometimes more useful would be a remote control
interface of all funtions via the USB instead of proprietary remote
controls.


My Canon DSLR can be fully remotely controlled by USB except the zooming
on zoom lens (which isn't powered). This is used by the software
provided as standard with the camera. There used to be a software
development kit for it, too (but I don't know what its current status is).

--
Bertrand

On Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:06:23 -0700, Jürgen Exner
wrote:

Walter Banks wrote:
There is a case for many digital cameras to have some form of
app interface that could be scripted or programmed even if the
camera had a protective software layer.

The obvious interface being programs transferred to the camera
on sd and compact flash already being used for image storage.
A personal computer hosted development environment has the
potential to open a new facet to photography.

The first step and sometimes more useful would be a remote control
interface of all funtions via the USB instead of proprietary remote
controls.

jue

Any of the Canon Powershot cameras that are supported by Cam4You Remote
http://alkenius.no-ip.org/Cam4you_remote/index.html already do this.
Zoom, focus, white-balance settings, video modes, etc. If that camera is
also supported by CHDK then the sky's the limit. Although the USB-Remote
feature of CHDK is limited (at this time) to just the duration of 5v
pulses, many people have written scripts to control zooming, focusing, EV
compensation, etc., all controlled just by the duration of how long they
keep their USB-remote cable button pressed.

Ofnuts wrote:

Jürgen Exner wrote:


The first step and sometimes more useful would be a remote control
interface of all funtions via the USB instead of proprietary remote
controls.


My Canon DSLR can be fully remotely controlled by USB except the zooming
on zoom lens (which isn't powered). This is used by the software
provided as standard with the camera. There used to be a software
development kit for it, too (but I don't know what its current status is).

I have a Canon 350D that has remote software that came
with it. My point earlier was there is a need to standardize
the usb protocols for remote us and that would open up
the possibility of a third party industry that would produce
control software.

The best example to compare it to is the image standards that
made possible the dozens of digital image post processing packages
most of us use.

Regards,

Walter..
__
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited
http://www.bytecraft.com