DMKCCD V1.3 ASCOM Driver

[Schnaejel]

Hi Folks,

please find the latest Release of the DMKCCD-Ascom Driver on my little website.

The latest Release V1.3. was tested under ASCOM V5.5, .Net V3.5

Writing debug information into a file C:\DMKCCD.log is eliminated and will

be used only in my local development environment. Additional testing

under MS Windows 7 32-bit will be done in the next days.



Additional testing under Maxim DL 5.08 will be done as I decide if it is

worth to buy an upgrade.

Just the development of this simple driver and additional testing under

several windows environments and additional imaging solution is not that

cheap. Hunting for new OS Versions and Imaging Solution is not my business

and so I cannot see any reason to update my driver for minor versions of

any imaging solution that will be released in future.


Here is the direct link to the driver


DMKCCD Setup V1.3

A lot time has gone between the Version 1.2 and the actual release.

This time was clouded by much work in other fields or bad events in

my private environment.

So, finally, thanks for your patience ..... Clear Skies!

Kind regards,

Gerrit

[funatic]

Gerrit, grazie mille, thanks a lot!
I'll test the new driver asap!!
Alberto

[Schnaejel]

Hi,

during Testing on Windows 7 I found, that the installation routine fails.
The Problem is now solved. The Version 1.3 runs actually only on ASCOM 5.5.
Actually the driver could be selected from inside Maxim DL 4.XX under Windows 7. But image acquisition fails. I am running Windows 7 inside a virtual machine. So it could be, that this will be the reason why image acquisition fails. I will do some further testing outside of the virtual box.
If you like, you could test it now under windows 7. Please report me your results here.
Thank you and kind regards,
Gerrit

[funatic]

Hi Gerrit,
even with the latest driver release V1.3, I still cannot use Nebulosity 2 because it crashes immediately, under Vista plus Ascom 5.5.
The software now recognizes my DMK camera but nothing else...
Thanks anyway and kind regards,
Alberto

[Schnaejel]

Hi Folks,

I tested the DMKCCD V1.3 driver under Windows 7 32-bit, the ASCOM V5.5 Environment and it works. Maxim DL 5.03 was used for testing. If you use the driver with Maxim DL 5.03 you must click on the 'properties' button, if the 'ok' button seems to be disabled. It seems that there is a problem with ASCOM 5.5. The DMKCCD V1.3 works without writing logging information on disk c.

Nebulosity was tested on top of ASCOM 5.5 and the camera driver does not work with that software.

It seems there is something wrong with ASCOM 5.5 and old ASCOM compliant drivers. For example even if i tried to install the old LX200 ASCOM driver, the installation fails! There reason for this can be seen in the installation routines for the ascom drivers. They check if the installed ASCOM version is between 5 and 6. But ASCOM 5.5 returns '5.5'. This cannot be evaluate by the following condition: (5 <=version) && (6 > version). As I said, the installation LX200-Driver installation on top of ASCOM V5.5 fails. Also my first attempts writing an installation routine for the new Version 1.3.

Some thoughts about Windows Vista. Vista runs very slow ... even on old PC's and even on todays Netbooks.
Windows 7 has a much more better performance than Vista.
Kind regards,
Gerrit

[cavadore]

Hello,

I have tried this driver with Prism v7 under windows7 x64 (8Gb Ram) and this is fine (very good job !).
here is the software I'm using (I'm the main author)

http://www.prism-astro.com/us/


BUT BUT
---------

If I try with a DMK 41AG02.AS (GiGE camera) it works under Prism 7 as directshow device (I can retrieve video flux, no issue), but using the Ascom driver, it fails on startup (on connect), I have these messages :

- Variant error
- Index was outside the bounds of the array

I can select the camera with the selector with no problem)

I think there is a small bug for those kind of camera.

It would be very nice to fix this issue....

May be there is a log somewhere that I can send it on demand in order to help.


C.Cavadore

[cavadore]

Is there anybody out there ?

CC

[Stefan Geissler]

Hello Cavadore

Index was outside the bounds of the array

That sounds for me for an Visual Basic error message. Thus the program author must try to debug this.

[cavadore]

>the program author

Is he around ?


Also I have noticed when using ASCOM driver v1.3 with a color camera, in raw mode, that after debayer I have some bayer artifacts I cannot see in color mode...
This is not coming from my debayer algorithm for sure but from the raw image.
Any idea ?
Thanks

[Schnaejel]

Hi,

I think there is no equivalent entry for the Camera 41AG02.AS.I will check this issue and send you the bugfix.
Kind regards,
Gerrit

[cavadore]

That would be VERY VERY NICE
May be I can provide a log, just tell me where to find it ?
Thanks

[Schnaejel]

Hi *,

There is a quick solution for this error that a user can try to make the driver work. First I will introduce to you, how the driver works for you and what may happen when there is a new camera from TIS.

If TIS introduces a new camera model to the market, they provide also a new identifier of this camera. But they do not provide (or I have not found this feature so far) the valuable pixel size of this cam from the firmware itself. Otherwise - in astronomy applications - FITs files provide many information additional to the imaging data. Such information are the pixel sizes of each camera in mikron. When you work with FITS-Files, the pixel size is an attribute of each image you take. It would be nice for the user who is analysing your FITs File, what resolution was used during imaging.
As mentioned above, the TIS cameras self provide no direct access to this information. But pixel sizes are part of the cameras specification.So it is up to me as the developer to provide this information to the driver from another source. And during the development of this driver, new camera models where released to the market. I decided not to hard code a look up table inside the driver and decoupled this problem by using an external file that holds the missing information. And thus the user can configure his camera from outside the driver by modifying a single file, tisdevices.xml. And you can find this file in the directory C:\Program Files\Common Files\ASCOM\Camera

During initialization of the driver, the camera identifier is used to get the pixel sizes of this camera from the tisdevices.xml. If there is no identifier, the error message "" occurs. I can mask this error in future releases. But for now there is a simple way to fix this error, by adding the missing camera parameter to the file tisdevices.xml

Let us have a look to the tisdevices.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<devices>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 41AU02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 41AU02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 41AU02.AS </id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
</devices>

What is missing is an entry for your camera. This may be

<device>
    <id>DMx 41AG02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
 </device>

For now you have to place this entry inside the tisdevices.xml and it should work:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<devices>
 
  <! ---- User Entry Starts>

  <device>
    <id>DMx 41AG02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
 
 <! ---- User Entry Ends>

  <device>
    <id>DMx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 21AF04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 31AF03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 41AF02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DMx 41AU02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DBx 41AU02.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 21AU04.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>5.6</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>5.6</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 31AU03.AS</id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
  <device>
    <id>DFx 41AU02.AS </id>
    <pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
    <pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
  </device>
</devices>

This modification can be done with notepad.

Please let me now, if it works. The next driver release will contain a simplified lookup-File also considering the GIGE cameras.

I have to apologize my bad english, but I hope it is clear enough to fix the error and make the driver work

Kind regards,
Gerrit

[Stefan Geissler]

Hello,

Gerrit is right. The pixel size of the sensor is not part of the DCam specification, thus we did not implement an interface to query these values.

[Schnaejel]

Hello,
as Stefan said, the pixel size is not part of the DCAM Spec. But it can be found in the imaging chips specification. TIS provide this Spec as PDF-File as additional information on their website. For example:
http://www.astronomycameras.com/de/p...r/dfk41ag02as/

Kind regards,
Gerrit

[cavadore]

Adding the following code into the XML tisdevices.xml file fixed the issue

<device>
<id>DMx 41AG02.AS</id>
<pixelsizex>4.65</pixelsizex>
<pixelsizey>4.65</pixelsizey>
</device>

and now IT WORKS with ASCOM driver (W7 x64).
This is fantastic !!
Thanks a lot !!

C.Cavadore