Helicon Soft Forum

Hi Stas,
Just ordered my StackShot Railway system from Cognisys Inc with the USB connection.
My question is: How do I connect both StackShot and my camera (Canon 5D MkII) so that Helicon Remote can drive StackShot (moving the stepper motor) and camera (for releasing the shutter).
I do have a License for Helicon Focus Pro.
Thanx!
Karel
The Netherlands

Karel,

Helicon Remote sends stepping commands to StackShot using one USB cable and sends shutter release commands to the camera using another USB cable. This means that you need to connect to your computer both camera and StackShot.

Hello

We are using the stackshot with a land camera and a medium format back
Is there a way to use helicon remote to control only the stackshot with having a camera connected it would be amazing for us

thx Olivier

There is not much sense in Helicon Remote if you do not see Live View on your image. The problem is that only Nikon and Canon DSLRs have SDK to get Live View image remotely. With your medium format camera this is not possible as I understand.

We do have a live view and a shoot control program
but it's not supported by your software but we would like to use the command part of helicon remote to command the stackshot hardware then use helicon to stack the image from our land camera as we do today

by the way that could be usefull to all the other people that have some other camera (or microscope) that the one supported by helicon remote but with their own command software to do stacking with helicon and the stackshot hardware
thks

As you know StackStot control box can do almost the same as Helicon Remote, but without Live View. As I understand, you want to call Helicon Remote with command line parameters to automate the process?

Yes
The stack shot box can do QUITE the same as HR. Except it has no way to go forward step by step manually and go back to the start position at once ( no memory of start in manual mode), and the HR interface is more likely to evolve than the box firmware

And then yes it would be great to have command line to shoot and process the stack !
thx

By the way I would love to have an "AUTOPROCESS Folder" for Helicon Focus mode wich would be pointing a folder then :
- Load all the images in the preselected folder
- Process them with the current settings
- Save the result with a name containing the original name sequence, the num of shoot in the stack and IPTC with the stack parameter in a destination preselected folder
- Optionnally empty the source folder by deleting sources images stack

Accessing this mode in HF and command line would be great !!

It would gain us lots of time

THX in Advance for considering seriously this request

PS Maybe I should post that in the HF forum...

Thanks for suggestion, the only downside of auto process is that Helicon Focus will load all processors to their limits in the background and Helicon Remote will be sluggish.

We already implemented test version of Helicon Remote that can control StackShot even if camera is not connected. We will send you the link via email.

thx for the version I look forward to trying it !!

I don't care that Helicon gets all the resource as long as it is a fast operation for us , we can even have a different computer for stack shoting and staock processing
And even without using Helicon remote i would be delighted to have a ONE button operation for all my day to day use of helicon cause i can repeat those operations 20 times a day every day !!! would be so cool to have that.

Thx again for the amazing support you give to this application !

We published new version of Helicon Focus (for Windows) which can add to queue all stacks in all subfolders and process them all.

We also sent you a link to test version of Helicon Remote:

Windows: http://downloads.heliconfilter.com/Heli ... 3.2011.zip

Mac: http://downloads.heliconfilter.com/mac/ ... 2.0.16.dmg

Wonderfull

When will we have this on MacOs ?

Is there line command on mac os for helicon focus on MacOs?

Hi,

I just tested the new beta version of remote with the control without camera.
Great! thanks a lot!

But ...

I experienced a few crash with the DOF function (sent the repport)

I would like to have a few more options if possible :
- the possibility of giving manually the size of the step in mm and then having automatically the num calculated if an end and start points are specified and manually choose the num of step if not
- the possibility to move manually step by step forward and backward with the size I specifyed
- the possibility to have a few memory point for the starting and ending point

- we have one very specific need taht would be to have two BIG STEP forward/backward buttons, that the amount could be set in the preference to advance a very big amout (several centimeters but really precisly) as we use different camera with diferent position of the focusing plan and we could go back and forth easyly from one to the other, that way

two more questions :
how do you calculat the size of the small,medium and big forward/backward for the arrow button ?
what is the "distance between" two focu plan in the paramaters of stackshot? is that linked to the previous question?

OLH wrote: I experienced a few crash with the DOF function (sent the repport)

Thanks for testing! We got your report and we are now fixing this.

OLH wrote: I would like to have a few more options if possible :
- the possibility of giving manually the size of the step in mm

The size of focusing step can be set in mm in the latest version, I am not sure if you already have this feature.

OLH wrote: and then having automatically the num calculated if an end and start points are specified and manually choose the num of step if not

You mean automatically calculte number of shots? We need to check if we have enough information for this. Generally speaking our DOF calculator is designed for camera lens but not to linear steppers.

OLH wrote: - the possibility to move manually step by step forward and backward with the size I specifyed

Specify the size of focusing step in Preferences and move wiht > and < buttons in the main interface.

OLH wrote: - the possibility to have a few memory point for the starting and ending point

Hmm.. We need to think about it. We need to keep balance between number of features and simplicity of interface.

OLH wrote: - we have one very specific need taht would be to have two BIG STEP forward/backward buttons, that the amount could be set in the preference to advance a very big amout (several centimeters but really precisly) as we use different camera with diferent position of the focusing plan and we could go back and forth easyly from one to the other, that way

Most probably we will implement it that way: in the Preferences you will be set number of focusing steps for >> and >>> buttons. These numbers are now hardcoded. But you will be able to set >>> you amount and use it for big steps.

OLH wrote: how do you calculat the size of the small,medium and big forward/backward for the arrow button ?

They are fixed now to x5 and x25 factors.

OLH wrote: what is the "distance between" two focu plan in the paramaters of stackshot? is that linked to the previous question?

What you mean? I can only see "Size of the focusing steps"

Stas Yatsenko wrote:Most probably we will implement it that way: in the Preferences you will be set number of focusing steps for >> and >>> buttons. These numbers are now hardcoded. But you will be able to set >>> you amount and use it for big steps.

That would be just perfect !!

Stas Yatsenko wrote:OLH wrote:
- the possibility to move manually step by step forward and backward with the size I specifyed

Specify the size of focusing step in Preferences and move wiht > and < buttons in the main interface.

I mean to move step by step not with a fixed size but with the step coresponding to the step calculated relativly to the start and end point .
But as i understand your system is not linear .... so the step size may be not the same all the way long the start position to the end position. am I correct ?
If so what kind of formula do you use ... we are back focusing not front focusing to acheive the best result, is your formula adapted to that .
I am very interested in that as we, for the moemnt are only using, empiric, and approximation, I'd love to have some more mathematic tools to minimize the number of steps.

Stas Yatsenko wrote:OLH wrote:
what is the "distance between" two focus plan in the paramaters of stackshot? is that linked to the previous question?

What you mean? I can only see "Size of the focusing steps"

Yes this is it.


and again sorry for repeating myself but I'd love to see the automation in Helicon Focus feature you have on windows version for years now ported on MacOs. It's really a big big difference between the two versions!!