Category: Changelog

SharpCap 2.5.1297 Beta

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This is the first beta of SharpCap 2.5 – here’s a quick rundown of what’s new

  • Where have the menu items gone? Many have moved to the new Settings Dialog which is in the File Menu.
  • Mount control of ASCOM mounts – look in the Hardware tab of the Settings Dialog
  • Improved control over how saved capture files are organized into folders and subfolders
  • Improved exposure control for many cameras – finer control and swap between long and short exposure optimized views of the control
  • Support for scripting many SharpCap functions using built-in Python interpreter. You can even run scripts at startup and add toolbar buttons that launch scripts.
  • Improved FITS file output support – proper 16 bit support and much more metadata stored in the FITS file
  • Full screen mode added which hides the menu – move mouse to top to get it back
  • Improved ZWO camera support – new SDK included which gives better support for recent cameras
  • Many, many bug fixes…

Beta update – build 2.5.1302

  • Update SDK from ZWO should fix some minor issues with ASI120 series cameras
  • More robus long exposure control of ZWO ASI172M* cameras

As usual, you can download SharpCap builds from the downloads page.

SharpCap 2.1.1049 (re-released as 2.1.1050)

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Ha! Last 2.1.971 is going to be the last release of 2.1… No chance šŸ™‚

Two significant changes in 2.1.1049

  • Support for iNova cameras (http://inovaccdusa.com/). Thanks to Roger and Ilia at M42Optic for providing me with a sample and getting me started with the SDK. I am testing using a PLB-Cx, but iNove owners with other cameras please do get in touch if you have any problems. A few things to note
  • On most computers you should get good frame rates by leaving the ‘Hb’ setting on auto and (maybe) tweaking PixClock up to 44 or higher. On some, leaving Hb on auto may lead to a frame rate that wobbles between 2-3fps and 15-20fps. On these, put Hb on manual and adjust as needed.
  • I can’t get the iNove camera I have (PLB-Cx) to switch between 8 and 16 bit modes reliably – I usually have to unplug and re-plug the camera to get this to work. iNova are working on fixing this bug in their SDK, but for now, select the camera normally and you will get 8 bit mode. Select it with SHIFT held down and you will get 16 bit mode. If you get no frames from the camera, unplug it, close SharpCap, reconnect it and retry.
  • The iNova DirectShow drivers have an issue that means that they don’t work in SharpCap. The guys at iNova are trying to figure out what is going wrong. For now, make sure you select the camera from the ‘iNova Cameras (Experimental)’ section of the menu.
  • If your iNova camera doesn’t show up, try installing the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) which is required by the iNova SDK.
  • Changes to the way that AVI files are written for non-DirectShow cameras (that means QHY, ZWO, etc). Previously I was using AVIFIL32.dll (which is a Windows component) to write AVI files. Unfortunately, these files were limited to 2gb in size by limitations in AVIFIL32.dll and were incompatible with some stacking applications when MONO or RAW capture was being used. Now SharpCap uses a different approach to write AVI files for these cameras (by setting up a DirectShow push source filter, if you must ask), which should address these issues. Thanks to Sam at ZWO for pointing this bug out.

Other changes since 2.1.971 include

  • Custom resolutions specified for ASI cameras are now saved and will be in the resolution list next time
  • Better placing of the ‘waiting for next capture’ window when performing a capture sequence
  • Fix bug which stopped any frame transform from being turned off for DirectShow cameras
  • Fix Pan/Tilt not working on ASI cameras
  • Fix various bugs reported via crash reports

As usual, the installer is available from the download page, and will be available via auto-update after a week or two.

[Note: 2.1.1028 had a bug causing a crash when the cameras menu was opened on some machines – it has been removed and replaced by 2.1.1049. I’m afraid I missed this bug in testing – thanks to the users who reported it!]

[Note: It seemed that build 2.1.1049 was actually 2.1.1048.1, which was annoying as it meant the auto-update kept trying to re-update. I have rebuilt with a new build number to hopefully fix this. The two builds are functionally identical aside from this]

SharpCap 2.1.971 Release

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This may be the last significant release for SharpCap 2.1 as I am now working on the next version which will have a significant UI refresh.

Anyway, this is what’s new in this version :

  • Support for ZWO ASI120MM/MC-S (USB3) cameras
  • Add current frame rate to status display.
  • Improved handling of ‘absolute’ mode focusers, deal with cases where they can be moved by external handset too
  • Updated Chinese translation (thanks to ZW Optical)
  • Improved detection of cases where the frame rate is too high to display all frames without bogging down the application. Frames won’t get displayed but will still get saved when capturing (if your hard disk is fast enough!)
  • Focus score (contrast detection) graph now averaged over several frames to make it easier to follow
  • Fix issues with the active camera not always being marked in the cameras menu
  • Fix bug when using single frame capture from the ‘Configure Capture’ dialog – subsequent attempts to capture caused a crash

As usual, the installer is available from the download page.

SharpCap 2.1.915 Released

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A couple of significant new features in the 2.1 release of SharpCap, plus the usual raft of minor improvements and bug fixes.

  • New feature – Bahtinov mask focus assistant. This will detect the 3 line pattern from a Bahtinov mask and show an indication of how near focus you are
  • You can now type values in the box that shows the value of a camera property – Just type a number and press enter.
  • If an exposure control shows its value in ms or s in the value box, you can type in 33ms or 1.5s and SharpCap will understand it.
  • New histogram, capable of showing all 3 channels at once for a colour camera
  • Further performance improvements for ASI/ZWO cameras
  • Fix for capture sequences not working when ‘single frame’ selected
  • Improved focuser control UI – should have more sensible step defaults and less drawing issues
  • Speed improvements starting QHY cameras
  • Custom resolutions available for ASI/ZWO cameras (click on Custom… in the list)
  • Several bug fixes from crash reports – thank you for taking the time to send in bug reports.

As always, available from the download page.

Note : 2.1.915 replaces 2.1.910 to fix a bug which resulted in a crash if the PC did not have the ‘Tahoma’ font installed

SharpCap 2.0.862 Released

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SharpCap 2.0.862 fixes a number of bugs and adds some significant improvements, particularly for those using non-DirectShow cameras.

  • Preview transforms improved to work on 8 bit mono and 24 bit colour images (ie for most cameras now)
  • End long exposure frames early if stopping preview on a ZWO/ASI camera
  • Updated QHY SDK – corrects Bayer patterns on when using RAW mode in 16 bit depth on colour cameras
  • Capture file writing for QHY, ZWO/ASI, Ximea, Basler and ASCOM cameras now runs in a separate thread not the UI thread – should improve performance a bit and reduce dropped frames.
  • For the above cameras, SharpCap will now buffer up to 50 frames in memory if output file writing falls behind the image capturing. If the buffer gets beyond 50 frames, they will start being dropped.
  • For the above cameras, SharpCap will now skip previewing frames if the preview updates start to get behind the image capturing
  • Note: if the capture file output has fallen behind there may be a pause at the end of a capture of a few seconds while the buffered frames are written to file.
  • Fix bug where uninstalling SharpCap 1.5 will break DirectShow cameras in 2.0
  • Add missing file for Basler camera support
  • Check for updates option now in the Help menu
  • Several bug fixes from crash reports – thank you for taking the time to send in bug reports.

As usual, it is available from the download page. I will make it available by auto-update in a few days.

SharpCap 2.0.816 Released – please update!

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SharpCap 2.0.800 (only available by auto-update) and 2.0.816 are bug-fix releases that fix the majority of bugs that have been uploaded via the crash reporting tool.

In particular, the following issues are fixed in 2.0.816

  • Fix crash when saving to AVI from ASI/QHY cameras on machines with missing AVI compression CODECs
  • Fix stack overflow crash when changing exposure on Ascom and Basler LX cameras
  • Stop application getting into an inconsistent state (preview showing, no controls) when there are problems with focuser or filter wheel control
  • Fix rounding error that was sometimes putting some of the controls just out of range, resulting in a crash
  • Fix crash when starting capture in SPC900 LX mode before a frame had been previewed
  • Re-order colour space list on ASI cameras to put RGB24 and Mono first

2.0.800 also resolved the following issues

  • Improve the reticule so that it stays over the same point on the image if you resize, zoom or scroll the preview window
  • Check for and warn about a missing/read only capture folder when starting a capture
  • Fix a number of crashes from bug reports
  • Add additional diagnostic logging for some bug report issues that are not clear cut
  • Fix crash in auto-update that seems to be occurring on Windows XP
  • Fix crash when the histogram is closed with the ‘x’ button and then re-opened
  • Fix crash on auto-update if download of new version fails
  • Fix crash with LX mode webcam if capture is started before a preview frame has completed
  • Remove ‘Beta’ text from installer and Start Menu links

Please continue to submit crash reports – I can generally resolve about 80% of issues that are reported just based on the report information.

Those of you on SharpCap 2.0 builds before .800 should upgrade – manually if the auto-update doesn’t work – I’m still getting lots of bug reports from build 787 for bugs that are fixed in build 816.

What’s New in SharpCap 2?

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  • Native ASI Camera support*
  • Native QHY Camera support* (see separate news item)
  • Simplified bug reporting – just click to upload a bug report.
  • ASCOM camera fixes
  • Add AVI output support for non-WDM cameras (when the image format is compatible with AVI)
  • Reduce size of ASCOM fits files for 16 bit cameras
  • Add a circular Reticule (optional)
  • Improved Focus Score
  • Improved Histogram
  • Histogram & Focus Score now separate buttons on the toolbar
  • Basler camera fixes, updated to Pylon 3.2.3
  • Highest resolution mode selected when first opening a camera
  • Filter Wheel support (control wheel position from inside SharpCap)
  • Uses Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0, not 2.0
  • Old DirectShow code removed
  • Many, many bug fixes

*Note:

QHY and ASI native support means that you will probably not be able to use the WDM drivers for these cameras from within SharpCap. This is because SharpCap will have already loaded different versions of some of the camera components to activate native support, which will prevent the WDM drivers from loading.

If you want to use the WDM drivers and disable the native support, go to the SharpCap install directory and delete ASICamera.dll and/or FireQHYCam.dll

SharpCap 1.5.307

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Changes since .304 include

  • Multiple minor bug fixes and code cleanup
  • Default Cancel button on the interval wait form
  • Avoid stopping preview when showing video capture filter dialog under some odd circumstances
  • Show frame progress bar on long (>1s) frames on DirectShow cameras
  • Better error handling for DirectShow devices
  • Fix colour space name for Mono DirectShow cameras
  • Save and restore width of settings panel when app closed and reopened
  • Fix vertical axis of pan/tilt control being inverted
  • Do not crash if initial preview fails when starting app

Download 1.5.307

SharpCap 1.4.213

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Here’s what is new in 1.4 :

  • Long exposure support for Basler cameras (unlimited exposure time)
  • Parallel port control support for LX modified webcams
  • Automatic USB serial port selection for LX modified webcams – chooses highest numbered serial port.
  • Frame progress bar shown for all cameras in LX mode to show how far through the current frame you are
  • Single frame capture support for all supported cameras types
  • Multiple output formats supportedĀ  – SER, PNG, FITS for non-webcam cameras
  • Experimental support for any camera with an ASCOM driver
  • Improved capture file handling – formats that produce multiple files like PNG and FITS create a folder and save them into it
  • Many bug fixes

Get the release build of 1.4 from the downloads page.

SharpCap 1.4 BETA Available

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[Update 1st May 2011 – new beta build uploaded – follow download link below]

SharpCap has become too big now for me to quickly test every feature and combination of features before shipping a new build, so I’m going to start making beta builds publicly available for people to test. The beta builds are deliberately time limited – in this case it will stop working on the 1st May.

You are very strongly advised to try beta builds out indoors before trying to use them during an imaging session.

New Features in 1.4

For those that actually would like to know what’s new in this build, here’s the list…

  • Long exposure support for Basler cameras
  • Parallel port control support for LX modified webcams
  • Automatic USB serial port selection for LX modified webcams – chooses highest numbered serial port.
  • Frame progress bar shown for all cameras in LX mode to show how far through the current frame you are
  • Single frame capture support for all supported cameras types
  • Multiple output formats supportedĀ  – SER, PNG, FITS for non-webcam cameras
  • Experimental support for any camera with an ASCOM driver
  • Improved capture file handling – formats that produce multiple files like PNG and FITS create a folder and save them into it
  • Various bugfixes

Download

You can download the beta using this link. (Updated link to build 212)

[Edit: download updated to hopefully fix problem if ASCOM not installed]

Reporting Issues

Please report any problems you have via the AstronomyShed or StargazersLounge forum threads.