How to set image type in Ascom camera api

tomr

The Ascom settings dialog for ASI cameras has a drop-down list field to select the image type (raw8 / raw16 etc.).

I would like to get and set this property in my c# code, too, but I haven't seen an ImageType property or something comparable in the Camera Class, to accomplish it. Is there any possibility to set this property via the Ascom api?

chad

Hi,

I am confused with your words.

You want to develop it on our SDK or ASCOM?

For our SDK, you can get the supported image type in CameraInfo struct, it is called SupportedVideoFormat. It is an array. Then you can set it by ASISetROIFormat.

For ASCOM, there is no interface to do this. It can only be done by calling our ASCOM settings dialog through the Dialog interface supported by ASCOM.

Thanks

Chad

tomr

chad wrote:
Hi,

I am confused with your words.

You want to develop it on our SDK or ASCOM?

For our SDK, you can get the supported image type in CameraInfo struct, it is called SupportedVideoFormat. It is an array. Then you can set it by ASISetROIFormat.

For ASCOM, there is no interface to do this. It can only be done by calling our ASCOM settings dialog through the Dialog interface supported by ASCOM.

Thanks

Chad

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the reply. My C# app uses only the Ascom Api to communicate with the camera. It can call the Ascom settings dialog to set the image type, but it doesn't get a return value from that. So it is quite unclear for the app, what kind of image will be returned by subsequent calls of the ImageArray property (8bit or 16bit).

Calling the SDK is not really an option for me, because the app should work for cameras of other manufacturers, too.

The Ascom Video Class has a BitDepth Property. This would be helpful. So maybe I should use an Ascom video driver for my app instead. The Ascom Camera class seems to be quite useless then.

Regards

Thomas

chad

Hi Thomas,

We also hope it. but ASCOM do not support.

So the only way is by judging the final value of the image.

Beside, if the new image type is not set successfully in our dialog, it will still be the real type.

For the video interface, I am not sure. Few customers ask. If you want to use this class, we have to redevelop our ASCOM driver.

Sorry again.

Thanks

Chad

tomr

Hi Chad,

It turned out, that the ImageArrayVariant property of the Camera class returns Objects, that can be cast to bytes for raw8 and int for raw16, so this can be used to determine at least the image bit depth via Ascom.

Nevertheless it would be nice, if the command-Methods of the ICameraV2 interface could be used to get and set this and other properties missing in the Ascom api, like e.g. usb-limit. This would be within the Ascom Camera framework and therefore probably not very time consuming for you.

Regards

Thomas

chad

Hi Thomas,

Yes, we had noticed.

They are achievable, but they are not very suitable. These interfaces are designed to be used to send commands directly, like send the command by the serial port. But it's hard for us to tell our customers how to issue the right commands for our camera, so it's very difficult to generalize. That's why we haven't used these functions.

In a word, I will add this thing in my schedule, but it may take some time to develop it.

Is that ok?

Thanks

Chad

tomr

Hi Chad,

Of course, it will be o.k. It was just a suggestion from my part anyway. Thanks!

Regards

Thomas