Firmware Hack Allows Video Analysis On a Canon Camera

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Liege in Belgium have been able to perform real-time video analysis on a regular Canon digicam (video link) without any hardware modification. The results are shown directly on the digicam's screen. They use a hacked version of a popular open-source alternative firmware for Canon cameras: CHDK. This is a proof-of-concept that computer vision algorithms can now be embedded on regular Canon digicams with little effort (CHDK is coded in C). What other popular vision algorithms could be implemented? For what purpose?" You can get some idea about ViBe from this abstract at IEEE; basically, it allows background extraction in moving images.

Comments

Zoneminder

[b0bby]

I've been playing around with Zoneminder a bit & this could be a way to use decentralized cheap cameras to send events to a ZM server. Pretty neat.

Re:Zoneminder

[davester666]

I wrote code for this so that my camera would draw a little red box around the faces of terrorists. It seems I'm surrounded by them.

Re:Zoneminder

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps you could implement that with collision boundaries and gun turrets before they terrorize you. that would keep the status quo, right and proper, all the way.

Re:Zoneminder

[Lumpy]

Id rather zoneminder do the processing and use cheaper video cameras to send video to zoneminder.

I've been using zoneminder for 4 years now, What more important is not "cheap" but high frame rate.

Re:Zoneminder

[b0bby]

If you're doing wireless, sending high quality images back continuously can really chew up your bandwidth. If the camera has enough smarts to only send events it can make things easier. Plus using less bandwidth makes things like having your Zoneminder box be an offsite VM easier too.

CHDK

[The MAZZTer]

I use CHDK on my own Canon PowerShot. Good stuff.

Re: CHDK

[0100010001010011]

What's the 'newest' Camera that supports CHDK? Mine got stolen recently and I'd like something to replace it for times I don't want to lug around my SLR.

Does CDHK support the DIGIC IV (720p, better face recognition). I played around with one of my friends and face recognition, the fact that you can zoom in and scroll through all faces to make sure they're in focus. Lots of cool stuff, but CDHK seems to mostly support older stuff and Canon's numbering scheme sucks.

Re: CHDK

[Gruff1002]

Newest Canon to the best of my knowledge is a G11 that will support CHDK

Re: CHDK

[rhizome]

Check the sidebar: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

I'm anxiously awaiting the SD1200 port.

Re: CHDK

[kimvette]

I use it on my S5 IS. I use the intervalometer, various grids (for composing level shots when it matters), the extended shutter modes (both slower and faster than the "stock" firmware allows) and of course the RGB histogram and on rare occasion raw. I don't use raw too often though because it slows the camere down a fair bit. However, CHDK is a wonderful tool and scripting it isn't too bad. The documentation is actually pretty good for a "young" open source project. In short, it makes point-and-shoot cameras usable where they otherwise wouldn't be, and where a point-and-shoot camera is preferable to a DSLR (such as when traveling), it can give you some of the capabilities you would normally turn to a DSLR for.

I hope they manage to port it to the DSLRs, particularly the EOS 7D.

Re: CHDK

[xxdinkxx]

http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/12087/1/Barnich2009ViBe.pdf There is the paper in question. I despise the fact that I still have to pay for papers in IEEE silos when I am in fact a member.
Yeah I could upgrade my subscription, but bah.

RANT.YML
rant:
information should be free

Re: CHDK

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the 'newest' Camera that supports CHDK? Mine got stolen recently and I'd like something to replace it for times I don't want to lug around my SLR.

I'm interested by that too as I've recently "acquired" a new camera.

Re: CHDK

[TubeSteak]

I played around with one of my friends and face recognition, the fact that you can zoom in and scroll through all faces to make sure they're in focus.

Maybe someone can explain the multi-focus thing to me.
Does the camera pick out all the faces and then pick an average focal point?
Or does the software (as opposed to the lens) actually tweak each face into focus?

Re: CHDK

[arh9623]

Myself as well. I've been checking every month or so. It seems close.

Re: CHDK

[Anonymous Coward]

Does repeating a link in the summary really count as informative?
I know this article is only tangentially about CHDK but I've been looking into CHDK lately for a project so I thought I'd share some useful links.

Supported Cameras

Note that a higher number doesn't mean it's a newer model. The A710 was released before the A590.
Canon PowerShot A series info

CHDK Howto

Info on how to make a port

Info on implementing PTP in CHDK
This is still relatively new but it could allow using a computer to remotely control the camera, which isn't doable on many Canon cameras with the stock firmware. I'd love to see this mature so I can do remote capture in Linux.

Re: CHDK

[Trebawa]

I have a PowerShot SX200, which is compact and DIGIC IV. It also shoots 720p. There's a beta of CHDK for it, and it's worked well so far.

Re: CHDK

[camperdave]

Wow! I didn't know people were doing this sort of thing. I have been leaning towards a Canon for other reasons, but this will weigh heavily in Canon's favour for my next camera purchase.

Re: CHDK

[ShakaUVM]

>>I use CHDK on my own Canon PowerShot. Good stuff.

Ditto. When I get bored waiting for an animal to do something, I play Daleks on my camera. It's awesome.

Re: CHDK

[mctk]

Also use CHDK, also consider it good stuff. And I love the fact that my powershot takes AA batteries and has a standard USB connector. They've gotten more money out of me because of this, not in spite of it.

Re: CHDK

[Anonymous Coward]

EOS 7D is not a tinker toy, its professional equipment, and the 5dmk2 is superior at video too. They do not need hacked firmware.

Re: CHDK

[kimvette]

Look into some of the capabilities CHDK can provide; it absolutely can be useful on a DSLR. You can do a lot of advanced scripting and CHDK is hard to beat if you want to capture consistently good shots of lightning.

The EOS 7D is not professional; look at the EOS 1D or D3S. The EOS 7D is positioned as a prosumer camera.

Re: CHDK

[DZign]

As far as I know it'll check the different faces and decide where it has to put focus and a small enough aperture so
they all are sharp.
So if the faces are close enough to each other it can focus on one and go for a small dof that'll have them all sharp, if they're further away then it'll increase dof (and thus exposure time) and possible put actual focus somewhere in between the faces (again, if I'm not mistaken it's around 1/3 before your focal point and 2/3 after it that's sharp).

Re: CHDK

[vegiVamp]

"acquired", with quotes ? What, you were taking an innocent evening stroll through a random stranger's living room and one just happened to fall into your pocket of it's own accord ?

Re: CHDK

[Nocturna81]

*wooossshhh*

Re: CHDK

[treeves]

*woooooosh*?
What, were you taking random stroll through a stranger's house and found a window open and the wind blowing the curtains in or what?

CHDK is cool - more programmable cameras, please

[Animaether]

Subject pretty much says it all.

Unfortunately, it seems many camera manufacturers - including Canon when it comes to their SLR line - are far happier to put any new functionality in newly released camera models and put them on the bullet list for those, rather than making it available for older models as well and just letting the new model's technical (rather than software) advantages make their sales.

THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

"Digicam"? What the fuck is that?

They're called "digital cameras". Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[sopssa]

To add to the mix, everyone here calls it digi camera :-)

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Volante3192]

I wholeheartedly agree! Oh I miss the days when I used a modulator-demodulator to aid in my reception of electronic mail...

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Mike Buddha]

I call it a Cami-DigiCam Camcorder. It's so important to get the terminology right when you don't know anything else.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[lwsimon]

Most photographers refer to a non-SLR digital camera as a "digicam" and a dSLR as a "digital camera", as a means of differentiating the two in conversation.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

The "digital" part is superfluous. Nobody uses film any more.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[timeOday]

Right, the new word for "digital camera" is "camera." If you mention to a friend that your camera battery is dead, would they still ask whether you can advance the film manually? No. The vast majority of cameras made, sold, and used today are digital cameras, so that is what the word has come to mean.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Volante3192]

I must have missed that memo from the English Academy. What day did that happen?

Yes, I'll agree if someone says 'camera' in a non-film/celluloid specific context I'll probably assume it's referring to a digital camera, but in what way are we damaging the language (moreso) by using digicam?

l8r

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

Define "most" ... because I've never heard the distinction being used that way in my entire life.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[oldspewey]

Isn't this when somebody is supposed to chime in with a meme?

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[dgatwood]

In precisely the way you damage the language when you elide the space between the words "more so". You're creating a word where none is needed.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems fairly universal -- I was a professional photographer from 2003-2008, and the term was used quite often both in person and in forums I frequented.

"Digicam" just sounds more lightweight and limited, to me.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[dotgain]

Tell that to the Lomography crowd.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[maxwell demon]

Isn't this when somebody is supposed to chime in with a meme?

In Korea only old people use film?
In Soviet Russia film uses you?
Or maybe just imagine a Beowulf cluster of hacked Canon cameras ...

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Gilmoure]

I was once chased by ninjas but managed to elide the guy on point and the rest fell apart.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Hognoxious]

... or the large format aficionados.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

how do you call my cannon G11 ?

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Khyber]

No, most photographers that refer to a non-SLR digital camera refer to it as a PnS (Point and Shoot) and dSLR as just "SLR" as in most digital forums it's automatically assumed you're running a digital camera opposed to film.

I still take superior pictures with my Minolta X-700, no Photoshop needed afterwards.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here, G11, here boy! Come on, I've got a nice treat for you!"

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[timeOday]

I don't mind if somebody says digicam, I just think it sounds a little old-fashioned, like "surfing the web."

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[drkim]

What the hell are you guys talking about?
A 'camera' is a room.
Are you yacking about those newfangled "camera obscuras?"

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[lwsimon]

Yeah, there are some excellent cameras out there that aren't dSLRs for some uses. I have a Minolta Z3 that I bought my parents many years ago that I love. I used to carry a small camera myself, but I use my iPhone for random one-off stuff now.

I'm much less serious about photography than I used to be. I like hobbies with a positive cash flow, and while photography did that for me, it was a lot of time invested, a lot of cash on hand, but very little profit over time by the time I bought the equipment I needed to do it right.

These days I do vinyl signs and decals mostly, along with clean up the occasional virus.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the same process that formed our language in the first place?

Do you mean to imply that our language stopped changing, and that usage, spelling, grammar, and meaning, are all fixed and permanent? When did that happen? Who said so?

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[Lumpy]

Most photographers I know refer to SLR's as cameras and non SLR cameras as "point and shoots" or if they are snobby "cute toys"

But then I hang around professionals and photojournalists, so they may not be hip on newbie terminology.

Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS".

[lwsimon]

Ouch.

I admit I've been out of the loop a few years, but that hurt. I got my primary income from photography for almost 5 years.

Video analysis

[oldhack]

Abstraction overload.

I'm sure "video analysis" means something more concrete to those in the know (or not), but I can't shake off the feeling that it's all blahblahblah with no meaning other than to generate more blahblahblah.

Guess it worked, too. Blah blah.

Blah.








Blah blha?

Re:Video analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure "video analysis" means something more concrete to those in the know (or not), but I can't shake off the feeling that it's all blahblahblah with no meaning other than to generate more blahblahblah.

OpenCV
Integrating Vision Toolkit

Think these libraries but on the camera. You take an image, you process HSV, contrast, and a bunch of other data to do shape detections, motion detection, etc.

Re:Video analysis

[psbrogna]

Boss, is that you?

Re:Video analysis

[oldhack]

I told you not to waste time on slashdot again. You on my list, now.

Re:Video analysis

[Antiocheian]

You said "blha" instead of "Blah" in the end. That makes no sense.

Re:Video analysis

[oldhack]

I was conjugating.

Interesting...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What I find interesting about this is not so much that the code can be loaded(since the CHDK project already did that job, and has had it working for some time now); but that consumer digicams would have enough general purpose punch to run anything much more than trivial scripts that more or less emulate series of button presses(which can be extremely useful, for time lapse, auto bracketing, etc, etc.).

Given the sheer number that are produced, and the fairly tight battery life constraints, I would have assumed that most of the heavy lifting(crunching raw sensor data to .jpeg form, or encoding video) would be done with largely fixed function hardware, with just a little bit of general purpose computer slapped on to handle UI, user input, and tweak the settings of the encoder units. Apparently, the general purpose units have more punch than I thought.

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the sheer number that are produced, and the fairly tight battery life constraints, I would have assumed that most of the heavy lifting(crunching raw sensor data to .jpeg form, or encoding video) would be done with largely fixed function hardware, with just a little bit of general purpose computer slapped on to handle UI, user input, and tweak the settings of the encoder units. Apparently, the general purpose units have more punch than I thought.

Yes, the general purpose units are there, but the moment you start taking advantage of them to do something like what's demonstrated in TFV, you dramatically kill the battery life.

Re:Interesting...

[vlm]

What I find interesting about this is ... that consumer digicams would have enough general purpose punch to run anything much more than trivial scripts

Check the feature list of typical modern "consumer"-ish digital cams. Marketing has decided that the average moron needs to be able to filter pics to look like a faded photograph, or put the picture inside an ornate picture frame, or cover up parts of the image with heart and caption overlays like those stupid "reality-TV" dating shows. The enormous resources required for stupid marketing tricks can be re-purposed to do much more interesting things... Which probably pisses off the marketing guys. Which I like.

To a first approximation, the computing power required to store a pic is not much worse than the viewfinder display. And they don't seem to care about updating the video viewfinder continuously. So, it can't be too horrible of a computational task.

Re:Interesting...

[timeOday]

The most computationally demanding onboard processing I've noticed (aside from video encoding, which surely uses a dedicated chip) is recognizing multiple faces in real-time, or tracking a moving object, to maintain focus. Far from the gimmicks you mention, these are very useful functions that just happen to require what amounts to video processing.

Re:Interesting...

[The Lerneaen Hydra]

Well, for what it's worth, the only thing the camera in the video seems to be doing is threshold compare on a pixel by pixel basis, ie if each pixel changes from the previous frame by more than a certain amount then it's highlighted, which is a pretty simple operation. Still, it's a cool proof of concept.

Re:Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Application-specific ICs are expensive. Both to design and produce. It tends to be cheaper to throw a whole microcontroller and DSP chip at the problem - even if it's way overkill - than it would be to build just the necessary circuitry, especially in consumer devices where you can afford slightly slower speeds.

Re:Interesting...

[Khyber]

That's okay, new nickel-zinc batteries are coming out.

Re:Interesting...

[wvmarle]

This also may explain why there are no truly cheap digital cameras.

The cheapest that I can find nowadays costs still at least about USD 100. They all do zoom, fancy tricks, lots and lots of megapixels, whatever.

Maybe I have only looked in the wrong shops but I can't seem to find cheap, simple point-and-shoot style digicams. For my business I often have to shoot photos, and would like to have a cheap cam that I can keep in my bag, that has decent quality, no need to zoom, cheap enough to not hurt my wallet when it breaks. 2-4 MP is enough. No zoom. I like an LCD but not necessary. Should take SD cards for easy transfer of images. That's all. Oh and a price tag of under say USD 50 would be nice.

On the other hand maybe I should get a new phone, modern phone cams can do this. It's just that such a phone is quite expensive still.

Canon S90

[Anonymous Coward]

The S90 has Digic IV and supports CHDK. I haven't used it personally, but I intend to do so in 5... 4... 3... brb

http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/S90

Re:Canon S90

[StarDrifter]

The page you linked to claims that CHDK is not available for the S90. How about the PowerShot SD880?

Re:Canon S90

[Albanach]

That page says:

CHDK is NOT available for the Powershot S90.

Re:Canon S90

[bograt]

As others have pointed out, CHDK isn't supported on the S90 (yet, but it's being worked on). It also doesn't support 720p; video resolutions are only up to 640x480 @ 30fps. (But it's a great camera otherwise, and is widely praised as having good image quality and manual control, while being compact enough to carry around very easily.)

Re:Canon S90

[richlv]

waITWAITWAitwait. is canon really bringing back real s series ? /me frantically searches da web.

ok, that looks pretty close, except the hard lens cover seems to be missing, which was pretty cool. from the few images i've seen, it also seems to have pop-out flash (not as robust), and i don't see where tripod mount is located (older models had it at the centre of the lens, thus making it easier to get some panorama material w/o panoramic head).

ok, a short explanation on why i was so excited initially... i've been an owner of some s series powershots since s45 (ok, i have that one still, it just died :/ ), and i have suggested lots of these to friends and businesses. when my last powershot s died, i wanted to purchase a new one. unfortunately, the latest models that were still available had serious problems (i believe lack of raw and misplaced tripod mount ? don't recall for sure).
i put off the purchase of a new camera of that lass for a looong time. hear me canon ? i mostly loved what you produced at the time of s45. DAMN YOU for abandoning that line :)
there were some rumours that it was done to make g series more attractive etc.

so the news that s series might have been resurrected really made me look for my wallet, but it looks like they haven't actually returned to the s series roots. still, this is promising, and i'll keep an eye out for this, hoping to give some money to canon for getting me the spiced up s45 :)

oh, but i'm not getting a new camera that is not supported by chdk anymore. or one that does not have an open firmware with chdk capabilities (or chdk as the firmware itself =) )

Re:Canon S90

[bograt]

I just checked the tripod mount on my S90, and it looks like it's smack bang in the centre of the lens.

As for the pop-out flash, it's motorised. I don't know if that makes it more os less robust, but there you go.

I've read that the S90 is basically the same as the G11 but with a different body and lens, which gives me hope that CHDK will be available for the S90 soon, since it already is for the G11. It does shoot RAW out of the box, though. You won't need CHDK for that.

Why Bother Rewriting the Wheel?

[eldavojohn]

OpenCV has C interfaces and there are more that have some C code libraries. Really the coding challenge would be building the wrappers to utilize those libraries with your camera's hardware (I assume provided through CHDK APIs). My vote is for a nifty KLT implementation that allows me to take a video and extract a huge wide pan image in post processing on the camera.

Re:Why Bother Rewriting the Wheel?

[xxdinkxx]

because having multiple computer vision systems with different focuses is not a bad thing. For instance OpenCV has nothing in the way of Waldboost classifiers. Opencv seems to be mostly focused on haar-like feature classifiers.

Re:Why Bother Rewriting the Wheel?

[pdxp]

xxdinkxx makes some good points, and also I've learned from experience that OpenCV is too slow for mobile devices in its generic form. You'd end up needing to write optimized assembler code specific to the camera's processor anyway.

Re:Why Bother Rewriting the Wheel?

[wvmarle]

I have seen exactly that demo'ed in an ad on TV not so long ago. I forgot which brand has it, but it exists.

Thank you, Lord of Language

[spun]

If we did not have you policing it for us, our language would have devolved into mutually incomprehensible babbling eons ago. Thank you for your continued vigilance.

However, I am confused by your use of the phrase 'the fuck,' and sentence fragments. Could you diagram your sentences for me? As you are the Lord of Language, I'm sure they are all grammatically correct, I just need a little help in seeing how...

Re:Thank you, Lord of Language

[EvanED]

Not that a Google fight is much of an arbiter on what words are in English, but there are nearly 10x more hits for digicam than there are for lexeme.

Re:Thank you, Lord of Language

[spun]

Digicam is a perfectly cromulent word. You may want to look into the prescription/description debate to understand everyone thinks you are a ridiculous buffoon.

Also, I resent the implication that I ride a Harley.

Re:Thank you, Lord of Language

[Anonymous Coward]

says who?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/digicam

Re:Thank you, Lord of Language

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 14,500,000 hits for "their's". A tenth of that for "hermeneutics".

Conclusion: "their's" is a word, "hermeneutics" isn't, and you're a cock.

Re:Thank you, Lord of Language

[EvanED]

Actually if you put "their's" in quotes (which avoids hits for "theirs"), you only get 474,000, a little over 1/4 of the hits as "hermeneutics." (And the first two hits are talking about how "their's" isn't a word, while there's no such apparent hit for "digicam" anywhere in the first five pages of results.)

Re:Fun idea

[spun]

Teenager or not, if their asses are 'juicy' I think there may be a medical or dietary problem involved.

Re:Fun idea

[psbrogna]

I'll get right on that as soon as you define "juicy" in a machine-readable format.

Re:Fun idea

[vlm]

A neural network to emulate a CCTV security guard operator.
Because you know that's what they look at all day, instead of catching terrorists or whatever it is they're supposed to do.

Nothing special, only motion detection

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, the video demonstrates simple motion detection, which is no surprise considering that these cameras do face and smile detection all the time.

I was hoping for more, something along the lines of object recognition, artificial horizon, being able to see a road...

Re:Nothing special, only motion detection

[SharpFang]

Mine doesn't have any "detection" built in, but original CHDK has edge detection, "Zebra" (marking saturated or entirely black areas), several different options of histogram, and quite a bit more. Yeah, this hack doesn't do all that much comparing to what CHDK does... comparing what a Canon camera without CHDK does - it's impressive.

As for the other options you mentioned - they would be quite doable with the CHDK software. That wouldn't help much though, because all you'd get is the image with these features highlighted. The problem with these cameras is lack of any GPIO. The USB interface haven't been reverse-engineered, so there's no way to use the camera hacks with it either (the original Canon software pretty much gives all the control over the camera over USB... - as much as their proprietary app allows, which isn't anything beyond what the standard camera firmware allows...) So yes, you could detect all kind of stuff but the most you could do with the result is displaying it on the LCD or blinking a couple of LEDs on the camera.

Re:Nothing special, only motion detection

[wiredlogic]

The monolithic build for CHDK already has simple motion detection built in. It is only accessible from a script, however, but you can find the configuration options for it in the menus.

Not alternative firmware

[marcansoft]

It's worth pointing out that CHDK isn't a hacked firmware (that would probably not be legally redistributable), nor is it an alternative firmware (that would be too much work). CHDK is an add-on to the existing firmware, that works by piggibacking on its OS, hooking functions, and spawning off extra processes on the camera's RTOS. This is what makes it so great: you get the original funcionality of the camera plus extra stuff, and you don't have to wait for the developers to add what already came with your camera anyway.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[Anonymous Coward]

CHDK is an add-on to the existing firmware, that works by piggibacking on its OS

If it would have been an Apple camera, ten thousand lawyers would have been busy suing the developers.

CHDK made me buy a Canon, and Canons approach of "live and let live" will make my next purchase a Canon 50D.

Thank you Canon!

Re:Not alternative firmware

[digitalhermit]

It's an awesome project. On my Canons it allowed a range of extra picture tweak settings and allowed some better RAW image manipulation.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[dropadrop]

If the camera was a networked device always running on the background Canon might react differently too. Maybe if Canon sold software packages to enhance the camera and this ate their sales they might also work against it. As is, I think this is really not very popular (all the people I know have a canon camera, none have installed CHDK vs. 25% of them have an iPhone and quite a few jailbroke them), so they have no reason to waste resources in fighting it.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[ShakaUVM]

>>As is, I think this is really not very popular (all the people I know have a canon camera, none have installed CHDK vs. 25% of them have an iPhone and quite a few jailbroke them), so they have no reason to waste resources in fighting it.

You must have a different group of friends. Once when I was hiking, a friend of mine started talking about his awesome hacked firmware, and all three of us whipped out our Canons and had CHDK installed. =)

Re:Not alternative firmware

[quacking duck]

On the other hand, it also can't add back what Canon took out. One of the best photos I ever took (IMHO) was taken with the Color Accent mode accidentally turned on in my Canon A540. This feature was removed in the A570 that replaced it. It seems like trivial functionality to put back in, but CHDK can't.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[marcansoft]

CHDK can add plenty of things, though of course if the code is physically missing then it would have to be reimplemented. Consider that CHDK allows RAW mode in cameras that don't originally support it, for example.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

The stuff done by the Digic DSP (rather than the plain jane ARM946ES that runs the OS, UI and CHDK) hasn't been deeply explored. You might be able to get color accent back, if your hack-fu is sufficient. The fact it hasn't been done isn't by itself a sign that it is impossible, it more frequently means no one has spent a lot of time in that particular area. Of course, if you did spend the time, you might find that it is in fact not possible. The canon firmware code is complicated enough (~3MB of machine code and data for the a540) that there are huge areas that no one has really dug into. The features that exist in CHDK are the result of someone scratching a particular itch.

Re:Not alternative firmware

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

raw is actually relatively simple. Most cameras will have to have the pre-debayer/pre-jpeg readout of the sensor somewhere. As long it isn't completely hidden behind some opaque hardware, find it, write it to a file, there's your raw! This not to make light of work Vitaly and Grand did early in CHDK, getting to the point where you can do that is a big job.

A bit OT, but CHDK raw doesn't necessarily buy you a lot. You get a little more dynamic range, and you can do white balance after the fact, but it's only 10bpp (some newer cameras are 12 bit, but only about 10 bits are significant. wth Canon ?), and the sensors and optics are major factors in quality. It's useful in some specific situations, but raw isn't going give your P&S snaps the same quality you get from a much more expensive camera that has native raw capability.

Re:Fun idea

[spun]

Ah, I see! You were writing in the Mix-a-lotian dialect, and positing that your anaconda don't want none unless she's got buns, hon. Sorry for my confusion, it must be the anal leakage.

Re:Fun idea

[ClosedSource]

If you need an algorithm to identify which girls are attractive, then you don't need an attractive girl.

Re:Fun idea

[Stephen Tennant]

Precisely. My use of metaphor might be difficult from a technical standpoint, but it will make for a stimulating challenge to anyone willing to create a visual analysis back-end for ghetto booties, sugar apples, badonkadonks, whale tails, laffy taffy, and backyard cheddarstacks.

Re:Fun idea

[spun]

I think we would need a control group, lacking in back-end development, in order to correctly highlight the visual differences. It is my understanding that someone like Jane Fonda, who lacks a motor in the back of her Honda, would be perfect in this regard.

Re:For SLR's makes much more sense

[SharpFang]

Because they are SLRs. Their firmware can do almost all CHDK can do. A lot of work and little gain, plus risk of bricking an expensive camera. The main focus of CHDK is cheapest idiotekameras, because the difference it makes is really huge.

If you are interested by testing ViBE...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can check our dedicated webpage.

It features downloadable binaries for windows and linux (thanks to wine).

Re:Fun idea

[ZosX]

Mmmmmmm......puss filled anal leakage

Re:Fun idea

[ZosX]

Jane Fonda surely more than made up for that.

Re:Fun idea

[spun]

Yes, but Keira Knightley doesn't rhyme with any brand of vehicle I can think of.

Re:For SLR's makes much more sense

[Artemis3]

There is no "bricking" risk because CHDK does not alter the firmware, it gets booted from the memory card. Put another memory card without the CHDK file and its gone.

Re:For SLR's makes much more sense

[SharpFang]

That's correct when all you're doing is -using- CHDK.
Developers need to use some quite advanced tricks to get the firmware dump and hook it all up. Of course there's no risk if they make no mistakes, but who writes software 100% bug-free at first attempt?