Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

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'+1' posts are welcome in this area of the forums to indicate your support for a particular feature suggestion. Suggestions that get the most +1's will be seriously considered for inclusion in future versions of SharpCap.
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Marc Delcroix
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Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#1

Post by Marc Delcroix »

Hi,
I've been running a project, DeTeCt, for detecting impacts on Jupiter and Saturn and estimating the frequency of those impacts.
The software (also called DeTect) uses the logs from acquisition software to get useful information for the frequency estimation.

I have implemented the reading of SharpCap logs, but I would miss that kind of information for the project (basically absolute datation information, duration and #of frames captured would be nice):
Date=210720
Start=041617.621
Mid=041647.623
End=041717.626
Start(UT)=021617.621
Mid(UT)=021647.623
End(UT)=021717.626
Duration=60.005s
LT=UT+2
Frames captured=6314

Would you mind checking if you could have this implemented ?

Thanks - if needed I can be contacted from the project page: http://www.astrosurf.com/planetessaf/do ... detect.php

Marc
http://astrosurf.com/delcroix
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Marc,

would this information be best in something more like the capture settings text file that SharpCap writes for each capture? There's nothing to stop it from being written into the SharpCap log, but the capture settings file seems to be a place where it is more likely to be found and used by others.

cheers,

Robin
Marc Delcroix
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#3

Post by Marc Delcroix »

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the fast answer, in general I talk about "acquisition logs", but you are right for SharpCap this is the Capture*.CameraSettings.txt file.
DeTeCt already reads this type of file, so this is the right place!

Please let me know if I could help in any way,

Steady skies,

Marc
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

ok, that makes sense.

The date/time formats that you suggest are quite... erm... 'non standard'...

I'd suggest that using a standard format would make sense - something like ISO8601, which is basically

yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss.ffffZ

ie

StartCapture=2021-07-30T17:52:23.1234Z

The advantage of using a standard format is that they are easy to parse for pretty much any programming language.

If we use standard date/time formats, we only need

StartCapture=<ISO8601 date time>
EndCapture=<ISO8601 date time>
FrameCount=<xxxx>
TimeZone=+2

I think - everything else (like mid values, and the local time values) can be calculated from that data.

Is that OK?

Robin
Marc Delcroix
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#5

Post by Marc Delcroix »

Hi Robin

That date format comes from another acquisition software ;)
ISO standard format makes sense, its format is then known and straightforward to decode, I’m pretty sure I have it already implemented somewhere in my code.

Your proposal fits perfectly my needs, thanks!

Cheers
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#6

Post by admin »

Hi,

Ok, it's on a post-it note on the todo board ;)

cheers,

Robin
Marc Delcroix
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#7

Post by Marc Delcroix »

Hi Robin,

Great, next DeTeCt version is already ready for this. Looking forward next SharpCap version to push DeTeCt users to update ;)
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#8

Post by admin »

Hi Marc,

I'm hoping to release this later today - here is a sample of the new information:

Code: Select all

StartCapture=2021-08-02T18:15:40.0839915Z
MidCapture=2021-08-02T18:15:40.9269915Z
EndCapture=2021-08-02T18:15:41.7696572Z
Duration=1.686s
FrameCount=100
TimeZone=+1.00
I decided to add the mid capture and the duration as it makes that data easily accessible to humans (who can't calculate those two from the start/end in a microsecond...)

cheers,

Robin
Marc Delcroix
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#9

Post by Marc Delcroix »

Hi Robin,

Indeed MidCapture time is quite useful as this should be the time displayed on any published planetary image to ensure the best measurements possible. BTW would be nice if the filenames would use it instead of start time.

Many thanks. I tested the changes and it worked well with my new 3.4.2 version of DeTeCt just released. I also asked my users to update SharpCap to 4.0.8042 or above.

Cheers,
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Re: Support of SharpCap in DeTeCt

#10

Post by admin »

Hi Marc,

glad that the new data helps. I think you can have mid capture times in your filenames if you choose the option to make them 'WinJupos' compatible - see https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Create ... le%20Names

cheers,

Robin
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