Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

mattl's picture

Hello.. Im trying to get a Firefly MV to work in Video Tools 2.0 In the camera explorer composition it recognizes the camera but won't display any image.. Has anyone had any luck with this? Or getting a firefly to work properly in OSX at all? Any help appreciated.. thanks Matt

mattl's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

I should add, I have a color firefly, firewire version. I can get an image with the standard video input plugin but its monochrome and has a very fine dotty pattern across it.. Cheers

smokris's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

VideoTools should work with the Point Grey Firefly MV. When testing a few other Point Grey cameras, I noticed they tend to be very particular about the image format requested --- if you don't request one of its preferred formats, it'll return invalid data or no data.

When using the Camera Explorer composition, have you tried all permutations of the Color Coding / Image Size / Framerate properties? Any Console messages? Consider also attaching a screenshot of that composition's output, so I can compare it to the other Point Grey cameras I've tested.

mattl's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

Thanks for your reply Smokris, yes I tried all combinations I believe.. sometimes 60fps crashes QC. I get an error when setting to res other than 640 x 480. attached is some info.. i don't get any image from the camera at all, even when no error is reported. Is there a different colour coding setting I could enter manually?

Also when my isight is plugged in, the camera explorer qtz won't open, quartz crashes.. has it been tested with isight?

I am meant to install any system files other than the videotools plugin?

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smokris's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

That's strange. Your camera is the color model of that series, yet it is reporting that it only supports mono color modes.

Currently VideoTools supports the following color codings: MONO8, YUV411, YUV422, YUV444, and RGB8. According to your camera's manual, it supports MONO8 at 60fps, but only 15fps in YUV color. Also your camera's manual says it only supports capturing at 640x480, so it makes sense that it gives an error when trying to set other resolutions. Strange that it reports supporting other resolutions though.

Regardless, it shouldn't be crashing. Could you please attach the crash logs so we can investigate?

mattl's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

Process: Quartz Composer [855] Path: /Developer/Applications/Quartz Composer.app/Contents/MacOS/Quartz Composer Identifier: com.apple.QuartzComposer.editor Version: 4.0 (103.1) Build Info: QuartzComposerEditor-1030100~113 Code Type: X86 (Native) Parent Process: launchd [128]

PlugIn Path: /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches/VideoTools.plugin/Contents/MacOS/VideoTools PlugIn Identifier: net.kineme.VideoTools PlugIn Version: 2.0 (20110303.2158r9331)

Date/Time: 2011-05-14 15:07:26.683 +1000 OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.6 (10J567) Report Version: 6

Interval Since Last Report: 3852600 sec Crashes Since Last Report: 98 Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1718203 sec Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 72 Anonymous UUID: 1DA406D9-C349-408F-83D5-816AC5E43E51

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV) Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x000000006c696166 Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Application Specific Information: objc_msgSend() selector name: hash

Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread 0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x94c33ed7 objc_msgSend + 23 1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9503b2dc ___CFBasicHashFindBucket1 + 444 2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x950434cc CFBasicHashFindBucket + 252 3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x95043393 CFDictionaryGetValue + 131 4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x9508b38e CFBundleCopyLocalizedString + 286 5 com.apple.Foundation 0x97804bd0 -[NSBundle localizedStringForKey:value:table:] + 89 6 net.kineme.VideoTools 0x187ad302 0x187a9000 + 17154 7 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x95200b5a -[QCPatch(Private) _renderAtTime:arguments:] + 111 8 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x95200ac6 -[QCRenderingManager addPatch:context:time:arguments:nextExecutionTime:] + 2200 9 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff9e3 -[QCPatch(Private) __execute:arguments:] + 754 10 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff67e -[QCPatch(Private) _execute:arguments:] + 1728 11 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x95200155 -[QCPort _execute:arguments:] + 268 12 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff532 -[QCPatch(Private) _execute:arguments:] + 1396 13 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x95200155 -[QCPort _execute:arguments:] + 268 14 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff532 -[QCPatch(Private) _execute:arguments:] + 1396 15 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951fff70 -[QCPatch(Private) _executeSubpatches:arguments:] + 243 16 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ffda5 -[QCPatch(Customization) nextExecutionTimeForSubpatches:time:arguments:] + 192 17 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ffcad -[QCPatch(Customization) nextExecutionTime:time:arguments:] + 81 18 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ffc07 -[QCPatch(Private) _nextExecutionTime:arguments:] + 461 19 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff99b -[QCPatch(Private) __execute:arguments:] + 682 20 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951ff67e -[QCPatch(Private) _execute:arguments:] + 1728 21 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951fdc7d -[QCContext nextExecutionTimeForPatch:time:arguments:] + 643 22 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951fd9f4 -[QCGraphicsContext nextExecutionTimeForPatch:time:arguments:] + 73 23 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951fd7cb -[QCOpenGLContext nextExecutionTimeForPatch:time:arguments:] + 552 24 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x951fd590 -[QCPatch(Runtime) nextExecutionTime:arguments:] + 92 25 ...apple.QuartzComposer.editor 0x0000f23e 0x1000 + 57918 26 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x95249698 -[QCView render:arguments:] + 412 27 com.apple.QuartzComposer 0x9524a02e -[QCView _renderGLContext] + 121 28 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c782a -[NSView _drawRect:clip:] + 3510 29 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c64c8 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayAllDirtyWithLockFocus:visRect:] + 1600 30 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c67fd -[NSView _recursiveDisplayAllDirtyWithLockFocus:visRect:] + 2421 31 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c49e7 -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 711 32 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c595c -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 4668 33 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c595c -[NSView _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 4668 34 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c455b -[NSThemeFrame _recursiveDisplayRectIfNeededIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:topView:] + 265 35 com.apple.AppKit 0x902c0ea2 -[NSView _displayRectIgnoringOpacity:isVisibleRect:rectIsVisibleRectForView:] + 3309 36 com.apple.AppKit 0x90221a57 -[NSView displayIfNeeded] + 818 37 com.apple.AppKit 0x901ead40 -[NSWindow displayIfNeeded] + 204 38 com.apple.AppKit 0x9021c28a _handleWindowNeedsDisplay + 696 39 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x950a9e02 __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 1186 40 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x95065d8d __CFRunLoopRun + 557 41 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x95065464 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 452 42 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x95065291 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 97 43 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x96769004 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 392 44 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x96768cf7 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 158 45 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x96768c40 BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 81 46 com.apple.AppKit 0x901f278d _DPSNextEvent + 847 47 com.apple.AppKit 0x901f1fce -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 156 48 com.apple.AppKit 0x901b4247 -[NSApplication run] + 821 49 ...apple.QuartzComposer.editor 0x000035cf 0x1000 + 9679 50 com.apple.AppKit 0x901ac2d9 NSApplicationMain + 574 51 ...apple.QuartzComposer.editor 0x00002845 0x1000 + 6213

Thread 1: Dispatch queue: com.apple.libdispatch-manager 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93553982 kevent + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9355409c _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 215 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93553559 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 163 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x935532fe _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 240 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552d81 _pthread_wqthread + 390 5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552bc6 start_wqthread + 30

Thread 2: com.apple.CFSocket.private 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9354c0c6 select$DARWIN_EXTSN + 10 1 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x950a5c83 __CFSocketManager + 1091 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9355a85d _pthread_start + 345 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x9355a6e2 thread_start + 34

Thread 3: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552a12 __workq_kernreturn + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552fa8 _pthread_wqthread + 941 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552bc6 start_wqthread + 30

Thread 4: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552a12 __workq_kernreturn + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552fa8 _pthread_wqthread + 941 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x93552bc6 start_wqthread + 30

Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit): eax: 0x187c0a40 ebx: 0x9503b444 ecx: 0x9098a568 edx: 0x6c696146 edi: 0x9098a568 esi: 0x187c0a40 ebp: 0xbfffc908 esp: 0xbfffc8d8 ss: 0x0000001f efl: 0x00010202 eip: 0x94c33ed7 cs: 0x00000017 ds: 0x0000001f es: 0x0000001f fs: 0x00000000 gs: 0x00000037 cr2: 0x6c696166

mattl's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

Also.. I tried a new Monochrome Firefly.. also gets detected but does not display an image. My isight works in videotools 1, but not 2.. if that helps any..

stuart's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

I remember having to adjust a gain or similar parameter in order to get one of my firewire cameras to display an image. Depending on what optics you have on it, make sure your iris isn't closed. That got me once for a few minutes.

mattl's picture
Re: Point Grey Firefly MV and Videotools 2.0

How would you adjust the gain in videotools?

The camera works with the standard video input patch.. but it displays a black and white image with a fine grid pattern through it.. I was hoping video tools might display it better...