QCamLog Screen Capture Program

QcamLog was created as a result of discussions on QCUIAG. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qcuiag.  Jan Timmermans provided the 
inspiration and the program specifications.  Rick Burke provided the relatively simple programming to make it happen.  The whole
program has come together over a period of about 3 weeks.  It is PROBABLY NOT bug free!  You use it at your own risk.  It probably 
won't hurt your computer but it may not operate as you (or we) wish.  The chances of that are relatively unlikely.  We expect it to
work as advertised.  Anyway, give it a whirl and let us know what you think!




Functionality: Primarily intended for use by QCUIAG members to log your camera settings for later reference..
Invoked by a button the camera settings will automatically be displayed on your screen, grabbed and logged onto disk as either
a BMP or JPEG file.  QCamLog is camera independent as the keystrokes required to display the camera settings of your particular
camera are emulated via the user controlled contents of the sendkeys.ini control file.


System Requirements:

Largely undetermined, but as a general guideline sufficient RAM to perform a screen capture 
(as a guideline my screen resolution is 1600x1200 Hi Colour and the resulting screen capture is about 5.6 MBytes in size for a BMP)
A 1024x768 laptop screen, true colours 32-bits resulted in 136Kb per capture (JPG format) 

You will need the VB6 Runtime libraries but they should install with the program.

Once the program is installed find the folder where you installed it.  In there you will find two .ini files

=============================================
QCamLog.ini contains four or five entries.

Line 1 contains the name you wish to use for the captured bitmaps.  The screen capture program will append the
date and a time code (milliseconds since midnight) as well as the .bmp (or .jpg) extension.  Make sure you specify a path
if you want the files saved in a particular directory.
Example: C:\Astronomy\Rawpics\today\QCamLog

Line 2 contains a string specifying a unique portion of the Windows caption bar for the (image capture) program you want in the
foreground when your screen captures are performed.  For K3CCDTools this will be "K3CCDTools" (without the quotes).
This unique string is CASE SENSITIVE!
Example: K3CCDTools

Line 3 is a toggle between full screen capture or Window capture.  It should be set to True or False.  Try both to get the desired 
capture method.
Recommended: full screen, because then also the K3CCDTools AVI filename AND the Brightness meter are also logged.
Example for Win/Me: False. For Windows 2000 Pro: True

Line 4 specifies whether to save the captured screens as BMP or JPG.  If it is set to BMP then Line 5 is not required.  If it is set 
to JPG then Line 5 is mandatory.

Line 5 specifies the quality of the JPG file and should be set between 10 and 100.

An example of QCamLog.ini is shown below.

c:\astroimages\cameralogs\capture
K3CCDTools
True
JPG
10

=============================================

Sendkeys.ini contains the commands sent to the (image capture) program during the screen capture process.  Each line
will contain one set of keystrokes.  Whenever you wish to perform a screen capture use the command "Capture" on a separate
line (without quotes).  The commands in this file are processed sequentially whenever the Capture button is pressed.

Keycodes.htm contains the keystrokes available for use.

You will need to determine the exact sequence of keystrokes required to bring up the appropriate screens in your image capture program 
and where you wish to perform a screen capture.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Example for Philips Vesta Pro:
%V           
"{s 6}"      
Capture
"^{TAB}"
"{s 6}"
Capture
"%{f4}"

Explanation of the above:
Alt-V to open the video dialogue
Type the character s to open the first tab of the Vesta camera settings dialogue; the 6 is to repeat 6 times in order to make sure that 
the first tab of the camera settings is actually on the screen before the screen capture take place.
Grab and record.
Ctl-TAB to go to the next tab of the Vesta camera settings dialogue.
Again 6 times the s to make sure that the next tab is on the screen.
Grab and record.
Alt-F4 exit.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Example for QuickCam Pro 3000
%V
S
Capture
{ESC}
{ESC}
{ESC}
Explanation of the above:
Alt-V to open the video dialogue
Type the character s to open the first tab of the QuickCam Pro 3000 camera settings dialogue;
Grab and record.
Escape to return to K3CCDTools after capture is complete
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Note:  The above examples work on our computers.  Depending on the speed and other characteristics of your computer the exact same camera may
require different settings to work.  You should experiment until you achieve the desired results.


Good luck!

Rick Burke

www.essential.bc.ca/deepsky

Jan Timmermans

http://www.firmament.tk