Software to view thermal camera images on Fedora 39

[Jeffrey Walton]

Hi Everyone,

I purchased a Topdon Thermal Camera,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7LMB22Q. I'm trying to open the device
on Fedora 39, x86_64, with the KDE spin.

I'm having trouble finding a KDE app to open the camera on F39. I've
tried Dragon (video), Kamoso (camera) and Kamera (camera) apps. None
of them seem to recognize the camera, and none of them open it.

Here is what dmesg has to say about the camera:

[153944.011515] usb 3-2.4: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[153944.307093] usb 3-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda,
idProduct=5830,bcdDevice=11.01
[153944.307107] usb 3-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=1,
SerialNumber=2
[153944.307111] usb 3-2.4: Product: USB Camera
[153944.307113] usb 3-2.4: Manufacturer: Generic
[153944.307116] usb 3-2.4: SerialNumber: 200901010001
[153944.326921] usb 3-2.4: Found UVC 1.00 device USB Camera (0bda:5830)

The USB Camera (0bda:5830) is known to Linux, see
https://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:0bda-5830.

And I may be doing something dumb, like not configuring one of the
apps correctly. (I am used to using Cheese to open cameras like this,
but I am not on Ubuntu).

What KDE software can I use to view the images from the Topdon?

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

[Roger Heflin]

You might install guvcview and uvcdynctrl.

There are not a lot of webcam software packages that I have found that
work well outside that the simple tool above or a way more complicated
obs-studio.

On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 7:06 PM Jeffrey Walton  wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I purchased a Topdon Thermal Camera,
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7LMB22Q. I'm trying to open the device
> on Fedora 39, x86_64, with the KDE spin.
>
> I'm having trouble finding a KDE app to open the camera on F39. I've
> tried Dragon (video), Kamoso (camera) and Kamera (camera) apps. None
> of them seem to recognize the camera, and none of them open it.
>
> Here is what dmesg has to say about the camera:
>
> [153944.011515] usb 3-2.4: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
> [153944.307093] usb 3-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda,
> idProduct=5830,bcdDevice=11.01
> [153944.307107] usb 3-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=1,
> SerialNumber=2
> [153944.307111] usb 3-2.4: Product: USB Camera
> [153944.307113] usb 3-2.4: Manufacturer: Generic
> [153944.307116] usb 3-2.4: SerialNumber: 200901010001
> [153944.326921] usb 3-2.4: Found UVC 1.00 device USB Camera (0bda:5830)
>
> The USB Camera (0bda:5830) is known to Linux, see
> https://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:0bda-5830.
>
> And I may be doing something dumb, like not configuring one of the
> apps correctly. (I am used to using Cheese to open cameras like this,
> but I am not on Ubuntu).
>
> What KDE software can I use to view the images from the Topdon?
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Jeff
>
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[Jeffrey Walton]

On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 8:05 PM Jeffrey Walton  wrote:
> I purchased a Topdon Thermal Camera,
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7LMB22Q. I'm trying to open the device
> on Fedora 39, x86_64, with the KDE spin.
>
> I'm having trouble finding a KDE app to open the camera on F39. I've
> tried Dragon (video), Kamoso (camera) and Kamera (camera) apps. None
> of them seem to recognize the camera, and none of them open it.
>
> Here is what dmesg has to say about the camera:
>
> [153944.011515] usb 3-2.4: new high-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
> [153944.307093] usb 3-2.4: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda,
> idProduct=5830,bcdDevice=11.01
> [153944.307107] usb 3-2.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=1,
> SerialNumber=2
> [153944.307111] usb 3-2.4: Product: USB Camera
> [153944.307113] usb 3-2.4: Manufacturer: Generic
> [153944.307116] usb 3-2.4: SerialNumber: 200901010001
> [153944.326921] usb 3-2.4: Found UVC 1.00 device USB Camera (0bda:5830)
>
> The USB Camera (0bda:5830) is known to Linux, see
> https://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:0bda-5830.
>
> And I may be doing something dumb, like not configuring one of the
> apps correctly. (I am used to using Cheese to open cameras like this,
> but I am not on Ubuntu).
>
> What KDE software can I use to view the images from the Topdon?

I've made a little more headway. ffplay can open the device and stream
the images. The command is:

$ ffplay /dev/video4
...
Input #0, video4linux2,v4l2, from '/dev/video4':B sq=    0B f=0/0
 Duration: N/A, start: 160683.453275, bitrate: 19660 kb/s
 Stream #0:0: Video: rawvideo (YUY2 / 0x32595559), yuyv422, 256x192, 19660 kb/s,
 25 fps, 25 tbr, 1000k tbn
161002.00   M-V: -0.040  fd=   2  aq=   0KB  vq=   0KB  sq=   0B  f=0/0

In the last line, the [161002.00] is a counter that counts up by
hundreds of a second. The other values stay contstant

Jeff

[Tim]

On Mon, 2023-11-20 at 20:05 -0500, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> And I may be doing something dumb, like not configuring one of the
> apps correctly. (I am used to using Cheese to open cameras like this,
> but I am not on Ubuntu).

I thought cheese was still available, here.

What about VLC?

And mplayer/smplayer/gmplayer/etc (there's various graphical front ends
for mplayer).

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Mon, Nov 20, 2023 at 11:07 PM Tim  wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-11-20 at 20:05 -0500, Jeffrey Walton wrote:
> > And I may be doing something dumb, like not configuring one of the
> > apps correctly. (I am used to using Cheese to open cameras like this,
> > but I am not on Ubuntu).
>
> I thought cheese was still available, here.
>
> What about VLC?

Cheese and VLC are not installed.
> And mplayer/smplayer/gmplayer/etc (there's various graphical front ends
> for mplayer).

Mplayer is not installed. But I did not check the others. I'm trying
to stay within the KDE bounds. I don't want to bring in anything with
a lot of dependencies, or anything from GNOME.

I eventually got Kamoso to work. Kamoso tricked me in round one. It
defaults to the laptop's built-in camera with no indication of the
source. My laptop has one of those blanking clips over the laptop
camera, so it looked like a misbehaving camera program. You have to go
into settings and configuration to select an alternate source. Kamoso
really needs a drop-down list on the main UI to make it obvious what
it is showing.

Jeff

[Tim]

Jeffrey Walton:
> Mplayer is not installed. But I did not check the others. I'm trying
> to stay within the KDE bounds. I don't want to bring in anything with
> a lot of dependencies, or anything from GNOME.

You may find that, at some stage, you do need a player and/or a bundle
of codecs that Fedora hasn't included (usually from ffmpeg) for
something that just doesn't want to play.

mplayer is a command-line part of a multimedia player, there is a KDE
front-end for it I believe (kplayer).  There's another program in the
same ilk (mpv), of a command line player with different front ends.

They're handy to have around for playing media that didn't work in one
of the other players, or quicker to fire up than some feature-rich
programs can be.

But good to hear you managed to get it working.

[Barry]

> On 21 Nov 2023, at 04:48, Jeffrey Walton  wrote:
>
> Kamoso
> really needs a drop-down list on the main UI to make it obvious what
> it is showing.

I do not recall any camera using software that did not configure video and audio anywhere but a setting.

Doing so from a menu would be an outlier.
Given there always seems to be a video preview and audio tests in the settings a menu seems very limited ui.

Barry