Bottom Camera - can't change settings?

[jamoiam]

I am having trouble with my bottom camera.

I can no longer change to it's settings, exposure, brightness etc.

If I make a change, the apply button remains disabled, and the change is not implemented.

This is resulting in way over exposed results and I can't get valid results out of the vision pipeline. The only change I can make a change is to tick 'Auto', which works kind of, but I often get quite different results, and again is unworkable.

Is this related to the vision pipeline line changes?

I think it happened with the last update?

ver 2022-06-19_21-15-55.af43024

Additionally I can get much sense out of the nozzle background vision pipeline. Same problem? There seems to be no way to adjust color settings? Only option is black?

Is my camera the problem? or operator error (me) ?  - thanks

[mark maker]

No, these slider settings are simply immediately made effective, no need to press Apply (but also no way to Reset). It was always like that (no changes in the versions there).

If you are using an ELP camera, the exposure is usually quite low (-9 or lower).

Please try again: Make sure to switch off Auto first, otherwise the slider has no effect. And I'm not sure if you need to let go of the slider for it to become effective. And wait for a second for the camera image to adapt.

It might also help to read this:

https://makr.zone/camera-fps-cpu-load-and-lighting-exposure/519/

_Mark

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[jamoiam]

Hi Mark,

thanks for the reply. Yes I am trying with auto off. The slider is very unresponsive. An adjust or drag takes 30 seconds or so to get a response, and the setting is not saved and is lost if restarted for example.

Is this handled by OpnePnP or a command sent to the camera and the camera might be the problem?

and this doesn't address the nozzle background pipeline problems I am having. Or is it an unrelated separate problem?

[mark maker]

> thanks for the reply. Yes I am trying with auto off. The slider is very unresponsive. An adjust or drag takes 30 seconds or so to get a response, and the setting is not saved and is lost if restarted for example.

This is strange. Can you name the camera? Unfortunately, some cheap cameras only support auto-exposure, but usually the Auto-checkbox is then disabled. Yours would be the first camera I hear of, that "fakes" manual control.

You simply cannot use an auto-exposure cameras for OpenPnP! Some users still try, but this is just a recipe for constant troubles.

If this is the case, buy a better one. The ELP 720p cameras are recommended.

The only "hack" that I can think of, is to use a diffuser that is partially in the view of the camera (at the sides, only looking through a square hole in the middle), so you have a constant "brightest" area in the image and the auto-exposure is forced to use it as the white-point. You can then crop the view in OpenPnP.

> and this doesn't address the nozzle background pipeline problems I am having. Or is it an unrelated separate problem?

You can't really solve this problem, before the first one is solved. You need exposure Auto off, otherwise you never get stable background calibration.

More in the Wiki:

https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Nozzle-Tip-Background-Calibration

_Mark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/086a9447-ffac-4fd3-9097-1b61d1ed926fn%40googlegroups.com.

[jamoiam]

I am not running with auto, it was merely at test to see if I could get a change in setting.

The camera I can not identify as it came installed with the machine. I do not have info on it.

It is HD 1280x800 10fps... as faster fps makes it even worse with this version on OpenPnP

I did try a an older version of OpenPnP with another PC. ver 2021-0-12_11-25-29.693671c

Camera works as it should. Settings, exposure etc,  can be changed with fast response of sliders as in your demo gif above. AND settings are not lost with a restart.

I can not get background calibration to work at all. See my image above with completely black color wheel. There is no mention of this in the wiki. Is this normal?

[mark maker]

Hi jamoiam,

I cannot explain why the camera behaves differently. I'm also not aware of any code changes in this area in the last two years or so. So I strongly doubt it is the OpenPnP version ... but with software you can never be absolutely sure 😅.

Can you exclude it is a problem of the PC?  Or the PC's cabling/ports/hubs etc?

> I can not get background calibration to work at all. See my image above with completely black color wheel. There is no mention of this in the wiki. Is this normal?

Just to make sure this is not a misunderstanding: are you aware that Background Calibration is performed as a part of the Nozzle Tip Calibration? Your screen shot looks as if it was never run.

https://github.com/openpnp/openpnp/wiki/Nozzle-Tip-Background-Calibration

_Mark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/c7455814-28f1-4331-ad72-6bcec23cdba3n%40googlegroups.com.

[jamoiam]

I could never get the nozzle calibration to work due to the camera issues.

I tried different USB cables, I tried swapping the ports. No change or improvement.

I then tried a third computer with an old version of OpenPnp. The camera worked fine with it. Settings can be changed and are not lost on a restart.

I updated to the latest version of OpenPnP, and it still works ok. Settings an be changed and are not lost on a restart, not like the 1st computer that is giving the troubles.

With the third computer I have then successfully performed a nozzle calibration! and the camera is stable and functional.

So I don't know what the problem is with the PC. A driver? Maybe I just sidestep the issue and not use that PC

I initially could not figure out why the color wheel was still black even after setting to color. However I discovered it needs to be set to color BEFORE calibration. The documentation might say so?... but it did throw me off. The workflow in that screen appeared to me to be calibration first as a task, which is in its own frame, then so on down the screen with background calibration last

Thanks for you patience and help... and I can already see these changes are an improvment

[mark maker]

> the camera is stable and functional.

Glad to hear.

> I initially could not figure out why the color wheel was still black even after setting to color. However I discovered it needs to be set to color BEFORE calibration.

I don't understand what you mean?

The process is like this:

1. There are two methods: you have to select the right one:
   
   • If you have Juki nozzle tips (the green ones) or a green shade behind the nozzle (or any other single vivid color), you can use BrightnessAndKeyColor.
   • Otherwise (e.g. with CP40 nozzle tips) just use Brightness.
2. Nozzle tip calibration runs and records images.
3. The same images are then reused by the Background Calibration to determine the Key Color (if you use BrightnessAndKeyColor).
   
4. The key color bounding box is then highlighted in the HSV wheel (if you use BrightnessAndKeyColor):
   
5. This color bounding box is subsequently parametrized into Bottom Vision, to blot out the nozzle tip:
   

_Mark

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/openpnp/8f9c6c99-5297-4fe7-b8db-653ddfa52796n%40googlegroups.com.

[jamoiam]

Yes, I understand now thanks.... but being unfamiliar with how to do this the workflow of that screen threw me off

1) Do a nozzle calibration. The backgound calibration and options are hiding off the screen

2) With nozzle calibration done, scroll down and see more settings, so now select BrightnessAndKeyColor.

3) Color wheel remains black. This is what confused me. How do I get color?

4) Do a nozzle calibration again, now the color wheel is color. Oh now I get it.

If setting to BrightnessAndKeyColor should be done first, then it should be near the top before nozzle calibration just to save this confusion (and annoying forum questions sorry) :-)