Cpix Version 1.9.3 Heres the new version as promised.. First off , windows 2000 is the OS of choice here, win 95/98/ME are limited use at the moment. Secondly the same warnings about nikonview must not be installed, but the camera drivers must be installed, ie if you connect the camera to the computer via USB it says Coolpix 990 Overview "Connect to Camera" Switch the camera on to M rec mode, set the settings as you want, plug in the USB cable to the PC, then to the camera, and click this button, things should come to life. "Take a Picture" Press this the camera should take a picture. "Take a preview" Pres this a window ought to appear with a preview of what the camera is seeing (w2k) "Number of Pictures" Number of pictures currently stored on the compact flash, or "Not connected" if camera isn't connected to application. "Frames Left" Number of frames left on CF at current resolution ( this is an approximation ) "Avail Memory" Amount of memory left on the CF in bytes "Camera Settings" "Resolution" Current Picture Resolution" "Aperture" Aperture mode, unknown is one of the priority modes. "Colour Mode" Colour or black and white pictures "Flash" Which mode the flash is in "White Balance" Which mode the white balance is set to "Image Adjust" Which mode the image adjust is set to. "Metering Mode" Which mode the metering mode is set to. "Focus" Current Focusing mode. "Viewfinder" Probably best to leave this alone for now" "Shutterspeed" Speed of shutter, the higher the number the slower the shutter, 0 is auto "Battery" Indication of battery level, is always at 100 on AC "Zoom" Slide this up and down to change the zoom the box at the left allows you to type in the zoom in mm ie 23.4 "Get Info" Gets the current settings, not usually required "Get All Files" Downloads all the files on the CF card to the computer See "Only New" and "Save to Folder" "Get Last" Downloads the last picture on the CF, or the last taken "Delete Last" Deletes the last picture on the CF, or the last taken "Delete All Images" Deletes all the images on the CF (with confirm) very very slow, use format from camera instead. "Save to Folder" Set this to the folder you wish to save the downloaded pictures too (See "Browse" ) "Browse" Selects the "Save to Folder" visually "Upload" "Select File" This uploads a picture to the camera, but the camera doesn't see it. which is a bug "Time Lapse Control" "Delay (in ms)" Delay between shots in milliseconds, too short will constantly fire if the camera takes longer than this to take the picture, and or save it to the computer, or upload to ftp site. When a picture is being taken , a window will popup "Run Time Lapse" Starts the time lapse mode" "Stop Time Lapse" Stops the time lapse mode" "[X] Save Every Time" Clicking this will cause the software to save the taken picture to the folder specified in "Save to Folder" after every time lapse. "[X] Delete after download" This will remove the last picture from the cameras CF card, after it has been downloaded to the computer, note this will not increment the filenumber each time, ie DSCN0001.jpg , save, delete, next file will be DSCN0001.jpg still, and it will overwrite the previously saved file, its meant for the webcam mode. "[X] Upload to FTP" Click this to set the time lapse to upload the file to the specified FTP site, see "FTP Settings" remember to include enough time in the time lapse delay for this to happen. "FTP Settings" Click this to set the FTP site/username/password and directory to store the file as, it will be stored as lastpic.jpg this is stored in the registry, and reloaded so once should be enough. (check win95/98/me, ok 2k) --- Inside FTP Settings "Ftp Site Name" Name or IP address of ftp site to upload picture too , ie ftp.wecams.com "Username" Name required to login to FTP server ie anonymous "Password" Password required to login to FTP Server ie user@anonymous.com "Save to Directory" Directory to store image in, ie \http\webcam\images\ This is where the users will be able to access the .jpg file, whcih will be called lastpic.jpg Settings will be saved to registry when ok is clicked, so once ought to be enough. Obviously use your ftp/web site settings. Note the password is stored in plain text, so anyone with access to your computer can see it, it is not uploaded anywhere, or does it ever leave your computer. DO NOT put your password in any field other than "Password/; by mistake or it may be transmitted over the net. ------------------------- "Sound Trigger" "Sound Trigger" First this requires a microphone, make sure the audiolevel is set in the windows control panel for sound and the microphone input is switched on, check with windows recorder. The first bar shows the sound level, but only after "Sound Trigger" has been clicked The second slider bar is the level which will cause the camera to take one picture, if the camera is in automatic focus there will be a delay before the picture is taken. Click it again to stop waiting for a sound trigger, you can also move the slider while its running The small progress bar goes up and down rapidly to show that the camera is in sound trigger mode "Threaded comms" Switching this on changes the communication mode to the camera to be threaded, which means if the camera stops responding the program can timeout properly. and you can quit the qapp, however it does slow the communication down a lot. If you are having problems with the camera locking up, switch it on "Help" Not finished "Quit" Quits. The "leave me well alone" should not be played with at all... --- How to setup the web cam mode --- Switch the camera on. Connect the USB cable to the computer and the camera. Run cPix , select connect Pick a folder to store images too with "Browse" Click "Save Every Time" so it is ticked Click "Upload to FTP" so it is ticked Click "FTP Settings" fill in the details needed to access your ftp site Click "OK" Set the delay amount, in milliseconds, 7000 is 7 seconds. Make sure you give it enough time to take, save and upload the picture, otherwise it will constantly be doing it. Click "Run time Lapse" the time lapse feature will now start after the delay you've set, uploading the picture automatically if you don't see the picture on the web site check the settings in "FTP settings". Clicking "Stop time lapse" stops the time lapse, and the uploading.. The folder will fill up with images, so make sure you have enough space, "Delete After Download" will just store the last image on both the camera and the PC , since the DSCN number will not increment. -------------------------------------------- ---- Setting up the camera functions not available in the cPix application ---- There are a lot of things cPix can't control yet, such as manual focus, you can set these before you plug in the USB cable to the camera, and they will still be there after you startup cPix. ---- Camera locking up ---- If the crawling ants on the small LCD display stop, remove the batteries from the camera, unplug the USB cable and reinstall the batteries, switch it back on and check the settings.. This happens from time to time. I've cut it down as much as i can, but a bad communication can cause it. Also the viewfinder mode can do it. ---- Upload ----- Upload should upload an image to the camera, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere, or at least its not recognized, somethings missing from the initialization i haven't figured out yet. I'm not sure if it disappears completely or uses disk space, use the "available memory" to tell. ---- Unknown mode in Aperture ---- The camera seems to switch to unknown mode when its been set to a shutter priority mode. ---- Shutter Speed ----- The shutter speed is not intuitive to camera users, i will change it to the 1/100th style, its currently in microseconds. ---- Zoom ---- I didn't predict the zoom range correctly, the camera seems to zoom to around 8.2mm, which is not quite all the way to the left of the zoom slider, type 8.2 into the box to the right of the zoom slider to see the leftmost position. Need to recalibrate this. ---- Delete after Download ----- This may be disabled currently. Bug. I've been sucessfully using this software for over a month, i had it running as a webcam for 3 or 4 days solid, with no problems. Most features work fine. Some people have had issues, especially on windows 98. I'm trying to figure this out. I realize this is a short manual, i hope to make it better and do the full windows help soon. If you have problems, email me at root@charliex.net and send me the cpix.log file from the session you had trouble in. Suggestions, improvements etc always welcomed thanks for your time and patience. best regards charlie history 1.9 released 1.9.3 bug in get all files was found and fixed, download is better now. should be much faster when using only new too. 1.9.3 added visual indication of being in sound trigger mode. 1.9.3 made sample buffer bigger for sound trigger