Beta: OpenCapture

Thank you for the support. I thought about it at the beginning but the main problem is that OpenCv is multiplatform and these features are not available for all platforms.
I will think about it. I have 3 possibilities:
- modifiy the Opencv code to support this with Directshow only for Windows
- add additional code with Directshow with the same features only for Windows
- create a new "Enumerator" extension to support these features without breaking the multiplatform side of OpenCapture.

Hi Enrico,
If I understood correctly, you made a Fusion2.5 application on a computer and tried to open the mfa on another one, did you? Or did you compile it on the first one and tried to start on another one?
What is the error report of dependency walker on the target computer when opening OpenCapture.mfx or the exe you compiled?

Anyway, I did not recommend to use VideoCapture for other purposes than learning extension development. As I stated in the tutorial coming with the extension there was no error handling in this demo extension.
I will try to copy and improve the code from this extension to OpenCapture extension to handle number of devices and device names.

Ok, it means that the exe works on the development computer but not on another one without any MMF installed.
OpenCv requires Directshow and certainly DirectX9 or further. Did you have this on the target computer?
The use of dependency walker would still be really helpful to find quickly the source of the problem.
Here a link: Please login to see this link.
Once installed, File -> Open -> Select the compiled exe
And File -> Save -> Save to a dwi or txt file.
This will give info about your system so i do not mind if you do not want to send the whole file but just the errors would be enough.

I will check if I can find another computer without any MMF to try a compiled exe.
Please login to see this link.

It is strange. It is asking for the MMF2 runtime library mmfs2.dll which should be packaged into the exe. I suppose that OpenCapture.mfx is looking for mmfs2.dll in a wrong place.
Until I figure out why it is not working without mmfs2.dll, you can try to copy this dll (from the MMF2 installation folder on the development PC) to the exe folder on the target PC.

Thanks. All feedbacks are very appreciated.
My game is almost finished now. I should come then with the version 1.2 (with Fusion2.5).

Hi Danny,
Indeed, it is weird. Some other users seemed to use the v1.1 without problem, therefore can you give me your configuration:
- MMF2 or CTF2.5?
- Windows Version?
Do you have an error message from the extension itself: "Cannot start preview" or something similar?

Hi Danny,
I tried on 2 other computers and it worked. But they have both a development environment and MMF2 on them which can mislead for the investigation.
I will try on a neutral computer.
Some few other questions:
- Do you have other capture devices on your computer: tv tuner for example?
- What is the default resolution of your camera? What is the size of the camera view?
- After the sequence: Choose Device(-1) -> Start Capture -> Start Preview and the image is visible, perform a "Save raw frame at resolution to file" to see if it is a scaling or MMF display problem.

I hope it is not an Opencv bug since OpenCapture and Video Capture extensions should use both Directshow on Windows.

I just thought about it: what are the available formats of your camera?
Here a link of a matlab tool to know the output formats of your camera: Please login to see this link.
Can you send me the list of the Output formats (or screenshot)? If you do not have RGB in the list, I need to look in the code if I can adapt it to support other formats or use the [set property] action option to switch in RGB.

From the technical point of view, cpaturing only means that images are taken from the camera, it does not include rendering something on the screen.
It allows also the user of the extension to capture images without displaying anything on the screen as explained in the help file:

Quote

Start Capture

Start capturing images from the selected capture device. This action does not draw anything on the screen, [Start Preview] action should be called afterwards to display the preview. It can this way track colors or save video stream without taking rendering ressources to draw something on the Screen

Danny: if you call Start Preview and then Start Capture it should still work as stated in the help file:

Quote

Note: the actions [Choose Device], [Start Capture] and [Start Preview] are independent. In other words, calling one of them won't automatically trigger the other ones but the status is saved. For example, calling [Start Preview] before [Start Capture] won't display anything on the screen but it is not needed to call it again once the [Start Capture] action is called.

Otherwise it is a bug since I implemented this specific error handling if a wrong sequence is given in MMF code.

EDIT: ok I checked some wrong sequences and it does not work as described in help file. A wrong sequence does not crash anything but the Action needs to be called one more time to be effective.
I need to change the code to at least send back an error (LastError expression) and change the help file.