4. Work with camera

For convenience, all capture devices shall be called cameras. In Altami Studio 3.1.0 application there is an opportunity to set default settings. For Altami cameras, there is a realized automatic white balance setting.

Camera setting

You can read on camera setting in Camera setting user manual.

Capture

Displaying information from camera in real time mode

By connecting video device (camera) in the window of the document their shall be shown an image from camera in real time mode. It is possible to stop the stream by clicking

at the tools panel. Resume – by

button. Upon stopping a stream from camera, the last received frame from camera shall be shown in the document window.

Simple saving

Select the menu item (File→Save as). In standard dialogue of saving image find the suitable format and click Save.

Attention: In order to save in the document vector elements with the possibility of further editing and to save information on calibration and camera settings, it is necessary to select the adfx saving format. Upon saving in other formats (for example, bmp or jpeg) information on calibration shall not be saved, and all vector figures shall be “drawn” into the image (that means, shall become a part of a raster), and shall not be available for the further editing.

Fast capture

Fast capture is a capture of image and its automatic saving in the form of a graphic file. By that, the user must not indicate any parameters (for example, folder for saving). The frame is captured with the help of the action Capture→Capture frame or by clicking the respective icon on a panel:

By that, the current image is saved, not depending on where it is received from camera or is a opened file.

More detailed information on path, format, and mode of saving is contained in the Saving dialogue section.

Autocapture

Autocapture mode (Capture→Autocapture) is used for saving series of frames. Capture of frames is carried out with a certain interval whose size can be adjusted. In dialogue it is necessary to indicate the interval value between the series of frames, quantity of frames in a series, and the value of interval between capture of separate frames in series.

Two autocapture modes are foreseen:

• simple, when the image from camera is saved with a certain interval;
• extended, when it is possible to indicate a certain interval between each frame.

For example, by settings: “Interval - 30 minutes between series, 1 second between frames and 3 frames in series” the application shall make three shots with the interval of a second every 10 minutes:

In the process of autocapture the application the application shows the duration of the process and the amount of the frames already made.

More detailed information on path, format, and mode of saving can be specified in Dialogue of saving parameters.

Saving settings dialogue

It is possible to open saving parameters dialogue in the following way:

• For fast capture: Capture→Fast capture settings
• For autocapture: Capture→Auto capture settings or Capture→Autocapture→Saving settings.

Note: Saving parameters dialogue for fast capture and autocapture looks the same way. Yet, the application uses different saving settings for fast capture and autocapture. Parameters indicated for fast capture shall not be used by autocapture, and vice versa.

Saving dialogue allows to select the following parameters:

• Path — indicates the saving folder and reflects the formed changes in dialogue file name.
• Type — the preview mode or capture mode. Type is a mode of saving frames “from stream”, and the image corresponds to the image shown in document. It should be noted that some cameras (Canon, Lumenera, DCM) support a preview node and a special mode of frame capturing. In our application it is called a Capture mode. Often such capturing is carried out in a resolution differing from the resolution of the preview frame. For example, Canon A640 camera in a preview mode makes frames with 320х240 resolution, and in the capture mode — frames with much greater resolution (for example, 3648х2736 pixels). If the user indicates the capture mode, and the camera does not support such mode, the application automatically uses the preview mode.
• Format — indicates the image format (png, jpg, jpeg, bmp, and other popular formats).

Note: In order to save in the document vector elements with the possibility of further editing and to save information on calibration and camera settings, it is necessary to select the adfx saving format. Upon saving in other formats (for example, bmp or jpeg) information on calibration shall not be saved, and all vector figures shall be “drawn” into the image (that means, shall become a part of a raster), and shall not be available for the further editing.

• Quality — indicates the quality of the saved image. The value of this setting is defined by the format of image saving.
• Prefix — allows to indicate the beginning of the saved file name. It is convenient to use prefix for naming the group of file in a similar way.

In order to indicate the path of saving image it is possible to use the current date (year, month, and day). Split button splits the folder with the name corresponding to the year into the folders corresponding to months and days.