NERD NOON THIS WEDNESDAY (Oct 28)

100 McCaul, Room 343 - bring your own lunch - ALL WELCOME

STAN Krzyzanowski will show and tell people about the Canon Hacker's Development Kit (CHDK), how it works and how he uses it.

Stan's work is gorgeous. You will learn how to easily transform cheap digital cameras into programmable computers with many capabilities... (see Stan's notes, below)

NERD NOONS are an INTM thing. Students, faculty and technicians informally show-and-tell how they're using interesting new stuff available for students.

Past presentations included mini-projectors, the iPod touch and WII-motes. Upcoming : Caroline Langill on Open Source Hardware; Kate Hartman on Arduino; Ian Murray and Jim Ruxton on Second Life and Pure Data.

I hope you can come,

Judith Doyle

Chair, INTM


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From: Krzyzanowski, Stan(Academic)

I'll be telling and showing people about the Canon Hacker's Development Kit (CHDK), how it works and how I use it. Here are some bits of info regarding CHDK taken from their Wiki page, which you could choose from to add to the poster / evites if you like.

from: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief

CHDK is firmware enhancement that operates on a number of Canon Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera's memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware.

CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it.

The term CHDK refers to free software – currently available for many (but not all) Canon PowerShot compact digital cameras – that you can load onto your camera's memory card to give your camera greatly enhanced capabilities.

CHDK makes use of the microprocessor that controls the camera (every digital camera contains a microprocessor) to act as a programmable computer that provides the extra capabilities.

CHDK provides the ability for the camera to run programs ('scripts', written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card - these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.

What are scripts? Scripts are BASIC language programs that give you the ability to control the operation of the camera under program control. They have been used to add or extend the native capability of the camera: more flexible intervalometers, extended-range exposure compensation, extended bracketing ability, lightning photography, etc.

CHDK provides the ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port - you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.

One version of CHDK has features assist in taking stereo photographs, and even allows two cameras to be synchronized to take pictures at the same time (with an accuracy of better than 0.1 milliseconds, providing they are the same camera model).

There are several "Motion Detection" versions available that allow scripts to detect when motion (or any change in light intensity) occurs in one or more predefined regions of the images (the script can then take a photograph, a video, start a timer, etc) and there are some *very* cool applications based on this implementation.

There is a "Stereo Data Maker" (SDM) version, specifically geared to stereo image applications (which also incorporates the Motion Detection routines).

Also available are additional video compression options (more or less), and the ability to go beyond the 1 Gbyte limit. You can also use your USB port as a remote control / "cable release".

S.