Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Using USB 2.0 DMK camera on Linux

I'm using Gutsy with a DMK 21AU04.AS, and the reference I used are:-

http://www.astronomycamerasblog.com/2007/11/28/usb-20-astronomy-cameras-on-ubuntu-704-feisty-fawn/

After plugging in the hardware, I got the following with

# dmesg
[695584.136000] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[695584.180000] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.16 device DMx 21AU04.AS (199e:8101)
[695584.180000] uvcvideo: No valid video chain found.
[695584.180000] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[695584.180000] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)

Then we will need to install the driver:

#sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic

Then remove any existing driver:

#sudo rm /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic/kernel/ubuntu/media/usbvideo/uvcvideo.ko

Now, you're ready to download and compile the driver:

#cd /usr/src
#sudo wget http://www.astronomycamerasblog.com/wp-content/uploads-extra/linux-uvc_trunk_arne.tar.gz

Then extract the tarball:-

#sudo tar -zxvf linux-uvc_trunk_arne.tar.gz

Get inside the directory, compile it and install it by:-

#cd linux-uvc_trunk_arne
#sudo make
#sudo make install

If everything work fine, the driver is ready. Now, it's time to install the software. You can use apt-get to install the software, simply check out the instruction here to add the repository first:-

http://unicap-imaging.org/using_repository.htm

Remember to complete the authentication part. Once it's done, do the following:-

#sudo apt-get update
#sudo apt-get install ucview

So everything is ready, do this to start the application:-

#ucview

2 comments:

monind said...

Does anyone know how to set the frame rate to something like 1fps? It seems my DMK41AU02.AS camera only allows three different frame rates: 15, 7.5, 3.75fps. And nothing else. I'm using unicap-0.2.19 and ucview-0.17. Thanks.

Oldfield said...

Those were hardware limitations, I guess if you have to go lower, like 1 fps, it could only be done on software level.