integrating image capture in OpenCASA?

[Jarrod Guppy]

Hi all,

I've just started to look into using OpenCASA instead of commercial program that no longer has a active licence. With very few changes to the default parameters the results are highly comparable.

I was wondering if there were plans to incorporate video capture and real-time analysis of videos?

It seems like there is a number of third-party open source ImageJ macros/plugins that may be able to be integrated within this plugin. A example is https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/plugins/webcam-capture/index.html

Keen to hear your thoughts here,

Jarrod

[Carlos Alquezar]

Hi Jarrod!

I am glad you found similar results using OpenCASA. If you have any doubt, please do not hesitate to ask here. Also, if you work with some specific species,  please, feel free to share your settings or any concern about the analysis, in order to meet and discuss with other users that work with the same species or have solved the same problems.

About the video recording, as you point out, there are some ImageJ plugins for video capture, and it would be great if we could integrate something similar with OpenCASA. First of all, we would need to know which one works well and with which cameras.

Have you tested the one you mentioned in the post?

[Jarrod Guppy]

Unfortunately the camera we have gone with (Basler USB 3.0) doesn't seem to be work with the webcam plugin itself (incompatible drivers I think), and looking further into it, its likely the webcam plugin would restrict the functionality/quality of the camera and images produced a fair bit.

Instead, Basler provide a SDK written in python called pyPylon for their camera software (https://github.com/basler/pypylon). I'm thinking to write a additional Image J macro to call some pyPylon functions to capture, name and save images, then pipe them into openCASA automatically to analyse and generate results. I think there will be some issues with calling a plugin from a macro, but I think the work around is to pull the relevant openCASA functions out of the source code and into the macro itself in the short term to test if this is feasible.

I'll work through the pyPylon component first and let you know how I go.

[Carlos Alquezar]

Dear Jarrod,

it sounds really promising. Please, let us know if you can connect the Pylon software with OpenCASA. For sure it would be a big advance for the rest of the users.

Also, if you find problems, do not hesitate to share them with us. Maybe some users can help.

Best regards,

Carlos