Using Micromanager with Tucsen TCA-10.0-N device

[Nilay Lakhkar]

Hi

I am completely new to Micromanager so please bear with me. I am presently trying to operate a Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Twain camera on a Dell Optiplex 780 PC (Windows 7, 32-bit OS, 4 GB RAM). I was able to install Micro-Manager 1.3.48 on my system but when I went through the Hardware Configuration Wizard, I came up with this error message at step 9.

Error:
Error code: 39
Line 10: Property, Tucsen, TwainCamera, Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Camera
Error code: 22
Tucsen
TwainCam. Invalid property value: TwainCamera. (Error code: 3)

The configuration file I am using and the CoreLog.txt file are attached with this mail. I have no idea why this problem should occur. Perhaps it is because the adapter required to make this particular camera work is different from the standard adapter provided for Twain devices and has not been developed yet? I would highly appreciate anyone's help with this.

Thanks,

Nilay

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[Nilay Lakhkar]

Hi

Apologies for the earlier message which shows only text from the CoreLog.txt file! I have provided the text of my email below.

I am completely new to Micromanager so please bear with me. I am presently trying to operate a Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Twain camera on a Dell Optiplex 780 PC (Windows 7, 32-bit OS, 4 GB RAM). I was able to install Micro-Manager 1.3.48 on my system but when I went through the Hardware Configuration Wizard, I came up with this error message at step 9.

Error:
Error code: 39
Line 10: Property, Tucsen, TwainCamera, Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Camera
Error code: 22
Tucsen
TwainCam. Invalid property value: TwainCamera. (Error code: 3)

The configuration file I am using is attached with this mail. I have no idea why this problem should occur. Perhaps it is because the adapter required to make this particular camera work is different from the standard adapter provided for Twain devices and has not been developed yet? I would highly appreciate anyone's help with this.

Thanks,

Nilay

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[Hoover, Karl]

Hi Nilay



>... I am presently trying to operate a Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Twain camera
> ... Micro-Manager 1.3.48 on my system but when I went through the Hardware Configuration Wizard, I came up >with this error message at step 9.
>...Error code: 39
>Line 10: Property, Tucsen, TwainCamera, Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Camera
>Error code: 22
>Tucsen
>TwainCam. Invalid property value: TwainCamera. (Error code: 3)





Are you able to operate that camera with the test programs from TWAIN.ORG? We found that the various camera vendors have a very broad range of interpretations of the TWAIN specification. Micro-manager TWAIN camera adapter works at least with Lecia, the TWAIN sample data source, and a bunch of others.



Best regards,

Karl Hoover





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[Michael Z Lin]

Hello, and thanks again for the wonderful work on Micro-Manager. We are now doing multi-D acquisitions a lot and have run into a simple problem for which we hope there is a simple solution. How do we open the acquired images of multiple positions as a stack? We would like to apply intensity scaling adjustments across an entire experiment. The multi-channel images are stored within folders, one folder for each point. We can use the "Open Micromanager File" command but we still have to do it one by one for each positions, and it seems not possible to create a stack of multiple positions. Or we can open individual channels and then create a stack from the separate images, but opening one channel for n positions means repeating the open command through n folders. Is there a plugin out there that might read the Micromanager folder structure and open n positions with i channels as i stacks of n frames? Otherwise is there a way to flatten the Micromanager folder structure so all the images are within one folder and the position name is put into the file name, rather than having a folder for each point? Thank you!

Michael
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[Nilay Lakhkar]

Hi Karl

Thanks for your reply. The camera works when I run the 32-bit Twacker program i.e. when I go to File > Capture, it asks me to select a source and then switches to the camera's own software so I can capture images.

But when I run the TWAIN2 sample app and select my camera as the data source, it does not seem to be connecting to the camera even though it shows me the TWAIN configuration interface with the options to scan or show the UI. So when I press on Scan, it comes up with the same image (probably the last image saved in the camera) even if I move the slide holder of the microscope. Also on the interface, the line "CAP_FEEDERLOAD    False   One Value   Get" becomes highlighted in red. When I press the UI Only option, I get the error "General failure in response to DAT_USERINTERFACE. Bad protocol error."

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 6:50 PM, Hoover, Karl <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Nilay



>... I am presently trying to operate a Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Twain camera
> ... Micro-Manager 1.3.48 on my system but when I went through the Hardware Configuration Wizard, I came up >with this error message at step 9.
>...Error code: 39

>Line 10: Property, Tucsen, TwainCamera, Tucsen TCA-10.0-N Camera
>Error code: 22
>Tucsen
>TwainCam. Invalid property value: TwainCamera. (Error code: 3)

Are you able to operate that camera with the test programs from TWAIN.ORG? We found that the various camera vendors have a very broad range of interpretations of the TWAIN specification. Micro-manager TWAIN camera adapter works at least with Lecia, the TWAIN sample data source, and a bunch of others.



Best regards,

Karl Hoover





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[Hoover, Karl]

Hi Nilay


>...Thanks for your reply. The camera works when I run the 32-bit Twacker program i.e. when I go to File > >Capture, it asks me to select a source and then switches to the camera's own software so I can capture >images. But when I run the TWAIN2 sample app and select my camera as the data source, it does not seem >to be connecting to the camera even though it shows me the TWAIN configuration interface with the options >to scan or show the UI. So when I press on Scan, it comes up with the same image (probably the last image >saved in the camera) even if I move the slide holder of the microscope. Also on the interface, the line >"CAP_FEEDERLOAD    False   One Value   Get" becomes highlighted in red. When I press the UI Only >option, I get the error "General failure in response to DAT_USERINTERFACE. Bad protocol error."







It would seem that micromanager is encountering trouble similarly to the TWAIN sample program, could you relay this problem to the camera vendor?

Best regards,
Karl Hoover
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[FedericoConci]

Hello all,
I'm currently experiencing exactly this same issue with a TCA-5 color Tucsen camera. Despite I've installed the latests drivers and TWAIN-Directshow drivers available at Tucsen website, when the camera is tested with TWAIN Sample App I have the same issue as Karl describes (CAP_FEEDERLOAD    False   One Value   Get" becomes highlighted in red). I'll try to contact Tucsen on this problem -since it is clear it is a Tucsen driver failure- and also I will try to get Directshow driver to work. I promise to keep you informed in case of success.
Cheers,

Federico

FedericoConci wrote

Hello all,
I'm currently experiencing exactly this same issue with a TCA-5 color Tucsen camera. Despite I've installed the latests drivers and TWAIN-Directshow drivers available at Tucsen website, when the camera is tested with TWAIN Sample App I have the same issue as Karl describes (CAP_FEEDERLOAD    False   One Value   Get" becomes highlighted in red). I'll try to contact Tucsen on this problem -since it is clear it is a Tucsen driver failure- and also I will try to get Directshow driver to work. I promise to keep you informed in case of success.
Cheers,

Federico

Hi Federico,

You might have some success with the OpenCVgrabber device adapter. This is included in the latest nightly builds of MM 1.4 for Windows 32 and 64 bit.
OpenCVgrabber should be able to make use of the Directshow driver for this camera, but I have no idea what the performance will be like.

I hope that's of some help,
Best,
Ed

[FedericoConci]

Hi Ed!
I'm really surprised with your response since I woke up with the idea to write you an email.. I´ve been working some hours last night to get OpenCVgrabber ready to receive pictures from the Tucsen camera. Ooops, no success yet! I followed the 3 steps described in the ES Imaging page:

1- Download and install OpenCV 2.1: System variable PATH checked for OpenCV path, OK.

2- Download and install OpenCVgrabber: It was no necesary since it is included in MM 1.4. However I also tried to downgrade the file mmgr_dal_OpenCVgrabber.dll (I've replaced the MM 1.4 file with the one available at ES Imaging, they differ in size, I don't know which version is each one).

3- Configure Micro-Manager
a- Step 3: There is nothing to do here. Scan ports not enabled.
b- Step 4: There is nothing to do here. But when I press Next in order to go to step 5 I have the following:
  b.1- If the camera is not connected to the USB port, I get a messagebox with TCA-5.0 camera in the box title and Camera Init failed! in the message. (How OpenCV knew that TCA-5.0 was THE Camera?)
  b.2- If the camera is connected to the USB port its led starts to blink from now until I turn off the PC (It usually blinks when acquiring with TSView, the Tucsen propietary software)
  b.3- Steps 5 to 9 - Nothing to do!
  b.4- Then I land on the MM main screen, there is no picture acquired yet, but in the bottom I can read the Image size: 2592 X 1944 X 4, Intensity range: 8 bits ... This seems to be 5 MP but the color should be 24 bits (?).. So I press Acquire and nothing happens, so I press Live button and I get a messagebox with Micro-Manager Error in the box title and Illegal pattern character "Y" in the message.. I can still press Snap button and so I get another error messagebox with an Error: org.micromanager.acquisition.MMAcquisition.tofront (MMAcquisition.java:464)

MM hangs at this point and that's all folks.. (As I said before, led still bliks) I think I'm very close with the OpenCVgrabber.. I'm still pretty motivated in making this  camera to work with the great MM. I'm fully open to perform any test needed to achieve the connection and create a collaborative solution for Tucsen cameras users. (However, I still I have to learn more about Directshow devices and OpenCV)..
Best regards and thank you very much,

Federico

[FedericoConci]

Hello all again,
Doing more investigation, I found that camera works in "2-bit" B/W if in the OpenCVGrabber preset Pixeltype is in 8bit instead of default 32bitRGB. The Illegal pattern character "Y" message comes with the 32bitRGB. I believe this is caused because TCA-5 seems to be a 24bitRGB camera (As per Twack_32 test) and that color mode is not yet implemented in OpenCVgrabber.. Could 24bitRGB mode be implemented at least for testing purposes?
Best regards,

Federico

FedericoConci wrote

Hello all again,
Doing more investigation, I found that camera works in "2-bit" B/W if in the OpenCVGrabber preset Pixeltype is in 8bit instead of default 32bitRGB. The Illegal pattern character "Y" message comes with the 32bitRGB. I believe this is caused because TCA-5 seems to be a 24bitRGB camera (As per Twack_32 test) and that color mode is not yet implemented in OpenCVgrabber.. Could 24bitRGB mode be implemented at least for testing purposes?
Best regards,

Federico

Hi Federico,

The camera should work in colour as the images returned by OpenCV are in 24 bit rgb despite MM reporting 32bit RGB. The images are converted (empty alpha channel is added) inside the OpenCVgrabber device adapter. I have had a number of colour devices working well, even an HD PCI-E framegrabber performs quite well.

As you correctly spotted, opencvgrabber is now included in the mm1.4 nightly builds. It might be worth uninstalling opencv (you mentioned installing this as per the now outdated install instructions) and installing the latest nightly build of MM1.4.

I would also recommend that you get the latest driver and Directshow driver from Tucsen.

Are you using 32 bit windows? I'm not sure of the 64 bit compatibility of Tucsen's drivers.

I hope that's some help...

Best,
Ed

[FedericoConci]

Hi Ed,
First at all thank you for your support and constant answers. Doing more and more testing, I reinstalled Win XP (32 bits) in another disk partition, I have installed:
1- Latest Tucsen TCA-5.0 Drivers. They install the TWAIN 1.0 driver but no DirectShow drivers at all. This TWAIN driver seems to be TWAIN v1.8 compatible in Twacker_32.. But does not work very well with the TWAIN Sample App.
2- Latest Tucsen TCA-5.0 TWAIN and Directshow drivers. They come in another installer. This install the TWAIN 0.9 driver. This TWAIN driver seems to be TWAIN v1.6 compatible in Twacker_32.. And works better than the previous one with the TWAIN Sample App. Despite the confusion in version numbering, it is clear that 0.9 driver is newer that 1.0..
3- Latest MM 1.4, (no OpenCV, nothing else).
Well, the results are quite similar to the described before, no TWAIN at all and OpenCV with just B&W images..
Since I didn't find any DirectShow test app.exe in my 30 sec Google search, I decided to configure MSN Messenger video. Unbelievable! MSN can receive the full color video stream from the camera and also through "Webcam Options" button I can adjust the basic video parameters.. Is there a way to access that "Webcam Options" menu from OpenCVGrabber?
Here is when I come to the basic point: Am I missing something obvious regarding OpenCV config?
By the way, a Tucsen Engineer replied my email, he said that just TCC-1.4HICE-N is compatible with MM. However, he will test the Twain2 Sample App for the TWAIN incompatibilities shown above..
Best regards to everyone,

Federico