jdc34-camera/DEVLOG.md at master · jdc-cunningham/jdc34-camera

Tasks:

02/14/2026

10:45 AM

I'm going to improve the basic software, namely:

add the pan-zoom feature
fix the view photo feature

The click coordinates are off and the photos seem to be "cached"

For zooming what you're doing is taking a larger picture and showing a part of it

So this display's resolution is 640x480

If we do 2x zoom then it's 1280x960

Full res is 4056xc3040 so that's quite a bit

You could probably do 4x

2560x1920

The other thing to address is I want the zoom to be touch-based, it should be click/5D pad based as well but not now, on Pelicam yeah

10:49 AM

I need to pull this repo down on the camera and switch software folders

11:14 AM

Alright for some reason I can't get openbox to find the venv path evne though it exists

So I'm just gonna develop this in that basic-software pelicam branch then move the code over here later

I have like 3 hrs to get this done which should be plenty if I don't run into dumb problems like this

02/11/2026

9:07 PM

Sunday looks like it'll be a good day

I'm gonna get a necklace camera so I can do photography POV videos

I'll update this code the minimal software namely:

fix coordinate tapping (open right image)
make sure new images open (weird issue like caching)
add manual focus by tapping on the screen/panning by tapping left/right/top/bottom

That should help with better pictures, it will still be automatic though as I need to have a more complicated menu to hold stuff like ISO, shutter speed, white balance, exposure, etc...

I'll take the Rivere Scienar 24mm too this lens seems to be really good

What's bad is since the RPi HQ cam is hot glued to my camera's body, I can't adjust it per lens

I'm unscrewing the lens to focus the lens and I think the minor movement of taking a picture can unfocus the scene, but I guess go higher up in f-stop

I was surprised by the Canon 15-75mm TV Zoom lens's depth of field

Maybe even with this crop factor you can still have a nice depth of field blur

02/06/2026

5:37 PM

Sunday will be a nice day so I want to take this camera out. Means I gotta write basic code and I'll put it here since it's not Pelicam.

I'll write the code tomorrow when I wake up, I'm pretty tired.

6:10 PM

I'm mentally drained right now so just gonna think/plan out what to do tomorrow.

01/21/2026

8:46 PM

The Pi 4B can get warm, I should have designed in vents, it has holes so it's not like heat absolutely can't escape but yeah

01/20/2026

I got it fully assembled and wired today, verified all the buttons, OLED and IMU are connected.

Next is programming the software (Pelicam)

01/18/2026

10:40 AM

Back on, time to lock in gang gang

Gotta finish the display design, finish making screw holes and then do more test printing before printing the entire bodies

Then to wiring/assembling but each half of the camera takes like 8hrs to print so I may have to assemble tomorrow

11:35 AM

Alright I'm printing the display caddy full size, takes 2 hrs

Continuing on to adding screw holes for the other parts of the camera, what sucks is I have these tiny screws and I dumped the container (multiple sizes) so they're all just mixed together.

I make these cameras open source/all the design files and what not but it's so much work to make them... it's like who wants to do that.

12:48 PM

Man... I'm losing drive, it's so much work... I'm almost there

I had to make the body thicker to accomodate the RPi's ethernet/USB ports

I'm not designing screw holes/mounts for the IMU or the DC-DC boost converter as those can be just glued down, same for the D-pad... I was going to but it's sandwiched against the display case, can just glue it.

So right now I have to design the screw mounts for the RPi HQ Cam (important due to being attached to huge lenses), the RPi itself (3 screws out of 4) and then the seam that joins the two halves together.

After that I'll have to clean up the body/check it's a mesh and then I scan start printing them.

I'll probably adjust the USB charger's position it's kind of in a weird spot, something to consider is it gets hot.

2:41 PM

Alright I'm about to print the back half.

If I print it edge down, it takes 14 hrs vs. the other way 10 hrs... so I'll sacrifice the nice smooth finish on the back for the speed to print

The edges being perfect will be nice

4:15 PM

Had a problem with the front shell not printing correctly, thankfully I was able to save it

5:31 PM

Just printing now

6:34 PM

Had to confirm the "daughter board" will fit and it does thankfully, though I have to cut the prototype solder board

Cool exploded view

5:25 PM

I'm back from doing some photography, the part is printed, there are errors

HQ camera mounting is off, too thin
RPi mount is not fully attached
screw holders are thin in geneneral
charger holder needs work
hinge needs more room
OLED hole is too big

I need to get that wiring diagram together so I can assemble it.

10:54 PM

Assembled as of now, waiting for battery to charge.

01/17/2026

10:35 AM

Alright time to get in the zone autozone

Gonna finish the modeling then do test prints to make sure the screws and slots fit then do the entire body which each half takes idk 7-9 hrs

11:03 AM

Doing first print in a while, testing the fit of the 18650 battery clip, there's a term for it regarding flexing parts

It's not conformation or something but yeah

1:25 PM

I've been making progress

I don't really like this design but I need to get a better program than SketchUp and learn how to design rounded surfaces

At this point I'm still designing where I have to fix the broken mesh (not 3D not 3D printable) and then cut out the screw holes/mounts and what not. The back LCD is interesting since it intersects with the rounded bit.

Also not liking the top, since the edges are irregular, I'm not able to make a round shape and follow-along, trace the top edge, that's just a sharp angle.

3:21 PM

Back from a lunch break/shopping (alky)

Doing a test print under half scale.

5:24 PM

This is taking a while damn, still designing, decided the display will stick out past the body

7:21 PM

It's so ugly 😭

That's what I should call it, ugly green camera

I did do the small 3D print, unfortunately the back part failed but I can already see... idk... it's like my car, if I look at it at the right angle it looks cool even though it's a hatchback.

I did make good progress today, I'm almost there where I can print the two body halves.

I'm still finishing up the

7:29 PM

The back looks cool, detailed but the front is ass... nothing just a long rectangle

Maybe I'll add a shape on it

7:34 PM

Well if I put the camera "serial" on the front it helps

01/16/2026

5:39 PM

I'm not doing any work today but I did decide I'm gonna skip the gym both Sat and Sun and focus on building this camera. It's a 3-day weekend so I should be able to do it. Also the weather is really bad the next couple days, it's like 20mph winds at 15 degrees F you know... that would suck to go out and try to take pictures.

I also ordered 5 more lenses... so that'll be more content. I have to finish and load up the menu on the camera but the 3D printing is loud so I want to do that during the day since I'm at an apt complex.

01/13/2026

6:27 PM

I'm going to switch gears from the menu/software work and do the modeling of the body.

Because it takes a long time to print so I figure if I can get ready to print over the weekend then I can do menu work while stuff prints.

I would really like to assemble this new camera too.

So time to start modeling, I'll record the whole process for that timelapse footage.

6:41 PM

I imported parts I had designed for other projects so that saves time

6:47 PM

I did buy a bunch of 1/4-20 hex nuts but since the raspberry pi camera comes with a tripod mount, might as well use it

6:50 PM

Alright gonna do some modeling

7:50 PM

Nice I only have two things left to model

8:06 PM

Alright all the parts going into the body have been modeled

8:17 PM

Here are all the parts imported into one SketchUp file which the body will be created in.

I did decide I'm not going to expose the Raspberry Pi's ports because it's supposed to be a camera and you can wirelessly talk to it/export the photos.

It kind of takes away from the camera design too when you see "oh it's obviously a raspberry pi in a box"

I'm mentally sold on this blue-green but I bought sea-foam green 3D printing filament so I should update the drawing to reflect that

Ehh we'll see it when it's real

8:46 PM

I decided to put the switch under the display so it's hidden.

You can see the rough footprint above with all the parts arranged.

9:48 PM

I decided I'm going to add a speaker to this camera so it makes a shutter sound, that'll be more satisfying

10:10 PM

I actually thought of something funny, with the accelerometer on there you could whip the camera back and forth and it would start screaming like it was a living thing

01/12/2026

7:12 PM

I took the Vivitar 75-200mm lens out and it's huge/heavy.

It made me think about designing the body to just be a square/purely touch screen.

Because in that particular case, the lens itself would be attached to the tripod vs. the camera body

And then the display is just this thing you touch on the back of the lens... but you can just make more cameras

I'm realizing too that video looks great with this sensor but photography is ehh... definitely need to mess with the lighting more and stabilize for the case of telephoto

01/11/2026

5:55 PM

I had an idea... I can print the bodies smaller so they finish faster and I can get a feel for the ergonomics

I already saw another lens I want lol at least these lenses in general are like $40 each

01/10/2026

5:26 PM

I took the 25mm Revere-Scienar Anastigmat out and I got some really great shots of buildings in bright sunny days. The contrasting colors... and video looks even better.

But it made me think, I would consider designing two different camera bodies (one specifically for small cine-lenses the blue offset one) and then one for the C-mount to full frame adapters... that one would be more centered/bulky.

So I'm going for this design more where it looks quirky

01/04/2026

2:12 PM

Damn I feel like shit today, trying to reset my sleep pattern to go back to work tomorrow

That's one of my goals in life, not to have a fixed job so I can sleep/wake whenever my body wants to

The color palette thing arrives today, apparent your monitor needs to be calibrated too for it to work so idk

I'm working on the menu today, trying to get a working POC of the recursive folder walking

It's not just the nesting that determines the menu structure it's the icons too if they click and how far that icon goes, how many "pages" it has

I've been looking at vintage cine lenses, I'm imagining something where the lens is shiny silver and the body is beat up

Also the lens is tiny compared to the body

2:32 PM

Something like this, I've probably seen something that I'm referencing/thinking off but the lens is tiny and offset compared to the body.

Anyway I need to work on the menu/camera software

2:41 PM

Damn time flies, I saw that I made the pi zero hq cam 3 years ago

01/03/2026

6:25 PM

I'm still stuck in 2025 apparently

Well I went out with the modular pi cam and minolta again, this time the AWB tune was yellow than pink ugh

It doesn't look crisp either, hard to focus... I want to blame the small sensor but idk I also am not good at photography

And I'm using automatic settings which the new pelicam menu will be able to set

So last time I was trying to get click detection to work, after that I'm going to interface with the OLED and then I'll do the IMU and buttons... which I've done in the past.

After this I'll be working on the software, and modeling parts and designing the body. The seafoam-green PLA arrived today ha.

6:40 PM

Okay we've got clicking nice and the coordinate

moving onto the 0.91" OLED now

7:12 PM

Soldered the GY-91 10-axis IMU

Plugged in the OLED, I didn't buy a waveshare labeled one but this might be a waveshare clone

Looking at their docs

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/0.91inch_OLED_Module

Using GPIO 2/3 for the OLED

7:18 PM

Trying BCM2835

Then doing the python commands

Installing python3-pil as is not in venv

Spidev not sure, I first just did it in venv went through then tried outside (deactivate) already installed

downloading test demo

7:28 PM

Ran example says "Only Device_I2C, Please revise config.py !!!"

Enabling I2C in raspi-config

Did not work, looking for the config.py file

Oh I mean I specifically setup SPI for this, probably wrong GPIO pins?

Installing i2c tools to scan

https://learn.adafruit.com/scanning-i2c-addresses/raspberry-pi

Okay I had my SDA/SCK pins backwards, I'm using i2c 1 for the OLED, I see it show up 3c

Setting I2C to 1 in config.py

7:52 PM

I'm doing the GY-91 now which I've used in the pi-zero-hq cam so I should be able to just pull that

11:36 PM

I'm working on a video right now.

At this point the hardware's all figured out. Now to design and 3D print/program the menu.

01/02/2026

3:06 PM

Oh man I'm feeling it now Mr. Krabs, the juice is flowing

I thought I was working today, dumb...

Today I'll interface with the Waveshare display, I ordered another RPi HQ Cam and Pi 4B from Adafruit but still waiting for that.

I'll use the other Pi 4 I have currently.

8:01 PM

Working on interfacing with the 2.8" waveshare DSI display, first try was a failure lol

Trying to add dtoverlay from this thread [https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=366011]

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-dsi-waveshare-panel,2_8_inchto /boot/firmware/config.txt

8:10 PM

OMG it's so beautiful!

The DSI cable is nice, that means it doesn't use any GPIO pins

Wiki has some info who knew

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/2.8inch_DSI_LCD

Need the rotation

Looks like you chain the commands together like:

8:38 PM

I still haven't gotten this screen to rotate damn, I'm on trixie

Damn... it's funny I have no idea how this GUI DSI thing works...

I was expecting I could just "output an image" somehow to the display but it's I think HDMI out and it's only outputting the terminal... so I don't know how I'd output my custom image-based menu.

Still researching, I may have to go back to a full OS install and then boot some kind of Python GUI there if I can't do it from lite.

I'm not sure if I really want to write my own X11 display thing to accomplish this.

8:50 PM

The thing is my menu system isn't even streaming video (until it gets to the camera pass through then it would have to)

It's just pulling pre-made menu images based on the menu state to show

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=152264

That looks interesting, openbox although I wouldn't use tkinter

8:52 PM

Okay intalling openbox

also installing xinit

Idk what myapp is will see

8:58 PM

Yoooo there's a little mouse lmao

I still don't understand how to control what is shown but this is something.

9:03 PM

It seems I have to use xrandr so installing that via x11-xserver-utils

Okay I got it rotated with just rotate -o left

The touch is not rotated

Need xinput

oohhhhh man's learninnnn

DISPLAY=:0 xinput

after it's running but I'm just trying to figure out what input to target

https://askubuntu.com/questions/368317/rotate-touch-input-with-touchscreen-and-or-touchpad

9:12 PM

Still not working but the device name is 10-0014 Goodix Capacitive TouchScreen

Yeah when I move my thumb up in landscape mode the cursor goes left

9:20 PM

Tried rotating through boot firmare config file no dice

9:32 PM

Alright I got it, there was an error saying "device name shows up multiple times"

I had to use the device ID

So I've got custom window, rotated display and input

I still don't know how to output something specific like a picture

9:58 PM

Okay I think I understand how this works

You need to produce a window bare minimum.

Then the GUI is in that, in my case it's just static images that change based on the menu state but also I can inject the camera frames for the live pass through.

It seems like I can use OpenCV for it which seems overkill but if it works...

10:01 PM

I'm in the zone autozone baby

I did think about what the OLED could show, it could show the settings of the camera or specific profiles

10:20 PM

Install pip

need to pip install cv2, numpy

sudo apt install python3-pip

10:23 PM

alright guess I'll setup a virtual environment, confusing with display vs. actual camera code

python3 -m venv pelicam

source pelicam/bin/activate

pip install opencv-python

Had to add this script type as it thinks it's shell

10:36 PM

deactivate to leave

10:40 PM

Cool we have a display!

I'll get rid of the extra crap but yeah

10:55 PM

Okay so that this point I have a blank menu now

Trying to figure out how to hide the cursor right now

using unclutter

https://superuser.com/questions/442416/can-i-hide-the-mouse-cursor-in-openbox

11:04 PM

This works

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43947

Although when you click it shows up, so I guess I'll have to do the transparent theme

11:12 PM

REEEEEEEEEE lmao I can't get this cursor to go away, it's mostly away

But when you touch the screen it shows up very briefly and goes away again

Since the menu is not clickable I'm going to have to have a thread that's listening for touch input then pass that on to the menu system

11:49 PM

Alright I'm spent today, I was trying to get clicks to be detected, doesn't seem like it's working

Not sure if that's a touch thing with openbox or what

Also need to verify the framerate of the imshow, I was initially going for 60fps but I could be fine with 30fps

01/01/2026

8:08 PM

I feel like I'm being bad by not following through with my projects. I was supposed to design the dead space 3 scavenger robot and make it/paint it but I didn't get around to it.

I kind of lost the drive after a while. I will complete it at some point, I'm feeling interest in making this camera instead though even though outside it's winter so everything is brown and dead here in the midwest.

I started buying a bunch of parts, I'm looking at wide angle lenses next to try.

I'm also looking into tuning the camera for the Minolta 50mm F1.7

Did a base design, ordered the sea-green filament

9:18 PM

I guess I didn't have to buy 3 different brands of these adapters oh well.

Also seems like most of the single-digit focal length lenses are fish eye.

So I'm not sure, I don't want that skewing/warping problem.

10:10 PM

I design the cameras inside-out, I start by modeling the parts and then fit them inside a shell.

Of course here I have a design I want in mind but yeah.

This is what happens though when you use off-the-shelf parts.

11:58 PM

I think I have almost all of the parts to build this camera already. I do have to wait for the OLED now that I decided to add.

I'll need to model all the parts and get the other adapters to check their dimensions, make sure they fit.

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