CNC14Camera

A simple camera tool for the CNC14 machine (https://www.cnc14.de) which was designed by Birgit Hellendahl. However, you may use this tool for any other CNC machine as well.

The purpose of this tool is to zero the XY-coordinates of a CNC machine. It permanently displays the image grabbed from a video device, e.g. a camera plugged into an USB port. The image contains a red cross indicating the X- and Y-axis of the machine. The center of the cross is a green circle, the radius of which can be adjusted with a slide control next to the resolution combo-box-button. By clicking on the image it is possible to setup some parameters which are used by default. In the first line you can choose the camera device if there are several ones attached to the computer. The next line rotates the red cross in order to match the actual X- and Y-axis of the machine. In addition the camera parameters, like brightness, contrast and saturation, can be adjusted as well. All of the slider values as well as the current resolution and the current device are stored in user's settings and will be restored at the next start.

Prerequisites

This program is a python3-script using the modules PyQt5,cv2,math,numpy and platform.

Usage: Just run the python script without any parameters in your favorite way.

Installed python:
Linux: /usr/bin/python3 CNC14Camera.py
Windows 10/11: double click on CNC14Camera.py

Windows 7: Since Windows 7 is not supported anymore, you need to install an older version of python (tested Python 3.8.9 https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.8.9/python-3.8.9.exe).

Single executables

You may want to have a single executable so that you don't have to take care about installing python3 and the required modules - especially on computers using Windows. You can do this by using PyInstaller on a machine with all of the prerequisites and PyInstaller (pip install pyinstaller)

1. open command shell
2. create a new directory, e.g. by "mkdir cam_distrib", and copy the python script CNC14Camera.py into it
3. change into this directory by "cd cam_distrib"
4. call "PyInstaller --onefile CNC14Camera.py"

Afterwards the single executable is located in the sub-directory "dist". It contains a python interpreter and all of the required modules so that the executable may be run on computers which don't have python installed

NOTE: There have been newer versions of PyInstaller and OpenCV (cv2) which are currently incompatible. A known working combination is: opencv-python: 4.5.5.64 pyinstaller: 5.2

  you may check your current version by:
    pip show opencv-python pyinstaller

  if you have newer version installed, you may override them by
    pip install --ignore-installed opencv-python==4.5.5.64
    pip install --ignore-installed pyinstaller==5.2

This procedure works for Windows machines as well as for MacOS machines and for Linux machines. However, the executables only run on machines using the same OS - or at least very similar. This means that Linux- executables build on a specific distribution may not run on a different Linux distribution.

The bin-directory already contains a compiled single executable for Windows (build on Win7 32-bit and Python 3.8.9) and MacOS (camera access may be required for terminal).

Using CNC14Camera on a Mac

MacOSX has a detailed security structure to protect users from malware and badly behaving applications. If you want to use CNC14Camera on a Mac, you need to deal with that.

1. Intel Macs only The CNC14Camera executable cannot be used on newer Macs with Apple Silicon processors and will crash at startup. It will run fine on older Macs with an Intel processor.
2. Build from source You can build the executable yourself. That should be straightforward, but you must do it from Terminal and be a bit technical. You can use the resulting executable without any problem as you have built it yourself.
3. Use the executable The CNC14Camera executable is not a Mac application but a UNIX executable and you need to start it from Terminal as explained elsewhere in this ReadMe.
4. Allow executable to startup MacOSX allows only software downloaded from the App Store or digitally signed by registered developers to startup. When you try to start CNC14Camera, you will get a message ‘CNC14Camera was blocked from opening because it is not from a identified developer.’ It is easy to deal with that; one link on Internet, explaining how to do that is: https://www.goodcore.co.uk/blog/how-to-install-apps-on-mac-from-unidentified-developers/#:~:text=First%20of%20all%2C%20go%20to,App%20Store%20and%20identified%20developers.”

This section has been kindly provided by A. Hartman (a.hartman@telenet.be)

FAQ

Q: My camera does not show up in the camera-menu anymore. How can I fix it?

A: At the first start, all found cameras are put into the menu and some default settings are used. When the program exits, the settings and the used camera are stored in the registry (Windows registry: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CNC14Camera) or in a config-file (e.g. .config/CNC14Camera/CNC14Camera.conf on Ubuntu-Linux). On MacOS the config-file is located at $HOME/Library/Preferences/com.cnc14camera.CNC14Camera.plist. When the camera-software is run again, the settings of the config-file are applied. If the device for the camera does not match exactly, it is ignored. This may happen if the order of USB devices has changed, e.g. if you have added a new USB device or removed one. In that case please delete the config file or delete the registry entry with the registry editor on Windows.