Sad News Alert

Added a config file so i can modify the settings without having to recompile the entire thing and transfer it across.

Ive also found a better diffuser.
Last night i was fucking about with some things and accidentally focused the camera on the paper i was using as a diffuser, and it just looks like grey clouds, which didnt seem right.

Finding a real diffuser on amazon is no easier than it was the other day, but i do have one of those weird "selfie" lights, i used to use it as a nightlight when on holiday (dont you judge me), anyway, ive pulled the diffuser out of that and its so much less noisy.

It did fuck up my white balance and exposure settings, but that was easily fixed.

btw, i have no idea about camera and the like, but when i swapped the diffuser over, the exposure values changed dramatically. With the paper i was using a shutter speed of 3493us, with the real diffuser, its 665... 🤷‍♂️

Spent the day making sure the alignment in the capture area is correct, the white balance is correct and the exposure.

Im not really sure what im doing regarding the "hdr" exposures, so i just have them take a picture with +1, 0 and -1 "stop", whatever that means.

The find frame thing is working much better since sorting the balance out.

Im doing the code for the sprocket detection, Its working ok, but i just noticed something on the captured image, and its annoying me.

For some reason, after i made some adjustments to the positioning of the lens, its now giving me a weird blue hue around the sprocket holes. But only at the top of the image for some reason.

Yes i know the film is upside down

HO LEE FUK

I have spent all day trying to work out why the app was showing in the corner of the screen, no matter how much fucking about i did on the pi, it did not display correctly.

So i figured it must be fairly easy, which it was in the end. But getting to that point was a fucking chore.

Anyway, Its now running in fullscreen.

Whats weird is that in that image, everything on the screen looks like it has a blue haze over it. But looking at it irl, it looks perfectly normal.

I will probably reduce the resolution down a little as the buttons are pretty fucking small for a touchscreen interface.
The screen i have is 1024x600 native resolution, but will accept 1080p and scale the image to fit. Im gonna try a few different resolutions, and see what looks best.

Oh yeah, and the barrel jack on the little 12v to 5v dc-dc converter is loose.
Twice now i've just slightly knocked it and its briefly disconnected and then rebooted the pi. I might have to solder my own onto the board, unless i have a spare one hanging around, which i know i do, but i canne be bothered to seek it out🤷‍♂️

The gui for the film scanner getting there.
I added a frame counter and reset, it now shows the video in between captures & it captures in both raw and jpg.

Im gonna look into the hdr thing, I remember seeing some people mention that taking multiple exposure captures and layering them will give a "higher" hdr, Im not sure though.

Chicken nuggies is done.

Just received a game i ordered from ebay and some fucking psycho put the price tag on the the actual case insert. What the fuck is that about? Right on the spine of the game 😒

I might have to go back to an older version of the pi os.
It seems that they removed the old "raspistill" / "raspivid" without actually having a fully functional replacement that actually has the same or better features.
They then removed the legacy camera option from the os start with bookworm. Which is what im using.

I have no idea what fucking idiot decided "hey, lets get rid of the old, functional way of access the camera and replace it with a new, non fully functional way"😒

Ive swapped the LED panel backlight thing i was using, I don't know how i didn't notice it before, but its a really bluey white, its not just white.

I changed it out for the way the original design had it, it used an mr16 12v 5watt light, but with 5000k color temp, I ordered some 6000k because i couldn't find any on amazon that would be delivered within the next few weeks. What arrived was a 6500k... so yeah, im not sure how its gonna look.

Also, unless im using the wrong search terms, i could not find any white diffuser sheets on amazon, except one, which was like 5ft long and i literally need a 2 inch circle of it😭
I ended up using a sheet of plain white paper in the end. It looks ok to the eye, i haven't looked with the camera yet.

Oh, i will say... despite being LED, they get fucking HOT, I ran one earlier for about an hour whilst i was working on the GUI and it reached 90c... I have no idea how the printed holder for it will hold up for at that temp, im pretty sure PLA glass transition temp is like 60c.

Oh, talking of the GUI, Ive moved to useing .net and Avalonia. I really tried with python but i just cant, i hate every second it. The icing on the cake being installing pip packages without using a venv, If you try, you're met with "YOU CANT DO THAT, IT WILL BREAK THE OS" bullshit. So fuck em.

The new gui is ugly af, but meh, it aint for looking at, its basically for pressing start and viewing the camera. I have the motor driver stuff all setup, but i havent touched the camera side of things, im kinda dreading it tbh, i know .net can work with the camera, but i dont know how nicely it works with it.

Like i said, ugly af. But its a work in progress, so 🤷‍♂️

Ive been trying to do the code for the film scanner, but i just cannot find the motivation. Like, i want to do it and get it done, but everytime i start, i just get lost.

Im seriously considering just using .net gui on linux. Avalonia or something.

Just thinking about the times i played dayz with Alex. One server in particular, I wanna say it was called dayzsos, but dont quote me on that.

Anyway, we used to hang out int he safe zones, make friends with people, then lure them out of the safezone to there base, murder them, steal there shit, and go get changed, then hang out at the safezone again. After a few weeks of doing that, The server admins called a meeting of all players at the safezone, Not really knowing what it was about, we showed up. it eventually turned out to be a talking to about the rules, and what is and isnt allowed to happen at the safezone and the area surrounding it.

It got boring pretty fast, They had these stupid blue helmets and vests on, and would not shut the fuck up. They had maybe... 15 players there and all 10 ish staff. So Alex said he was gonna start causing issues, and for me to go get a gun. So i ran to a barrel we had buried, grabbed a AR and ran back to the safe zone, Sneaked up behind the admins and just opened fire 😂

I think i killed all but 1 of the admins, and like 4 players. The remaining admin killed me.

When things calmed down, alex picked up one of the admins guns and killed the rest of the players and the other admin.

We got banned from the server about 10 minutes later😂

Motor current has been set, im just putting off the code side of things😭

Those of you with eyes may have noticed that i fucked up the 12v wiring for one of the stepper drivers😑

Lets hope it didnt cause any damage.

I need to set the current for the stepper drivers, but i dont wanna get my multimeter out😭

I wonder how long it will be before google puts an adblock clause in its terms of service.

This is how the film thing currently looks.

Very slowly putting the scanning together, im just dreading the code side of it, i know the github has code, but his setup is a bit odd, from the looks of it, hes running a RAMPS board, connected via usb to a raspberry pi. Which i find... odd. I suppose its just a case of using what he has, but yeah, im gonna be skipping the ramps side of things.

I use this little driver boards that work perfectly well, and ive used them on multiple projects, so ill probably stick to them 🤷‍♂️

i wonder if you could detect a camera flash just before the shutter fires, and use it to switch a bright ass light on to block there camera🤔

Ive been printing parts for Stuart Pittaways film scanner, its mostly constructed, but i gotta get the raspberry pi setup, and i hate working in linux 😒