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Re: automagic brightness



Scott Laird writes:

 > > In a response i got from scott, i think he said that the camera returned
 > > some brightness value? 
 > 
 > I'm not sure -- I suspect I misread something from Russell.  I haven't 
 > seen one anywhere yet, but I haven't been checking return values 
 > everywhere, and we still don't know what several commands do.

The only commands that we know exist and are undocumented are 0xd and 0xf.

 > I'm probably going to add a stub for a brightness-adjuster in my next 
 > release.  I don't know if it'll do anything :-), but at least the stub 
 > will be there.  Hopefully that will promote some progress.

I've found that you get a reasonable brightness value just from
averaging all the pixels.

 > The big problem was that the image seems to fade to white if you don't 
 > read it fast enough.  Has anyone else noticed this?  I've seen it when 
 > I've tried using qcam with a lot of debugging code added -- the picture 
 > keeps getting lighter and lighter as you wait, so you end up with a 
 > scan that's a lot darker at the top then at the bottom.  When you're 
 > trying to resolve nearly black images it doesn't take much fading to 
 > destroy what little signal there is.  I'll let others speculate why 
 > this happens :-).

It's a Charge-Coupled-Device.  Wait too long and the charges leak
away.  It's basically a dynamic ram without the opaque lid.

 > > BTW: does anyone know if connectix is aware of this driver yet?
 > 
 > They're aware of it.  I haven't heard from them, but I do have a copy 
 > of the FTP logs from nas.com, and two people from connectix.com have 
 > accessed the ftp archives.  I don't know *what* they accessed, but I 
 > don't think there's anything else of substance on the site.  I mean, 
 > the FTP usage has more than tripled since I put qcam there.

They know, but no one @connectix.com has accessed the web site, so I'd
guess that they're looking at it from some generic netcom account or
something.  [ Hi guys!  --  This is better than cypherpunks and the
NSA -- there you can only assume that they're listening in -- here we
KNOW it.  :) ]

 > Is anyone from connectix.com on the mailing list?

Perhaps so, but not @connectix.com.  Not much reason to be, when the
archives are available on the web site.

-russ <nelson@crynwr.com>    http://www.crynwr.com/~nelson
Crynwr Software   | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | PGP ok
11 Grant St.      | +1 315 268 1925 voice | Good government is a contradiction
Potsdam, NY 13676 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | in terms.  Ask me for details.

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