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Firmware Hack Allows Video Analysis On a Canon Camera

Posted by timothy on from the turn-your-family-green-with-envy dept.

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.

4 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. CHDK by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    1. Re: CHDK by kimvette · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  2. Re:THEY ARE NOT CALLED "DIGICAMS". by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    --
    by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
  3. Not alternative firmware by marcansoft · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.