Open Source Camera For Computational Photography

David Orenstein writes "Stanford Computer Science researchers are developing Frankencamera, an open source, fully programmable and finely tunable camera that will allow computational photography researchers and enthusiasts to develop and test new ideas and applications — no longer limited by the features a camera manufacturer sees fit to supply. Disclosure: The submitter is a science writer for Stanford and wrote the linked article."

Comments

Listen up camera manufacturers

[QuantumG]

Please make a camera with:

1. A built in clock that actually keeps time.
2. Built in GPS.
3. Some sensible connectors to upload videos in real time using appropriate external devices, or,
4. Built in Wifi/3G.
5. And all the good camera stuff.

In one device. Oh, and if you can actually make a scanning range finder at a sensible price and embed that too, that'd be great.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the wheels and remote control so I can take some awesome upskirt pix.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[quanticle]

And what exactly do you mean by *good* camera stuff? I mean, not everyone needs (or wants) 12 megapixel full-frame sensors. For the vast majority of (not-professional) shooting, the sensors in DSLRs these days are overkill.

Personally, I'd rather have a point and shoot in my pocket (meaning I can actually use it) versus a super-expensive DSLR that always gets left at home due to bulk or concerns about damage.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Most of those things aren't software-related at all.

How would Open Source help?

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it also might have a lens larger than a few square millimeters.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[simcop2387]

well one and two there are really the same, and i'd love a camera that spoke wifi, or even just bluetooth to upload pictures (don't think this'd be fast enough though) to either a laptop or something else.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

a samsung i8510 will do all of the above in 8.1mpx glory.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[supernova_hq]

No photographer worth their memory card uses a smartphone camera for anything more important than taking a shot of where they parked their car.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[supernova_hq]

Because an open source phone would most likely have open source, easily upgradable circuits so you could add the devices yourself and KNOW they will work. You could even make your OWN devices and hook them up to it, then write your own driver and have them configurable just like everything else built into the camera.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Entropius]

Then you want something like the Panasonic LX3.

There are also small-ish DSLR's and DSLR-likes that are a far cry from the full-frame beasties. See Olympus E-620 (a small DSLR), or any of the Micro Four-Thirds cameras.

You can have good image quality and optics along with small these days.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Entropius]

They have SD cards that themselves speak wifi now. No dice if your camera uses CF (or some mutant format like xD or Memory Stick), of course.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[mrmojo]

I hear you - we want the same thing. Our target is basically a Nokia N900 (which covers 1, 2, 3, 4 and runs linux to boot), plus a much higher quality sensor and lens.

- Andrew (one of the grad students working on the project).

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[karit]

If you have GPS who cares about a clock which keeps time? As you are being sent the time from GPS all the time

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[PaintyThePirate]

None of the cameras you suggested would fit in a sane person's pocket. Pocket sized implies something more along the lines of a Canon Powershot, complete with a tiny sensor and mediocre optics.

Though, with CHDK, you can do some nifty things with them.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Miseph]

People who have reason to believe that they will want to both take pictures AND be somewhere that cannot obtain GPS data at the same time. Like inside of a cave, or a large reinforced concrete building (such as those in which many photo studios are located).

I'm pretty sure that covers virtually everyone, and I'm also pretty sure that the timekeeping chip from a $10 digital wristwatch would pretty well do the trick.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[0100010001010011]

I'd rather have 5 different devices which worked well.

Professionals still swap lenses because lenses are expensive and it's sometimes cheaper to replace a camera than a new lens. I've never had my camera lose more than a second over the 5-6 months that I sync it.

I have a kick ass GPS tracker that logs every 1+ second (Q-1000x). A portable drive that dumped every CF card to mirrored drive so you could keep shooting. Toss in a wireless card and make it upload too. If I wanted video, I'd get a video camera.

I really didn't see anything 'revolutionary' about those videos other than it did live HDR pictures. Woohoo. I have Photoshop. I'm sure GIMP can do it, etc.

And you're not going to get a good OSS camera for cheap because of economies of scale. It'd cost a ton to make 1 small injection molded case, one circuit board, etc.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

"None of the cameras you suggested would fit in a sane person's pocket"

A Nikon F & 45mm F/2.8GN will. And, properly stored Ektachrome chromes will last over 70 years. Kodachrome, over a hundred (if you don't project the latter too often.) Digital is fabulous but something is still being lost in the death of film, and very few people realize it.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

And what exactly do you mean by *good* camera stuff? I mean, not everyone needs (or wants) 12 megapixel full-frame sensors. For the vast majority of (not-professional) shooting, the sensors in DSLRs these days are overkill.

Personally, I'd rather have a point and shoot in my pocket (meaning I can actually use it) versus a super-expensive DSLR that always gets left at home due to bulk or concerns about damage.

Its overkill until you want to take a decent picture in really bad lighting without a flash.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[callinyouin]

Um, we also use them to snap shots of boobs at parties.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't make much sense to put GPS in a camera. Odds are you wouldn't get reception most of the time (indoors, urban canyons, vehicles, under forest canopy). It really is better to have an external one.

dom

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[icepick72]

No, YOU make it with options 1-5 because it's open source!

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Cheesetrap]

Its overkill until you want to take a decent picture in really bad lighting without a flash.

Stop peeping in her window bro, that's not cool.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[pclminion]

That's basically an iPhone or similar device but with a much more high-quality camera than at present. So basically, the device you're talking about already exists, or will exist as soon as there is sufficient demand.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[whatajoke]

A 5 megapixel camera phone is enough for you then. There are some with optical zoom too.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I don't even bother - my smartphone does p&s even with a shitty camera, my dslr for the actual serious stuff.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[TSPhoenix]

As they say the best camera is the one you have with you. News outlets will usually take the low-quality shot from the person in the right place at the right time over all the reporter photos of after an incident.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[RuBLed]

The size and weight difference between those mediocre Powershots and LX3 is almost negligible. LX3 is still pocketable. I could say that LX3 is a superb camera vs those mediocre Powershots. Powershot G10 would be the closest competitor during their launch last year but most agree that the G10 would be harder to pocket than an LX3.

I own an LX3 and had seen/felt a G10. I bring my LX3 with me almost everyday. Could not say the same with the DSLR which rarely see office/street time.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[totally bogus dude]

But it doesn't take very good pictures. My N73 gave me much better quality photos than the i8510. Maybe those Carl Zeis lens really do make a difference.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

I really didn't see anything 'revolutionary' about those videos other than it did live HDR pictures. Woohoo. I have Photoshop. I'm sure GIMP can do it, etc.

That's not revolutionary, even in-camera. Both Pentax and Sony have DSLRs that are capable of creating HDR images in-camera. Pentax's has already been commercially available for several months, although it does require use of a tripod. While Sony's won't ship for another month or two, it actually does the micro-alignment necessary to allow handheld HDR photography in-camera.

So yeah - in camera HDR, nothing new.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The camera you have to take pictures of the boobs you have is better than the camera you left at home not taking pictures of boobs you wish were in your face.

or something like that.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[AdamInParadise]

Samsung ST1000: 12 Megapixels, Wifi, GPS. 3G is a difficult feature to sell since it requires a subscription to a mobile network and that's expensive if you only use it from time to time.

This camera is a point&shoot. I guess that anyone carrying a DSLR would not mind carrying a separate GPS module.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Yvanhoe]

Please do it if you need it. It is open source.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[dredwerker]

No photographer worth their memory card uses a smartphone camera for anything more important than taking a shot of where they parked their car.

Thats a great idea. If I could just remember that I was making a cup of tea or why I went up stairs my life would be complete.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[bemymonkey]

For the love of God, why WiFi? I've been seeing articles about WiFi-enabled memory cards for ages now, and I truly have no idea what the hell anyone would use them for... is everyone so Facebook/Flickr/Twitter addicted now that all snapped photos must automatically and immediately be uploaded so that everyone has near-real-time updates of your pictures?

My God, I'm pretty much as geeky as they come, but why, WHY do you need WiFi on a camera?

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Agreed. Not everyone wants a huge camera. Not even a over-the-shoulder-sized superzoom or micro four thirds one.

However, interestingly, the point-and-shoots waste a lot of resources and space by exceeding the diffraction limit on common apertures. Plus their "noise-reduction" algorithms is really all about selective downsampling while maintaining file size when you operate within non-limited apertures.

You buy a 12mpx point-and-shoot, but the files themselves are closer to 6-8 mpx in terms of resolution.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[dbIII]

Having a program to eliminate depth of feild problems by co-ordinating with a mobile light source (deep-field photomacrography on the cheap) is one use I can think of instantly for a programmable camera. Watermarks or logos are another. Being able to do things with various USB devices would also be nice (printer, disk, whatever) as would remote control.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anarchduke]

To quote from the webcomic Too Much Information

Wait... "They've automated stalking?!?"

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[MrMr]

I really didn't see anything 'revolutionary' about those videos other than it did live HDR pictures. Woohoo. I have Photoshop. I'm sure GIMP can do it, etc.
You missed the detail that those programs are running real-time inside the camera, building panorama's and correcting dynamic range and removing noise, while taking the picture?

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anne Honime]

Agreed. I've got a lx2 myself (for the 60mm tele end of the lx3 zoom is IMO too short for close-up portraits), and I'm currently drooling over the Olympus ep-1. But as soon as light dims, I get back to my dslr. The smallish sensor of the pany gets very noisy real quick.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

Nikon Coolpix P6000 is the answer for you.

MG

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

and then everyone views and prints photos using only 2mpx, so what's the point?

I once saw a picture which had been taken with a film camera which used 4'x4' film. It was a spectacular shot, looking at the result (which was the size of the wall it was on), I couldn't even tell that it was a photograph, because it looked just like a painting.

Of course, it's worth noting that paintings have horrible resolution.

The point is: resolution doesn't matter. You can go out of your way to produce something which is incredibly "sharp", but once it goes beyond a certain point, it doesn't matter anymore.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[hughk]

I like a larger sensor, but don 't need the extra pixels. It's partly down to the high pixel density why we have so many problems with low-light noise.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Karganeth]

You mean make a phone with all that stuff in? It would be a waste for it to only be used as a camera with wifi and 3G. Anyway, the samsung pixon12 satisfies all those needs of yours.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Hognoxious]

Plus tilts and shifts.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Hognoxious]

"None of the cameras you suggested would fit in a sane person's pocket"

A Nikon F & 45mm F/2.8GN will.

No it won't, unless you define a sane person as one who always wears a greatcoat.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anne Honime]

You missed the detail that those programs are running real-time inside the camera, building panorama's and correcting dynamic range and removing noise, while taking the picture?

Face it : this contraption still delivers phone grade pictures (a bit better because canon's lenses aren't bad) but is boxed like a field camera, and host a computer that has a 10th of the computing power you can put under your desk. At least, I would have expected a full frame 24x36 CCD to match the lens. Now, seeing most everybody is happy with the crapastic in-camera jpegs produced by consumer-grade cameras (and, that is, those 'everybody' are already enough interested in pictures to actually own a digital dedicated camera, many more people are perfectly happy with their phone !), I can't fathom whom might wish to let this thing handle their HDR process. Those already in the know can wait to better post-process at home a shooting session. Others simply won't care nor see the difference.

Moreover, my cameras already tries to remove noise, and my phone (Nokia Navigator) can stitch panos. And both are so bad at it that I never take pictures with my phone (except from the Big SUV parked next to my car I wish to remember the licence plate in case I get a blow in my door's paint), and set NR to low on my camera to use better suited algorithms on my computer.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[maxume]

I'm endlessly frustrated at the prospect of replacing my cheapo 5 megapixel camera, I see pointlessly big files in my future. I currently have it set to take 3 megapixel images (which probably won't even be full screen in 5 years, but they will still be plenty viewable).

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[drinkypoo]

It seems to me like all that stuff would be better on another device, and is solved neatly by including wifi. A WiFi PDA or UMPC can coordinate with the camera. It seems to ME like what the camera therefore needs most is a good set of sensors, and an Open standard for you to pull that sensor data. The most important sensor not obviously included on the camera is a compass/accelerometer package so that detailed information on camera facing is available. GPS is better handled externally. In fact, it doesn't even need to be involved with the camera at all, if the camera has this actually useful clock we've been discussing.

I hope that my next camera won't need to have any significant amount of storage onboard. Managing flash cards is a hassle. I just want to have a UMPC with a large SSD, and scads of RAM so that I can handle these sort of tasks on it.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[christianT]

Nokia N97 and Nokia N900 enough said

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[tuomoks]

Well, maybe some do. It's not the camera, even with film you might use some very low level cameras as Holga, etc. Or the most simple, a box just with a (pin)hole and get really beautiful pictures which, by the way, sell. Maybe see http://www.irenestauffer.com/blog/ - some of those are cell phone pictures (very crappy camera!) but pictures come right - it's the end result which counts. It's not always the sharpness, the correct colour, balance, whatever which makes a pleasing picture but, of course, tastes vary. I personally love National Geography style, very sharp, correct colours, deep sharpness, etc but can also enjoy pictures made by a pinhole camera with all the weird effects but nothing can't beat that luminosity, not even Photoshop (or Gimp) manipulated. Once you see those blown out to or over 40 inches the right way - they are great ( http://www.irenestauffer.com/ )

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell do you want with GPS in your camera for? And sensible connectors make sense if you don't have a wireless connection, but if you've got wifi/3g, what do you need them for? That's practically a smartphone already, plus the "good" camera stuff.

You're trying to make a device that does everything, and if past failures are any indication, no one has figured out how to do that yet.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[BitZtream]

It'll be a lot easier to just make the camera in an iPhone not suck since it has everything else already.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Entropius]

The EP-1 (or any of the micro 4/3 cameras) apparently do *very* well in low light, especially if you can get reasonably fast old manual focus lenses for them. (Or the new Panasonic 20/1.7.)

The thing has the same size sensor as a DSLR, and seems to have a better-tuned JPEG noise reduction algorithm than the "full-size" Olympus bodies; apparently they have a new magic algorithm, and the E-P1 is the first camera to get it.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[richlv]

a great project - thanks.
i've been longing for an opensource camera for a long time - i think ever since i got my hands on the first digital camera.
while chdk really makes life more bearable, having opensource firmware on a decent hardware (open hardware schematics would be a welcome bonus as well)... i think that would pretty much settle my next purchase. i chose canon for my latest camera mostly because of chdk anyway.

hopefully your project will bring this goal closer :)

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[KC7JHO]

No problem, the newer cameras usually have much better optics now, and all you need to do is to set the resolution to a lower setting than the cameras maximum. Most cameras have at least 3 quality settings which only adjust the resolution but still gives you the use of the rest of the improvements over your (presumably) old one. Not saying you should rush out and buy a new camera, just that their is hope when you have to replace the one you now have for some reason. The new camera will also allow you to have the larger format when you need it for that one shot when you just want it to be perfect and to scale to the highest resolution your monitor will handle for a desktop background... etc.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[maxume]

My concern centers on how reliable 'usually' is, and on the fact that while my camera was cheap, it was from an era where 5 megapixels was being paired with decent optics and marketed at an msrp of $250-$300 (so it made sense to put at least decent optics in it), whereas now, $100 cameras from ABC Warehouse supposedly take 10 megapixel images.

I can't imagine that making the optics got that much cheaper in 5 years.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[rcw-home]

2. Built in GPS.

I want this too, but most of the time I don't need it. It'd be just as good for me to carry a separate GPS unit for those occasions (or other self-locating device - some cell phones have this via cell tower triangulation for E911) which can log where I've been when, and correlate the image timestamp with the location after the fact (either on a PC or by connecting the camera and GPS via USB/Wifi/Bluetooth).

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[KC7JHO]

The WiFi allows a photographer to ad-hawk network to a laptop and automatically upload the pictures, this allows them to shoot many more photos with out needing to change data cards, open the camera to dust etc., display photo on a much larger monitor instantly and wirelessly, etc.
While not suitable for all occasions, it is a very nice time saver for others.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Jerry Coffin]

The thing has the same size sensor as a DSLR, and seems to have a better-tuned JPEG noise reduction algorithm than the "full-size" Olympus bodies; apparently they have a new magic algorithm, and the E-P1 is the first camera to get it.

It's a micro four-thirds camera. The sensor is the same size as in a four-thirds SLR (e.g. an Olympus) but most dSLRs use a larger APS-C sized sensor. There are also a few full-frame dSLRs with full-frame (i.e. 24x36mm) sensors.

The low-light performance of the EP-1 seems to be quite good for its sensor size -- but that's definitely a serious qualification. To put things into perspective (no pun intended), consider the DxOMark tests. They don't have test results for the EP-1 yet, but they do for the Panasonic DMC-G1 (another recent micro-four thirds body). For low-light ISO performance, the DMC-G1 gets a rating of 463. For comparison, the Sony Alpha 900 (which has been panned for its relatively poor low-light performance) gets a rating of 1431. The best low-light performance currently available (by their tests, and probably in real use as well) is the Nikon D3, with a rating of 2527.

Note that DxO is primarily a vendor of raw-conversion software, so they start strictly from raw data, not a JPEG. While it seems likely that the JPEG conversion built into the EP-1 will do quite well compared to most other in-camera conversions, I'd consider it quite unlikely that it would beat the best separate raw conversion software. I'd add that I don't think DxO's is the best, but it's still quite a bit better than any in-camera JPEG software I've seen or heard of. The bottom line is that while DxOMark won't reflect the quality of the in-camera JPEG conversion, it does seem to give a fairly reasonable idea of the camera's image quality as long as you don't try to read too much into small differences.

The bottom line is that even if the EP-1 performs almost unbelievably well for its class, that's only likely to put it about even with relatively old APS-C dSLRs with relatively poor low-light performance (e.g. the Sony Alpha 700). Of course, in fairness, that's not necessarily a terrible thing -- few people really have much use for the low-light performance of a current APS-C dSLR, so coming reasonably close, with the size and weight of a micro four-thirds camera, is pretty impressive. Nonetheless, there's not really much chance of any micro four-thirds camera competing directly with a high-end dSLR any time soon.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anne Honime]

Vade retro, Satanas ! I'm currently fighting the impulse to buy it and you just ruined my efforts of the week.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the Sony Ericsson Satio smartphone. 12 megapix, GPS, internet, video recording, photography, what have you. As a plus you'll get an PDA style organizer and more. Google it up.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Jerry Coffin]

My God, I'm pretty much as geeky as they come, but why, WHY do you need WiFi on a camera?

I'm not sure why most people care, but some studio photographers rarely use memory cards -- they shoot in "tethered" mode, where each picture is downloaded directly to a computer as its shot. Being able to do that without a cord is pretty darned handy. OTOH, this only makes sense in a few, rather specific, situations.

For most others, I guess a temporary version of the same could make some sense; instead of connecting a USB cable or pulling out the memory card and putting it into the computer, just set the camera near the computer to download your pictures.

One thing I'd like to see (not really restricted to wi-fi though) would be a way to actually do most camera setup on your computer. Many cameras' built-in menus are fairly difficult to navigate, and have little or no on-line help available. Even on a netbook, the screen and available drive space are much less limited...

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. My Samsung digital camera took horrible pictures (the color was very dull) compared to a much cheaper Kodak.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Squiggle]

I agree. That is why I'm excited about the Samsung CL65 that should be coming out soon:
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/photography/digital-cameras/compact/EC-CL65ZZBPBUS/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

Specs:
3.93" x 2.39" x 0.74"
x5 optical zoom
3.5" wide display with full touch screen panel
Wi-Fi (802.11 b / g), Bluetooth 2.0, GPS for Geo-tagging and Location Name

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[FangVT]

For the vast majority of (not-professional) shooting, the sensors in DSLRs these days are overkill.

Wrong. A bigger better sensor is never overkill. Every geek has lusted over the scene in Blade Runner where Deckhart sticks a photo in a scanner and "enhances" his way into revealing plot clues. Or countless movies where the orbital spy camera zooms in to read a license plate. When it comes time to crop or zoom, there is no amount of detail that is too much.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[citylivin]

Looks like that device costs 650$ USD, would you say that is the price point you are aiming for?

Personally, my requirements for a camera would be under 150$, as cameras, especially digital ones, break _all_ _the_ _time_.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[quanticle]

Unfortunately a bigger sensor needs a bulkier and more expensive camera body. Then you run into the limitation that I described above: a 2 MP camera in your hand is better than the 12 MP camera you left at home.

Re:Listen up camera manufacturers

[Jeppe Salvesen]

The optics can be as good as they wanna be, if the aperture/pixels-per-mm2 combination is diffraction limited then adding more megapixels just means the lacking information will spread over larger files.

hackable cams already available

[v1]

My PowerShot S3-IS is scriptable. (example) And it's not even a cutting edge camera. Lots of cams support scripting.

Re:hackable cams already available

[mako1138]

Yeah, CHDK is awesome. I haven't tried all the features, but biggest thing for me is RAW support on a point-n-shoot (I have a Canon SD1000).

Re:hackable cams already available

[riegel]

This seems to go way beyond simple scripting. Might I recommend the actual article.

Sort of like the difference between an ms-dos batch file and a C program

Re:hackable cams already available

[mrmojo]

The existence of prior art doesn't mean we shouldn't try and do it better. There's plenty of related work and similar projects.

We're aware of chdk (and have used it for a bunch of stuff), and it's close in some respects, but it's not the same thing. Chdk doesn't turn your camera into a fully functioning linux box, which is part of what we're trying to do, though this has also been done before sans viewfinder (www.elphel.com). You can plug random stuff in over USB, you can control the sensor with extremely low latency (by hacking the kernel if all else fails), you can ssh in, you could even run a web-server off your camera if you wanted to like the elphel cameras. Last week I plugged an SSD drive in over USB (alas no sata interface yet) to save off raw data faster. It's a fairly standard linux so it just worked.

You also have a lot more compute than you might get in something like chdk. You have access to a unified shader architecture GPU, a DSP, a CPU with an SSE-like vector coprocessor, and a fixed-function set of image processing tools (like histogram generation).

The other half of what we're trying to do is make a really good API for a programmable camera, including stuff for synchronization of multiple external devices (eg flashes), optimized image processing routines, frame-level control of the sensor at high frame rates, and camera user interface stuff, including physical widgets like buttons and dials (we use a phidgets board for this).

- Andrew (One of the grad students working on the frankencamera)

Re:hackable cams already available

[PaintyThePirate]

Indeed. For example, the CHDK way of doing HDR photography is a script that shoots a sequence of images at different exposure levels so you can post process them into a single image later on your PC.

Per TFA, the Frankencamera plans to take the pictures and then do the stitching and blending on the camera itself.

Re:hackable cams already available

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are saying Nokia N900 a-like above, you mean with a PowerVR SVX or whatever it's called right? And since AFAIK the drivers are still closed source for that how much access does that give the average hardware/software hacker to the gpu?

Re:hackable cams already available

[4D6963]

That's pretty cool. I've always wanted to try to implement a digital deshaking algorithm by cutting a shot in lots of short exposures (i.e. the final exposure time would be the same but instead of being a long exposure it would be cut into a thousand shorter shots added together) that would work by correlating each new sub-frame with the sum of what was previously obtain, so that you can correct the shaking by adding the new sub frame at the position and with the angle it should have with respect to the image that's been put together so far. Do you think something like this could be achieved with a camera like that? The interest of this being that this is not just a post processing algorithm that works on the final raw, but obviously for that reason it might demand a pretty low level kind of access to the captor and even be computationally demanding.

Oh and don't even pay attention to people who say it's already done before, every time someone makes something quite novel but that's already been done in a way or another before there's always going to be a significant ratio of feedback that will consist in "X already did it before", even if what you did blows X out of the water and does a lot more and a lot better.

Re:hackable cams already available

[mrmojo]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing we're talking about. You need low level access to the sensor for it to work. In fact, that idea works so well that its one of the few things from the area that has made it into a commercial camera - the Casio EX-F1 does it.

Re:hackable cams already available

[Animaether]

Andrew and team: just wanted to give you a huge "THANKS!" for starting this up. I realize that the current goal is a camera fit for science projects, but I hope that either it gives a kick under the bum for existing camera makers -or- that at some point (some of) you will split off with a commercial venture to make consumer / prosumer class cameras that have the same flexibility. Maybe we'll see some of the fruits of your labor come Siggraph 2010?

Re:hackable cams already available

[rdawson]

Andrew, I admire your efforts. Yes chdk is pretty cool, but your solution is much better. Whats the cost, for a hacker to get one of these? We teamed with Analog Devices for a bit, with their blackfin DSP to speed up image processing for demo cameras (I used to work for Aptina, AKA Micron, in R&D test of new sensors..) Randy

Re:hackable cams already available

[kcitren]

How does it handle the added noise of a large number of basically underexposed images? Does it just average it out? I was thinking about trying something like this with the other newish high speed Casio pocket cameras [which don't seem to be selling very well and are rapidly dropping in price].

Re:hackable cams already available

[mrmojo]

Well sensor noise comes in two main flavors - read noise and photon shot noise. The photon shot noise is inherent in the light - photons come in semi-randomly. The read noise is noise in the sensor circuitry.

If you take 100 pictures with 1/100s exposures and average them, then in terms of photon shot noise it's the same as taking a 1s exposure. You've recorded the same number of photons. However, you paid the read noise penalty 100 times, and while you're still averaging that away, you start with a lot more than if you just took a 1s exposure.

So in the end, your synthetic 1s exposure is noisier than a real 1s exposure, but much less noisy than the longest hand-held exposure you could normally take (~1/60s, depending on focal length).

So it works pretty well.

CHDK

[Anonymous Coward]

Not exactly revolutionary. CHDK has been adding features to Canon firmwares for years.

Could there ever be a view camera version?

[e9th]

This looks promising. But optics being optics. a version with swings & tilts would be really exciting for landscape/architectural/product photographers.

Do want

[EsJay]

My knee-jerk reaction was that the proprietary lenses (Canon) and imaging chip (Nokia) would limit customization. But they could be interchangeable, like monitors and printers on personal computers.

Re:Do want

[Entropius]

The Canon lens-to-camera communication protocol has been reverse-engineered for a while. Manufacturers like Sigma and Tamron are making (very good) lenses compatible with Canon (and everyone else's) bodies.

Re:Do want

[mrmojo]

It's not a Nokia imaging chip, it's just the one that happens to be used in Nokia N95s. Aptina makes it and sells it to anyone who wants one. They do make you sign an NDA to get the full data sheet, but that's pretty much impossible to avoid.

As the poster above mentioned, Canon lenses have been thoroughly reverse-engineered.

The lenses would be fairly easy to swap out for a different optical system - we communicate with the lens controller over a simple serial link. The sensor is more involved - for one you'd need a linux kernel driver for your new sensor. Also, it's a pain to properly mount a sensor and get the all support circuitry working. None of it is secret or proprietary though, beyond the NDA you usually need to sign to get the register map for the sensor you want to use.

- Andrew (one of the grad students working on the project)

Re:Do want

[spaceyhackerlady]

A truly open source camera would publish its lens specifications, curvatures, focal lengths, refractive indices. This one doesn't. So it is, in fact, partially closed.

Canon license the protocols, and some manufacturers have reverse-engineered them. But that's not my idea of a truly open-source project.

...laura

Re:Do want

[mrmojo]

You can find such lens specifications available for most lenses in patent databases. The patents list the curvatures, indices of refraction, etc, etc. That's kind of the point of patents - when used correctly they remove the need for trade secrets. I'm not sure if this holds true for Canon lenses in particular.

I agree with you that many aspects of the hardware are not as open as they could be. However, we're trying to make a camera that actually works well as a camera without reinventing too many wheels. We'd also like to be able to replicate and distribute the camera to other researchers. That means off-the-shelf parts that anyone can buy, like Canon lenses.

- Andrew (one of the grad students involved)

Re:Do want

[Hognoxious]

Is the sensor of sufficient quality that it's worth sticking a decent DSLR lens in front of it? Weakest link in a chain and all that.

Re:Do want

[Hognoxious]

A truly open source camera would publish its lens specifications, curvatures, focal lengths, refractive indices. This one doesn't. So it is, in fact, partially closed.

I don't see the relevance. It's pretty unlikely you'd have the tools & skills to manufacture a lens yourself.

This is one of the reasons that my BS-ometer starts clicking when I see the phrase "open source" misused in reference to things that aren't software.

Re:Do want

[mrmojo]

Well no, to be honest. Right now we're using Canon lenses in front of a tiny sensor. This gives us a 6x crop factor, so we're wasting almost all of the field of view of the lens. We're currently working on replacing the sensor with something larger.

Re:Do want

[Jerry Coffin]

The principles of optics have been known for a long time. The theory of how to build good lenses has been around nearly forever. Most current fixed focal-length lenses can be traced back to 19th century designs like the Zeiss Protar and the Goerz DAGOR (and it's easy to find an exact formula for something like this, including curvature, index of refraction for each element, and so on). Zoom lenses are somewhat newer, but again, most can be traced back to Angenieux designs from the mid-1950's (or so).

The difficulty is in actually building a real lens to do what you want. Most of how to do that is widely known as well -- but when you're creating something where the basic unit of measurement is a single wavelength of light, virtually everything has to be done quite precisely. It's possible to do things by hand -- but building a reasonably modern zoom lens would be several years of work for one person. Back when I was younger, grinding a mirror was a rite of passage for virtually every amateur astronomer -- it took months of painstaking work to grind just one of a size that fairly easy to handle -- I can't imagine grinding a dozen or more, especially at the much smaller sizes necessary for a typical camera lens (keeping in mind that one element of a lens is already double the work of a mirror, since you have to grind and polish both sides, not just one).

Especially for a zoom, the mechanics are extremely non-trivial as well. You have to build a lens barrel that allows a dozen (or so) different groups of elements to move relative to each other, maintain exactly the right distances, never tilt or go off-axis, etc. I've simply disassembled, cleaned, lubed, and reassembled a couple, and even that's not for the faint of heart. Designing and building one is definitely a serious task.

Similar work for Canon cameras...

[MMC Monster]

I haven't tried it yet, as my current camera is a Canon G5, which isn't supported, but this site really wants my next camera to be another Canon: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[Entropius]

Is there a way to enable block storage mode on Canon DSLR's?

Seriously, this is a royal PITA. My father is only semi-computer-literate and has a Canon 350D. The hoops he has to jump through in order to get the pictures off of that thing are *insane* -- it literally takes an hour to copy an 8GB CF card, and if he messes up one step in the process he has to start over. (It still takes me forever, but I just let the transfer run in the background).

You could just use a card reader, but the camera craps the pictures into 234897234 different folders -- and he's nowhere near good enough with computers to be able to deal with that.

Meanwhile, I can plug my (also old) Olympus camera into my computer, select "Mass storage" from the menu that appears on the camera, and it's just like a thumbdrive -- with all the pictures in one directory, no funny stuff necessary.

Apparently the modern Canons *still* don't have USB mass storage mode. (Well, not the affordable ones anyway.)

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[EvanED]

The multiple folders thing is a bit annoying, but you don't need a card reader to see that. I have a 350D myself, and have no problems with plugging the thing in and going into the camera's file system to DCIM\ folders and copying them to the hard drive.

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[ljw1004]

If he switches to Windows 7, its "Picture library" is a sort of virtual folder that encompasses multiple filesystem folders and can arrange the photos independently of those filesystem folders. It might help.

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[penguinchris]

I have a Canon 40D, and previously had a 350D, and with either if I actually attach(ed) it with a USB cable rather than using a card reader I do not have the issues you described... I am not sure if you are doing something wrong, or what - as EvanED already said in his reply, you really should be able to access it as a normal USB mass storage device - but it doesn't matter. The real solution for your father is to change his method of downloading and sorting photos.

There are multitudes of programs that are designed to make this really easy, whether you plug the camera in directly or use a card reader (you should use a decent card reader - it will cut the download time to a few minutes at most). They can be completely automated to store the images in whatever filing system you like on your hard drive. It doesn't matter how Canon stores the files on the memory card, they're reorganized automatically in the way you like - I organize by date. I use digikam, which I consider the best option on linux, but I am guessing your father doesn't use linux - in that case there are even more options. You might try something like Google's Picasa (which runs on linux too actually) as something simple and easy to understand. For a semi-computer-literate person, the only sensible solution is the use software that's designed to make this easy. The included Canon software, even, is not terribly bad!

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[Cheesetrap]

You could just use a card reader, but the camera craps the pictures into 234897234 different folders -- and he's nowhere near good enough with computers to be able to deal with that.

One would assume the camera generates unique (or at least very seldom-repeated) filenames for each photo... I don't see what is difficult about a recursive 'move' command? I'm a complete noob @ programming but it only takes a one-line batch file..

<20 minutes later>

Okay, damn you for making me work it out, here you go :P

File: dumpdir.bat

@echo off
set listfile=c:\temp\list.txt
if "%1"=="." (echo %cd%>%listfile%) else (echo %1>%listfile%)
dir %1 /b/s/a:d>>%listfile%
for /f "tokens=*" %%s in (%listfile%) do (xcopy "%%s"%4 %2 %3 /v /f /z)

And this can be called with:

Normal usage:dumpdir path1 path2

Test mode (lists files only): dumpdir path1 path2 /L

Restrict to matching string: dumpdir path1 path2 /R \*.ext (backslash required)

Note that path1 and path2 must be enclosed in quotes if they include spaces - and if you are running the batch from the directory you are wanting to consolidate, you can use a period instead of typing out the path (e.g, dumpdir . c:\pics).

Hope that helps someone ;)

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[Rah'Dick]

My Canon EOS 450D puts all files (JPEG and CR2) into one directory per 10.000 files. Actually, I dislike this behaviour very much, so I wrote a script that moves all files into directories named after the file creation date (YYYY-MM-DD). All I need to do afterwards, is to add a short description to the directory name. The script has a context menu entry for directories, so it's as easy to use as it gets.

By the way: when you connect the 450D via USB, Canon's driver only shows JPEGs on the cam, even if you shot in RAW mode. For RAWs, you'll just get the 6MP JPEG previews, that are embedded in the .cr2 files. If you want the actual .cr2 files, you have to use a card reader. Great, isn't it?

Re:Similar work for Canon cameras...

[richlv]

any recent & polished linux distribution allows to "mount" almost all cameras as drives - even those not supporting mass storage mode.

Nikon offer an SDK for many of their cameras

[jamesswift]

http://sdk.nikonimaging.com/apply/

D5000, D3x, D90, D700, D40, D60, D3, D300, D200, D80
And NEF (RAW) files

Always wanted a printer

[bogaboga]

I have always wanted an Open Source printer. One that can be built and whose consumables made by those with the means without worrying about patents and all the nonsense. Think about what this could do for students and government departments.

I am personally sick and tired of shelling cash to the Lexmarks, HPs and Epsons of today. Why hasn't this taken off [yet]?

Re:Always wanted a printer

[Kinky Bass Junk]

If you think it's such a great idea, you should seek funding for this and get to work on organising it.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[Hurricane78]

If you mean the ink: If you still shell out big time cash for that, you must be blind, because there are more offers for cheap ink, than there are banks in Luxemburg and Switzerland combined! ^^

Re:Always wanted a printer

[DerekLyons]

I am personally sick and tired of shelling cash to the Lexmarks, HPs and Epsons of today. Why hasn't this taken off [yet]?

Because manufacturing stuff in the real world, especially complicated precision stuff like printers - is very expensive. It's nothing like software.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't taken off because hardware requires money.

Open source software requires people to write it in their own (spare) time. Then you can copy the product however many times you need it.
Open source hardware requires people to make things in their own time, and spend money on the bits and pieces.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[ledow]

Because a printer costs almost nothing nowadays, certainly less than its component cost to a hobbyist when you can get Lexmark's etc. for about £20 brand new. Old printers are a great source of stepper motors because of this. The major problem is the ink, which is the hard bit to make effectively and cheaply on anything other than a mass scale - so actually with a £20 Lexmark printer and some "clone" ink refill, you've basically got something orders or magnitude more efficient than you could ever make yourself.

The tech being "open source" is a different matter, but we all *know* how printers work. An inkjet is no different to a dot matrix, except instead of hitting a physical pin into an inked ribbon, the carriage heats the ink through a very fine nozzle (probably out of the hobbyists reach without considerable skill/expense). The basic technology is a geared-down belt on a stepper motor. Try getting that working to within 300ths of an inch (300dpi) for less than £20. After that, the actual imprinting technology is either out of reach or difficult to manufacture / time accurately. Then you need control circuitry (WAY more than £20 worth of chip / effort / programming). Then you need the consumable in the first place, which doesn't clog, dry up, leak, etc. And laser printers? Don't even go there for hobbyist use.

Even back in the primarily-hobbyist days, "normal" types of printers around weren't in the hobbyist scene because you couldn't "make" them - the ZX printer on the Spectrum is one example - aluminium-coated paper which was printed on by an electrical "spark" because that's the only way it could be made affordable. Printers are one of those things that you can't make for anywhere near the price that 10 or 12 throwaway ones wouldn't cost. You don't gain anything at all. It's like saying, why doesn't someone make an "open-source" car? Because at the end of the day to make it would actually cost you more than just buying a new car anyway.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[Hognoxious]

I want one that builds itself, makes its own paper and refills itself with ink that it makes out of thin air.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[drinkypoo]

It's because making printers is really hard. Even a good dot matrix is a very difficult thing to produce; I know, I've owned a few made by various companies trying pretty hard, and mostly failing. Laser printers are incredibly complicated things, and inkjet printers require incredible manufacturing control. Meanwhile, you can get them for forty bucks, so when they suck you throw them away. There's big problems with that kind of use and abuse culture but it works economically... for now.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[BitZtream]

Because something that OSS people never seem to understand is that at some point there are costs to things. Its harder to see with software, but with hardware and consumables it typically becomes pretty clear quickly.

You can take away patents and ink and paper are still going to cost money, sorry. Unless you're buying HP ink cartridges, its not really that expensive now. And if you're buying HP ink cartridges directly from the store without refilling them you get what you deserve anyway.

Re:Always wanted a printer

[ChrisMaple]

OEM inks are generally high quality and made to produce colors accurately. Aftermarket inks frequently have some flaws in lifetime, color accuracy, chemical reactivity (damaging the printhead), etc.. If you have a cheap printer, you don't lose much experimenting; but I won't try cheap inks on a top-of-the-line printer again.

Does it really matter?

[gillbates]

Look, here's the disclaimer: I am a software engineer. No, not hardware, software.

But I've written camera drivers from schematics and datasheets alone. It's *just not that hard*. Even for a software guy. I don't have an EE, just an interest in electronics.

And digital electronics are, quite frankly, rather simple. If you know ohm's law, and can read a datasheet or two, you could very easily put together a digital camera module. PCB express will happily etch the board for you, and you *might* have to do some soldering. Unless, of course, you buy one of the cameras from sparkfun or other hobby supplier.

If you can't learn drag and drop PCB design, or can't master basic electronics (ohm's law doesn't even require an understanding of calculus), maybe you shouldn't be tinkering with cameras at the circuit level. A fast fourier transform is far more complicated and difficult to understand than the electronics which go into camera sensors, and yet, is the foundation for all modern video and image compression. If you can't understand that, you will most likely not be contributing much of value to computing applications involving a camera.

Granted, I like open source stuff. But there's already plenty of it out there today - just pick the resolution, frame rate, sensitivity, etc... and go. You don't need the frankencamera. You just need the time and interest, and be willing to spend a few bucks on the hardware.

Re:Does it really matter?

[robbak]

Great! Now, where can I download the schematics and datasheets for a Canon 50D?
And they don't just want camera drivers (that's done, thanks gphoto!) They want to write their own firmware.

If we could just get those, we wouldn't need FrankenCamera. But we aren't going to get them, based on past experience, so the wheel must be reinvented, again.

Re:Does it really matter?

[appoose]

From what I gather, the emphasis for the project is not mainly on facilitating re-implementation of incorporating existing features found in modern cameras, but to enable researchers and developers to add onto to new functionality very seldom found in today's camera. Computational Photography ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_photography ) is currently a hot research area in academia. A huge chunk of computational photographic work is purely software driven, and do not involve any hardware tweaking (Think HDR imaging, panorama) . Thus, what a programmable (open) camera will enable me is to pick up a recently published work (or device my own technique), implement it and add onto the functionality of the camera. ** snip from the quoted article ** Of course users with Frankencameras would not be constrained by what is already known. Theyâ(TM)d be free to discover and experiment with all kinds of other operations that might yield innovative results because theyâ(TM)d have total control. ** snip ends **

Re:Does it really matter?

[mspohr]

Canon cameras have been hacked...

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

Re:Does it really matter?

[Hognoxious]

Some Canon compact cameras have been hacked.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Threni]

Some of the maths behind `coded apertures` seems a little advanced, for me at least. It's cool though. The wikipedia article on it is rubbish - instead check out these:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/graphics/CodedAperture/
http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/cai/

Re:Does it really matter?

[metaforest]

Look, here's the disclaimer: I am a software engineer. No, not hardware, software.

But I've written camera drivers from schematics and datasheets alone. It's *just not that hard*. Even for a software guy. I don't have an EE, just an interest in electronics.

And digital electronics are, quite frankly, rather simple. If you know ohm's law, and can read a datasheet or two, you could very easily put together a digital camera module. PCB express will happily etch the board for you, and you *might* have to do some soldering. Unless, of course, you buy one of the cameras from sparkfun or other hobby supplier.

Until you have a * CORRECTLY WORKING* system that you designed from scratch from your own PCB design, you should probably not make such statements. You have appear to have no idea what you are talking about.

I just went through this process over the last 4 months to design, build, and code a simple SMD soldering oven. I know considerably more than you appear to about 'Ohm's Law' and a few data sheets. I am not an EE; like you I am a software/firmware guy. I build hardware as a hobbyist. It's not a simple drag and drop editing solution by any stretch of the imagination. It's a major engineering project. Even for a few components. Why? For the same reason a word processor doesn't make a great writer, and Photoshop doesn't make a great photographer. These tools assume a knowledge base that you and I do not have. This knowledge base must be learned to get even marginal success. Making that stretch is much harder than you appear to be implying.

I'll go further: It is much easier for an EE to become a software engineer, than for software engineer to become a hardware engineer. Why? I think it's because the tools used to develop software are considerably more advanced than the tools hardware engineers need to use. Is that used O-Scope really telling you what you think it's telling you? Do you really understand, in your bones what your DVM is telling you when you probe a node? When your carefully crafted (by the data sheets) prototype starts crashing unexpectedly do you know where to start looking for anomalies?

I challenge you to go ahead and make something; ANYTHING with something as seemingly simple as a PIC mpu and a few analog sub-circuits, on a PCB you designed, and get back to me when you have it in your paws, working as designed. It's not as easy as it looks. I am sure you can do it. You just need to make the effort. Your journey will be the reward, and you should document it.... warts and all as I have: http://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?t=13239

Cheers

Why use the EOS mount?

[insane_membrane]

When the best cameras in the world use the F-mount ;)

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[mrmojo]

Because we have a lot of Canon lenses lying around. It's not a fundamental part of the system - it would be easy to switch in a different lens mount.

- Andrew (one of the grad students involved)

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the best lenses in the world use the EOS mount. The EF mount allowed Canon to pioneer things like ultrasonic focusing motors and image stabilizers.

dom

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[Hognoxious]

The best lenses in the world mount into a lensboard.

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[lahvak]

The mount could easily be swappable, too. Old Exacta cameras had swappable mounts. Of course there was no electronics involved, but you could fit pretty much any lense designed for a 35mm camera plus some more on an Exacta.

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[ChrisMaple]

The best lenses in the world are telescope mirrors at major observatories. I haven't seen how they mount to their sensors, but I bet the mount isn't standard.

Re:Why use the EOS mount?

[Hognoxious]

Cats? Bah. You can't stop them down to get more depth of field. Give me F/64 or give me death!

The split exposure demos was cute

[Anonymous Coward]

and hands-off too, which is what people want. When I was souping B+W with the right combo of film, over exposure and under development I could manage over 12 stops without burning or dodging the print. Post-WWII the army developed film and techniques to cover 22 stops. This camera is easier, certainly, but hardly a breakthrough. Well, it is color, I'll give you that.

The lens mount

[sectionboy]

It appears that they are using a Canon EF or EF-s mount, but Canon is missing in the list of sponsors (Nokia, Adobe Systems, Kodak, and Hewlett-Packard). So they either reverse-engined the communication protocle between the lens and the camera, or they just skip that part all together. Either way, it's not a completely open source camera unless lens manufacturers open up their mount designs.

Re:The lens mount

[wronskyMan]

It should be fairly easy to reverse engineer - Sigma and Tokina among others produce third-party lenses that mate with Canon/Nikon/etc DSLRs.

Re:The lens mount

[spaceyhackerlady]

It should be fairly easy to reverse engineer - Sigma and Tokina among others produce third-party lenses that mate with Canon/Nikon/etc DSLRs.

Not the protocols: the actual lenses themselves. The optical stuff.

Besides, I always thought the best lenses had M42x1 threads on them. :-)

...laura

Re:The lens mount

[Anonymous Coward]

This project has nothing to do with creating "open-source lenses", it's an "open-source camera" that is compatible with a huge variety of already existing lenses.

Re:The lens mount

[Jerry Coffin]

It appears that they are using a Canon EF or EF-s mount, but Canon is missing in the list of sponsors (Nokia, Adobe Systems, Kodak, and Hewlett-Packard). So they either reverse-engined the communication protocle between the lens and the camera, or they just skip that part all together.

While you're probably right, the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the stated facts. Specifically, for a short time, Kodak built a dSLR with a Canon EF mount, and IIRC, they licensed the technology from Canon rather than using reverse engineering to get it (FWIW, they also built one with Nikon F-mount). Although I rather doubt that Kodak is authorized to distribute that data (and the license has probably expired by now, so they probably can't even use it themselves) it's possible that they could have served as the "conduit" for that data.

What about CHDK?

[rdawson]

This kit is FREE open source for the Cannon Powershot, with many of the features mentioned in the article, including HDR. Download it onto a cf flash, and it replaces the Cannon OS. Many amazing images 1/50,000 milkdrop captures, night scenes etc can be found at http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

Re:What about CHDK?

[davmoo]

Damn...the one week I don't seem to have mod points. Your post should be modded "+100 one of the most useful replies ever"!

Re:What about CHDK?

[Zalminen]

Cannon Powershot?

Point and shoot indeed :D

Re:What about CHDK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome! I'm going to check this out when I get home. Pimp my powershot!

nice PR stunt

[speedtux]

This sounds like an academic trying to make a name for himself again by labeling something that already exists with his own label. "Computational photography"? Well, how exactly did digital photography ever work without that?

Open source camera OS? Nice try, but the reason manufacturers haven't standardized on anything yet is because the technology keeps changing.

However, FWIW, Canon cameras effectively can be reprogrammed using the CHDK firmware.

Re:nice PR stunt

[mrmojo]

Computational photography is the accepted term for this subfield of computer graphics and computer vision: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=computational+photography

Secondly, we're not making an open source camera OS for existing hardware, we're making camera hardware that runs an existing open source OS - linux - with particular drivers and APIs to help you program the camera.

We're very well aware of CHDK and have used it for many projects. This is not like that (I have an earlier post that elaborates above).

Re:nice PR stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Computational photography is the accepted term for this subfield of computer graphics and computer vision

The fact that people have succeeded at establishing a redundant and misleading term doesn't change the fact that it's redundant and misleading.

You call that computational photography?

[SEWilco]

When I see "Computational Photography", I think of the flatcam, a button-sized wafer with a photon-sensing surface. No lens, it instead computes the image of its surroundings. Described in fictional "Michaelmas" by Algis J. Budrys.

Re:You call that computational photography?

[jimmydevice]

Is this possible without knowing the angle of incidence of the incoming photon? Even if you sort by photon frequency and have a huge temporal bandwidth?
This works in holography, but the focal point and coherence of the light comes from the laser and not a lens.

Re:You call that computational photography?

[jimmydevice]

Oops, I remember reading about white light / incoherent holography in SciAm in the 70's, but I think it still required a "point illumination source" to work.

I may be incoherent too.

What scammers might do

[Skapare]

... once they have infected the camera with their spyware, is leave the camera collecting images constantly, looking for any personal identifying, security, or financial info, and send it over to their servers in a foreign country when network access is available.

Re:What scammers might do

[silanea]

Sure. Just after they have ported their spyware to Linux. Which will happen during the Year of the Linux Desktop, I am sure.

a push to compete

[bgd73]

it is about time.

Open Source Camera... Pornography

[Anonymous Coward]

..That's what I read. Must be early in the morning.

Where's the source?

[ITMagic]

Ermm, Just where, exactly, is the source? Links to CAD designs, specs, software, etc? As far as following the Stanford links is concerned, I can't see how this project can be labeled "Open Source" without this...

Re:Where's the source?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, they now own domain opensourcecamera.org , Isn't it more important these days :-) ?

True black and white sensor.

[Anne Honime]

What I would really love is a CCD or CMOS without bayer color matrix nor antialiasing filter. This camera would be limited to black and white photography (or studio pack shot with 3 exposures behind R,B,G filters), but I expect the result would be outstanding. At the moment, we're fighting with slightly fuzzy shots (thanks to the AA filter) to recreate true pixels intensity after they've been distorted by various digital process. There's been one digital b&w camera, made by kodak. It's said the production number was 80, but from reviews, images were already gorgeous with 6 Mpix 10 years ago. Today, bayer matrix and AA filters are glued on the chip in the manufacturing process, and it's impossible to get rid of it afterwards.

Re:True black and white sensor.

[Jerry Coffin]

Today, bayer matrix and AA filters are glued on the chip in the manufacturing process, and it's impossible to get rid of it afterwards.

Not that it really makes a huge difference, but while the Bayer matrix is fabricated as part of the sensor chip, the AA filter is not.

Removing the color filters would not really affect the requirement for AA filtering either. And, just FWIW, there have been a few cameras built with Bayer filters, but not (physical) AA filters (e.g. the Kodak Pro dSLRs).

It would appear that in most cases, the AA filter doesn't really have much affect on final sharpness anyway. Just for example, if you read through a description of a test procedure, you quickly realize that very few pictures approach the maximum sharpness of which a current camera/lens combo is capable.

Finally, I'd note that if you really don't want a Bayer-pattern sensor, you can get a Fuji camera. They use a type of sensor originally developed by Foveon (which Fuji since bought out) that has individual sensor elements "stacked", to there's a red, green, and blue element at each pixel location. While Fuji's cameras are perfectly good and work quite nicely in general, they're not really a whole lot better than most others (if anything, they seem to lag a bit behind the field in general). At least when you look at a JPEG, however, those extra sensor elements aren't doing a whole lot of good -- a JPEG sub-samples the chrominance channels, so they have half the resolution of the luminance channel anyway. This isn't quite identical to a Bayer pattern, with twice the density of green sensors as red or blue, but it works out pretty close.

Re:True black and white sensor.

[Anne Honime]

Finally, I'd note that if you really don't want a Bayer-pattern sensor, you can get a Fuji camera. They use a type of sensor originally developed by Foveon (which Fuji since bought out) that has individual sensor elements "stacked", to there's a red, green, and blue element at each pixel location. While Fuji's cameras are perfectly good and work quite nicely in general, they're not really a whole lot better than most others...

Foevon sensors are not what I'm looking for. While I do understand they are marginally better suited to b&w photography on principle, the reality of the technology is they have at the moment way less physical pixels than 'classic' sensors, between a 3rd and a 4th if I'm not mistaken. Fuji pulls a marketing stunt by selling 'equivalent' figures based on extrapolation to bayer-layered sensors, which is somewhat close to reality in colour photography, but is meaningless in a b&w context ; you can achieve the same result as the foevon with a bayer-sensor by reducing the resolution to a 4th of the total pixel count, and extracting and averaging 2 by 2 the green pixels to compute only luminance based on those "super pixels". It does look good on screen, but it's kind of small and no more suitable to large prints.

Maybe dynamic range not the best example

[Cico71]

Some cameras already use technologies to optimize the dynamic range e.g. using Apical solutions: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0903/09031801apical.asp not really like multiple shots with different exposures, but still very effective. Moreover, I prefer to leave such things to the post-processing phase of my work flow. Still nice that the camera is open, I hate manufacturers issuing dozen of new cameras every six months with very small increments in the feature set every time.

Alignment and bracketing

[janwedekind]

The camera does alignment and bracketing of an exposure series on-site. That would be really neat and much cheaper than current HDR sensors. At the moment I need to do this offline using Hugin and QtPfsGui.

Those can be found in cellphones these days

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Samsung SGH G-800 phone. It has 5 megapixel camera and optical zoom to 3x (digital zoom to 6x). The whole phone cost about 300 euros a year ago. I'm sure you could get one for significantly less these days or alternatively spend the same money on a phone with a lot better quality camera. (I think I've seen one with 8 megapixel camera a while back)

Those aren't as good as actual cameras, of course. The flash is pretty weak and without it the shutter speed needs to be so slow that pictures get very easily less clear unless you put some effort into taking it... So they aren't quite there yet.

However, they've come a LONG way from what they used to be a few years ago. I used to think "Why would anyone want a camera to their cellphone? Those are so low quality that I couldn't really use it for anything..." but that isn't true anymore. I think it is safe to say that given only a few more years they will be at the level where nobody (except professional photographers, of course) will have any interest in owning any other camera.

What about video?

[XB-70]

I bought a Canon Vixia HD video camera this past year. It has a 60 Gig HD. The proprietary file format, in-camera file navigation system, transfer protocols, lack of in-camera editing features and any other host of major software design flaws make this unit a pig to deal with will. Fortunately, it takes amazing videos AND pics. It would be so cool if you could plug a USB keyboard in (for example) and do titling right in the camera! What if you put Linux in it? Let's skip ahead and work on video and apply that to still imaging - then you would really have something.

On another note, an open source camera will be very well received by the astronomy community who have had to deal with non-configurable equipment for years.

Re:What about video?

[Bodhammer]

I also agree that an open source camera with support for Astronomy would be very well received. There are a number of lower level projects around webcams that have produced some remarkable work. See http://www.qcuiag.org.uk/ and http://www.astrosurf.com/re/audine.html. I would love to see an open source camera that had support for temperature stabilization and active cooling, long exposure, stacking, etc.

Open standards

[leandrod]

Free oftware is important, but o are open tandards... a Four irds mount, sD or Compact Flah torage, TIFF/EP 6 or Adobe DNG output...

Re:Open standards

[phozz bare]

If you're out, I have a few extras you can borrow:

s s s s
  s s s

You're welcome!

Re:Open standards

[thexile]

Can't you fucking spell?

A typical kdawson summary

[mi]

... no longer limited by the features a camera manufacturer sees fit to supply ...

Wouldn't the life be a lot better, if there weren't any evil, scheming, lying manufacturers to begin with? Seriously — whatever a commune of happy altruistic enthusiast can not create, can be created by a friendly government agency...

The proof is in the pudding...

[Anne Honime]

If you look at the picasa album of pictures taken with the Frankencamera (linked from TFA through their homepage), you'll notice an incredible amount of chroma noise and banding. The caption ("can you PS camera do better ?") is ridiculous. I would be shamed if my PS produced that crap.

Depends on what "printer" means...

[jeffb (2.718)]

If you could build a printer yourself, it would be more than ten times slower than a commercial printer, probably have ten times poorer resolution, and cost more than ten times as much.

The DIY crowd has wisely skipped over 2D printers, and moved directly to 3D fabricators.

The better title

[the eric conspiracy]

The first time I read the title I thought it said computational pornography.

zain

[Anonymous Coward]

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craiglistadposting

Arduino-style camera?

[paperbananaclip]

What about an Arduino-style platform where you have a standard base, and based on what you want you can add on components (such as a range finder or a GPS receiver or beyond-visible-light spectrum sensors or time-dilation modules or flux capacitors)?

Not open source, so not nearly as useful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the url, at the end, says "apply"? This means Nikon gets to dictate what you can and cannot do with that SDK. I know it is the fashion these days amongst developers to hand over all control of their own software to someone else (cough... iPhone ... cough) but seriously are you that willing to give up your freedom just so you can use a fashionable platform?