From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>
Date: January 15, 2006 12:01:29 PM MST
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] considering making the switch- suggestions?
Hi Jon;
On 15-Jan-06, at 10:00 AM, ji425bp wrote:
Hello to the group:
My name is Jon Iverson and I'm a new group member. I have been doing
planetary imaging for some time using webcams/ firewire cameras on a
Win platform. Recently, however, I have been considering making the
switch from a Win platform to the Mac, but having never used the Mac I
know nothing about it. However, after some research of the archives
here and around the web, it seems that this software offers some
remarkable options that just don't exist (or have trouble existing) on
Win platforms. Although I was going to contact the group moderator/
owner directly, I thought that since my questions were a bit drawn
out, they might better be expressed here:
1) Currently, I have been using a P4 laptop and webcams/ Lumenera
camera. If I made the switch, my budget would be limited. Currently,
I am looking at one of the DMK cameras, either the DMK 21F04 or
21BF04. My understanding is that the BF04 offers long exposure
capability, but with this software (IIDC), wouldn't I be able to have
longer exposures with just the DMK21F04? At least, that's what I
think I read in the software description.
Their are two major difference between the 21F04 and the 21AF04 or 21BF04 series.
The 21F04 uses Texas instruments TSLV1501 chip set which only delivers pseudo 8 bit images (one of the 8 data output lines is broken in the chip). For color cameras this isn't as big deal, but for monochrome it is. The 21AF04 or 21BF04 don't have this problem at all, have lower noise and somewhat higher gains because they use a different chip set for image processing.
The second is exposure time and the 21AF04 or 21BF04 support up to 30 second exposures, where as the best you can get with the 21F04 is 1.029 seconds.
You would be better off getting the 21AF04 which is cheaper because it doesn't have the Trigger or I/O pins and you won't likely need them unless your doing Machine Vision (object recognition, factory rejection of parts, quality control for print shops etc.) or Security work (ie you have a relay set up so that when a door or window opens, images are captured).
2) The Mac I've been wondering about is the Mac mini as found here:
Unfortunately that quote / link has expired. I'm assuming it's the low end 1.25 gighz Mac Mini with 512 megs of Ram and 40 gig hard drive?
This almost seems like a laptop to me due to its small size and I
wonder if I could use it as such with a small LCD monitor? The price
is certainly reasonable, but the big question is how well it would
work with the DMK camera? Would it be fast enough to do processing
equivalent or nearly equivalent to a P4?
The Mac Mini is basically a folded version of an iBook motherboard and it will be fine for processing and capture.
My video acquisition and on site processing (stacking right after I finnish capture etc.) is done using a single G4 1.25 gighz Laptop with a 65 gigabyte 4200 rpm drive and 512 megs of Ram. I record at 16 bit per pixel video at 30 fps (18 megabytes per second recorded to disk) without dropping frames. My lowest end Laptop is an upgrade 1998 Bronze Lombard (originally a 333m hz G3 processor - upgraded to a 500 mhz G4) and even with the paltry 16 gig IDE (not even Ultra) drive and I can record 8 bit monochrome / color at 30 fps without dropping frames.
Make sure that the LCD monitor you get has at least 1024x768 resolution though, That's about the minimum you need to use OS X without having buttons not be available in some windows.
3) The only other thing I'm wondering about right now are the ports
on this Mac mini. Since the keyboard and mouse are plugged in
externally, that leaves little (if any) room for the camera. Am I
wrong, or could the camera still be plugged in? Also, what about an
external hard drive? I use one now with my P4, but $100 more for the
internal 80 GB hd wouldn't break the bank.
It won't be a problem to connect the camera on the FireWire ports and a Keyboard / Mouse on USB ports at the same time.
One thing to keep in mind is that things like the "Bluetooth" or "AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth" options are not user installable. I'm not even sure if a Apple dealer can purchase them and install them for you. So if you want to go wireless in the future, you have to do it now when you order.
And a bigger hard drive is probably a good idea as your streaming 9 megabytes per second or roughly half a gigabyte per minute of video for recording.
I know, lots of questions, but the Lumenera has *plenty* of problems,
IMO, and I have had a chance to use a DMK camera in the past on the
Win platform except the control software was no good (noise was less
than a Lumenera however). Of course, these are just my opinions, but
I am more and more impressed with the images I see coming from the Mac
side of things, so I am seriously considering this switch. I would
greatly appreciate any suggestions/ tips you could provide.
Hope That Helps..
Milton J. Aupperle
President
ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting
Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist
#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.
Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5
1-(403)-229-9456
www.outcastsoft.com