You own a Casio QV-3000EX digital camera and a
Palm OS compliant Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)?
You want to remote control the camera with a serial cable?
May be DiCaControl for PalmOS is what you
are looking for!
DiCaControl is a small
freeware tool to remote control your Casio QV-3000EX digital camera.
Not all, but the most important functions will
work with these other Casio QV models too:
QV-2000UX
QV-2300UX
QV-2400UX
QV-2800UX
QV-2900UX
QV-3000EX
QV-3500EX
QV-4000
QV-5700
QV-8000SX
It's possible it works with other (future) Casio digital cameras too - this has to be proved.
DiCaControl has been developed to remote control a QV-3000EX - if you use it with other Casio models you can expect these functions will work: Shutter, Focus Lock, Tele, Wide, Left/-, Right/+ and all time lapse functions.
DiCaControl provides
functions you have by direct access of the camera - but it allows you to
control the camera without touching it.
This can be useful if you want to take a sequence of pictures with exactly the
same camera position without disturbing the position by touching the camera,
usually done by fixing the camera on a tripod. It's function is similar to a
wired remote control, like the Casio wired remote control WR-3C.
In addition DiCaControl
provides functions to take time lapse pictures - series of pictures with a
constant interval time span between the "shots" - this are functions
you don't get with a Casio wired remote.
Together with some Casio QV models DiCaControl
supports the (undocumented) "Bulb" feature of the camera and allows
to define a "bulb period", the time between open and close the
shutter.
DiCaControl works with PalmOS compliant PDAs, it works with several "PalmPilot" devices connected with a craddle or hotsync cable and a "null modem" cable between the Palm device/cable and the Casio serial cable.
Here is a table of the main functions DiCaControl supports. Nearly every function is explained in more detail in the User Manual of the Casio digital camera. The functions are in a direct relationship to the buttons the camera provides. Every button is mapped to a function. Keeping a button pressed results in a continuous working, for example keeping the "Tele" button pressed means the zoom function will work until the button is released.
| Button | Function |
| Focus Lock | Lock the settings. This is equivalent to perform a "half pressed" shutter. |
| Shutter | Release the shutter. |
| Tele | Zoom in. |
| Wide | Zoom out. |
| All other buttons ... | ... see your Casio manual. |
DiCaControl supports time lapse functions to take pictures with a constant interval time span between the shots. There is a second screen, accessible via the Palm menu entry "Time Lapse".
| Function | Comment |
| Interval (Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds) |
Here are the settings done for the time span the program waits between taking 2 pictures. |
| Count | The setting for the amount of pictures. |
| Bulb (Seconds)
For QV-3000EX! Other QV models have to be proved if they support "Bulb". |
Check this box if you want to define a time span between open and close of the
shutter. Use the "seconds" field in the same line to define the
duration. Make sure the camera is set in "bulb" mode. To do so, follow these steps: Go to "S Mode", keep the "Down" button pressed until a shutter time of 2 seconds is shown, press the "Set" button while holding the "Down" button and keep the "Down" button pressed until "BULB" is shown on the display. |
| Last Status | A two line readonly status information. The first line shows informations like "Picture 3 of 15 taken", the second line displays date and time the information in the first line was generated. |
| Start | After setting the fields "Interval", "Count" and possibly "Bulb" press this button to launch the sequence of shutter commands. |
| Cancel | During a sequence of pictures press this button to cancel the sequence. During an interval the Palm is in a "doze" mode and does not recognize any user input (it's in an extremely energy saving mode). At the end of the interval the cancel request will be recognized and the "Last Status" information will show an information like "Idle (4 Pictures taken, cancelled)". |
DiCaControl
allows you to make long time lapse sequences. In this case both devices, the
Casio camera and the Palm PDA like to go in a sleep mode.
The Palm allows settings for "Auto Off" of 1, 2 or 3 minutes. So the
maximum time the Palm will stay active is 3 minutes. To let DiCaControl
protect itself for going in "Auto Off" it switches the recognition for
"Auto Off" off at the beginning of a picture sequence. The origin
setting for "Auto Off" is restored after the sequence. To minimize
power consumption the Palm goes in a "doze mode" during the intervals
between the picture shots. For the same reason it opens the serial line at the
beginning of sending a shutter command and it closes the serial line after
sending the command.
Most Casio QV cameras allow settings for "Sleep" and for "Auto
Power Off" (i.e. see MENU -> Options -> Power Save).
Set "Sleep" to "Off" and set "Auto Power Off" to
maximum (5 minutes).
If the camera went into "Auto Power Off" state it is not possible to
wake it up via the serial line!
So DiCaControl will fail to send a shutter command if the camera
switched itself off.
If you are considering to take intervals greater than 5 minutes it is necessary
to connect the camera to an AC adapter. This will set the camera in a mode it
will not go in "Auto Power Off".
DiCaControl will run
with the PDA operating system "PalmOS", minimum PalmOS version is
2.0.
This means it works with all Palm
PDAs and compliant devices like IBM WorkPad with a serial interface.
After installation DiCaControl needs only small space in the Palm
device (about 10 kBytes).
There will be some other needs:
A Casio serial cable, usually included with the camera. It should have a 9 pin "jack" ("female").
A Palm serial connection
(cable or cradle). There are 2 possible solutions:
a) A "Palm modem cable".
This is the smartest solution. The cable should have a 9 pin
"plug" ("male") and should be connected directly with
the Casio serial cable. This solution does not need any further requirement. If you are going to order or
buy such a cable make sure the cable is the approbiate cable for your Palm
device. Different Palm devices have different serial physical connectors!
For example a "Palm III modem cable" will not fit to a "Palm
V" device and vice versa.
b) A "Palm cradle" or a "Palm HotSync cable".
In this
case there is a need to have a "null modem" cable or adapter. The
cradle or the HotSync cable both have a 9 pin "jack"
("female"). On the other side the Casio cable has a 9 pin
"jack" ("female") too. It's important to know you should
NOT connect these both jacks "directly" (using a "male/male
gender changer"). This will not work!
You must have a "null modem adapter" (or cable) to connect both
sides. The "null modem adapter" internally crosses some wires. A
common use of a "null modem cable" is to make a simple
connection between 2 PCs, for example to play dual user games with 2 PCs.
Mostly a "null modem cable" will have 9 pin "jacks"
("female") too. To connect both "female" sides of a "null modem cable" with the 2 "female" jacks it's
recommended to use 2 small and simple "male/male gender changer".
May be this sounds complicated. In fact you should be able to get the parts
for small amounts in your local office or computer supplier store, better
try to look for a electronic components store - usually these stores are
much more cheaper.
If you think this textual description does not illustrate the needs enough,
let me know it. May be a picture, table or schematic description could
enlighten these things more.
And, of course a Casio digital camera is needed ...
To install DiCaControl do the following steps:
Download "CtrlPalm.zip" from here (4.718 bytes, ZIP archive, content is "DiCaCtrl.prc").
Save the file somewhere on your hard disk.
Compare the file size on your hard disk with the file size mentioned above to ensure you got no problems during download.
"Unzip" the file to obtain "DiCaCtrl.prc" (9.199 bytes). You should be familiar with unpacking a ZIP archive, aren't you?
Do a "double click"
on "DiCaCtrl.prc" in Explorer
for preparing the "HotSync" installation of "DiCaCtrl.prc".
You should be familiar with installing files for
your Palm device, aren't you?
Do a "HotSync".
Connect your Palm to the Casio camera with the serial cables as mentioned above.
Start "DiCaControl" on your Palm.
This is the complete
documentation. There are no other parts of documentation.
If you lost this documentation you can get an actual version on www.dicasoft.de.
To have an idea how the user interface will present itself here are small screen shots of DiCaControl:
| Main Screen, "Direct Access"
|
Time Lapse Screen
|
The "Time Lapse Screen" is accessible via the Palm menu entry "Time Lapse".
DiCaControl
is
freeware. There are no costs.
Using DiCaControl
needs to accept the DiCaControl License Agreement.
Usage of
DiCaControl
is at own risk. The author of
DiCaControl
will not be responsible for any damage that might occur to the camera using the
application or this documentation.
|
Version |
Release date |
Remarks |
|
1.00 |
28 August 2000 |
The first release of "DiCaControl for Palm OS". |
| 1.1 | 1 September 2000 | Compliance with Palm OS 2.0 |
| 2.0 | 17 September 2000 | Time lapse screen added. Serial interface connection improvements. |
Running DiCaControl on the Palm device, activate the menu button.
Select "Options", item "About DiCaControl".
A dialog will appear with the version number and copyright informations.
DiCaControl internally uses the serial remote
control communication specification of Casio QV cameras.
The specification is described here.
© Copyright DiCaSoft
Last modification November 02, 2002