Computer Programming (Linux/Unix & Windows)

Gphoto2 with PHP & MYSQL = RoBooK Scanner Software

2011-05-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

This time we need to test if the Robook Software can be use or ported on-line. The software will functions as IDE (GUI) via web and controlling one or more cameras and somehow would insert/retrieve images in the database.But this is just a simple application yet the task is quite complex for there are combinations of more topics.We need to set the apache2 server for web hosting ,PHP will acts as a front end of the processing capturing and databasing and gphoto2 will be the OS driver to control camera/s.

Another thing to be considered is that , this is another exploration on our programming skills to implement PHP and mysql with such an application-RoBook scanning software.We can study here the way to execute shell command in PHP and storing binary image with the use of Mysql.

So let's start tinkering now.

Requirements:
Intel Xeon 64 bit CPU
OS-Linux (Fedora)
gphoto2
Apache2
Php
mysql

Objectives:
1) To enhance basic PHP 7 MySQL skills
2) To test the RoBook Software online or using web browser

Methodology:
Installations:
Configurations:
Setup
Programming
Compiling
Testing
Demos:

Remarks:
Still on going...

Conclusions:
Cool Training

Lamp Refugee 2D/3D Games (PIGA Software :Gambas Rule!)

2011-05-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

Let's discuss another topic as the legacy of Computer programming (Linux/Unix & Windows) goes along its way...

Yes its all about the rules of Gambas in Linux ,a code available in computer programming which I considered a great examples in game software development industry. An open source and extremely 2D/3D games;I have to blog this wiki informing another excellent code example in Gambas2.The software development aficionados should watched out and see the excitement on how this development are being push trough-oh superb.There are ample of codes out there in the Wiki ,but this one got my interest -the best so far.

Piga Software has a second release of their "Lamp Refugee technical demo" project. The goal of the project is to build a Gambas Genie real-time strategy engine with the long term that hopes of building a Free Empires games on top of it. The first Source Release was sent out in October 2009. The current game release now is "playable" in that sense player/users can win the battle /saga stories by scheme or technique of constructing all buildings and eventually be able to destroy enemies camp. Some of the exciting AI of the games are to construct : train, mine, attack and explore.Graham Wilson a very young "Guru" game developer are taking in charge of the development as he is also the technical director of the said project.-http://piga.tropicalwikis.com/wiki/Graham_L._Wilson

Note:
Still, expect a lot of bugs and unimplemented features-yet developers are addressing all of these.

Requirements:
Infos and downloads are given below

1)Wiki Link: http://piga.tropicalwikis.com/wiki/Lamp_Refugee
2)Forum Post: http://piga.7.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=668#668
3) Download: http://icculus.org/piga/Files/Gambas-Genie/Lamp-Refugee-SR2.tar.gz

Objectives:
1) To discuss another Linux/Unix computer programming legacy(Gambas rules!)
2) Follow Lamp Refugee releases and its development
3)The howto's of Lamp Refugee game installations and playing

Methodology:

1) See to it if these libraries are installed

2) Get or download the package

3) Installing now the package

4) Settings:

Remarks:
I am now learning how to play, after all play while you work

Conclusions:

DjVU in Conversion and Compression of Files(Image,Data,Video,Sounds and etc)

2011-04-26T03:06:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

I've gone too far with the Gambas2 IDE just recently when I finished the RoBook Scanner Phase 1 (software testing) .The stuff which I needed to include was the compression and conversion of images into smaller bytes and into another format.So I ended up choosing for a free software that will aid me doing the task, then I was stumbled in searching djVulibre features in scanning- the book scanned image.Of-course another third party open-source is very helpful for the djVu to act on the job and this is the ImageMagic-these two applications really gives me an extremely powerful scanning tools.

And why do I say so?Well DjVU and ImageMagic are free, these software had gone trough an intense R&D every time each versions are being release.

The Djvu technology was originally developed by Yann LeCun, Léon Bottou, Patrick Haffner, and Paul G. Howard at AT&T Labs from 1996 to 2001.DjVu (pronounced "déjà vu") is a digital document format with advanced compression technology and high performance value. DjVu allows for the distribution on the Internet and on DVD of very high resolution images of scanned documents, digital documents, and photographs. DjVu viewers are available for the web browser, the desktop, and PDA devices. Djvu is widely used across economic sectors, although the PDF format continues to be more widely adopted(wikipedia) .

Keywords:
cjb2,cpaldjvu, djvm,djvudump , ddjvu, djvu, djview, pnm, pbm, pgm, ppm, cjpeg, tiffsplit, tiffcp,djvused

Requirements:

Download Image Magic

Download pdf2djvu

Download djVuViewer

Download djvulibre

Download ffmpeg

Objectives:

To use DjVU features in Book Scanning:
a) File size compression
b) File format conversions
c) Compiling Multiple pages
d) Splitting Multiple pages into a single page
e) Apply djVu in RoBook Scanning

Methodology:

1) Installing ImageMagic
root@localhost# yum install Imagemagic*

2) Installing DJVuLibre(djvulibre,djvulibre-devel djvulibre-libs)
root@localhost# yum install djvu*

3)Converting Image format
root@localhost# convert image.jpg image.tiff

4) Image format to djVu
root@localhost# c44 left0.jpg
root@locahost# ls left0.djvu
4.1) djVu to image format

5) djVu to PDF

5.1) ) PDF to djvu

6) djVu multiple page

6.1) Splitting djVu multiple page

7) DjVu with OCR

7.1) Ocr to txt files

Detail(1) Scanned images

Detail(2) processing djVu

Remarks:

Conclusions:

SHELL and EXEC in Gambas 2

2011-03-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

I really believed that it will never be the same style again (period).
Yes geek, VB6 will set you freely programming on your desktop but that could not happen anymore in Gambas2 .Why is it brother?well, from time to time there should be a cautions on your coding before you can compile it.Unlike VB6 as long as your syntax is correct there will be a possibilities of outputs.While ,in Gambas you have to secure first each environment /path so that you can link it in a compilations, either you make some scripts,patches or have the careful installation steps by steps.But it doesn't mean Gambas2 will be forsaken,the hardest thought you need to code it the hard core your application program will be.

Since , we have the pros and cons of Gambas2 programming , we'll try to code it what this gambas2 is all about-a hard core programming -systems program management as I would express it. Some built in functions of Gambas2 which are challenging to learn are SHELL and EXEC.

Actually SHELL and EXEC are functions that seems to be the mediator , you have the GUI on top and kernel at the bottom for a programmer to work on smoothly linux platform and want to apply GUI these two functions will be on the rescue-believe me.

So basically SHELL and EXEC

Objectives:
1) Understand the SHELL and EXEC format
2) Understand the SHELL and EXEC syntax
3) Create a program that will SHELL and EXEC
4) Apply SHELL and EXEC in Gambas2 scripting

Methodology:
1) Declare a variable type of data as process
2) Declare a variable as string
3) Assign one variable to be the value of EXEC and Shell process
4) WRITE the process
5) READ the process
6) Split the stringed process
7) Display the parse from an split process

So here is how we use and differentiate the code..
SHELL
DIM sOutPut as String
DIM portOne as String[]

SHELL = " gphoto2 --auto-detect " TO sOutPut
splitString = Split(sOutPut,"\n","")
txtOut1.text =splitString[0]
txtOut2.text =splitString[1]

PortOne= Split(splitString[1],"")

txtOut3.text=PortOne[1]

EXEC
DIM sOutPut as String
DIM portOne as String[]

EXEC [" gphoto2"," --auto-detect "] TO sOutPut
splitString = Split(sOutPut,"\n","")
txtOut1.text =splitString[0]
txtOut2.text =splitString[1]

PortOne= Split(splitString[1],"")

txtOut3.text=PortOne[1]

Remarks:

(1)It is obvious that before anything else in programming Gambas2, you need to
familiarize process management(SHELL & EXEC)
(2)Note:
SHELL function is most likely preferred using a pipe in CLI instead of EXEC
;see for example (ie0:
running a command " ls -l" can be used to both but " ls -l | grep RoBook "will function fine in using SHELL

EXEC ["ls","-l","|","grep","RoBook"] is not proper
SHELL " ls -l | grep RoBook " is considered ok

(3) During process EXEC is much faster than SHELL function (try it..)

Conclusions:
Gambas2 is absolutely good.

The hidden paradigm (Object Oriented Programming)

2011-02-01T18:47:00.001-08:00

Introductions:

Requirements:

Methodology:

Remarks:

Conclusions:

Since it is in the history of my own programming style to have worked on functional and procedural method of programming ,I have my own technical conclusions that OOP is also using functional ,procedural ,logical or previous method of programming only that these are an Encapsulations "information hidden "(built in) which is known as the different agents found in OOP.

What OOP has main features and advantages are the common style to classify its programming paradigm more friendly(common style->easy to debug) more usable standard approach in problem solving-Objectives.

The responsibility which I experience a light disadvantage is for a programmer the responsibility to know the different class,agent(tasky or not depends on the programmer)used in OOP whereas in a previous style of programming it's the individual /different style of a programmer to approach problem solving-Subjectives.

Thanks

E^3

CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit)

2011-01-20T00:39:00.000-08:00

Introductions:

As I always saying there are still some ways on how to reverse engineer the system..Our canon camera , a G11 was purchased instead of G10 as for replacement because the latter is outdated(phase out) already.I thought it was a wrong options to choose the next model of Canon Powershot series because Canon Company had issued an announcement that they were not supporting SDK to Canon Powershot G series any more.-ohh what the heck! A sort of dismay or disappointment for we could not withdraw the said amount in the photo store , so it seems buying a worthless camera for my Robook Project.

But that's not the end of the project , I have browsed a very good source of hacking Canon Camera firmware , and they are a CHDK developers group.I did not even expecting that this group are making camera features better than the Official Canon developers -Oh?Yes, they had exposed all hidden features of a Canon camera-almost!I found a G11 as one of the latest device which they are developing firmwares to date.

So what is CHDK firmwares? This is a program that alternates the original firmware of a camera device (I am talking here a canon)

Requirements:

Methodology:

Summary:

Conclusions:

Picture Transfer Protocol in Camera

2010-12-19T20:04:00.001-08:00

libusb for windows

http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/libusb-win32/wiki

Free Software with PTP support

http://ptp.sourceforge.net/

PTP international Standard

http://www.i3a.org/technologies/digital-photography/ptp/

PTP-IP CIPA

http://www.cipa.jp/ptp-ip/index_e.html

Digital Camera Programming (VC++ /VB6)

2010-11-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

Introductions:

Hello to eveyone,as I was continuing the develoment of RoBook Scanner project I've experienced a lot of unexpected technical problems which needed to be resolved by myself. Actually, I am confident that the project design is almost completely done aside from the proof of concept implementations - a working prototype.

Eversince, the Decapod Team had some gap/delays on the release of their new software (Decapod 5.xx) I had decided to reworks the available Decapod softwares (until now its unchanged-oh am sad) though, it could be a very painstakingly task of debugging it from scratched- I beleive in a long run it would be fullfilled .So,I have no choice ,but to initiate programming my own program SDK in RoBook Camera as soon as possible; weew! days are coming to fast and 2010 would be over -a redemption ,my project deliverables(Scanner).

I have just realized its very hard to download and depend on the availble drivers /softwares of some cameras on the net.My option, is to study the interface protocols that made the camera communicate with PC's and search for a free source code too .Luckily I've found some few codes and documents: Layer 1 Protocol and Picture Transfer Protocl -ofcourse using USB port.Both of the two protocos are still used today but PTP is a more recoginized protocol for all available still cameras.

To appreciate the works of some geeks (very useful article!) here I listed some of thier webiste.

Well, I have to enumerate the least strategy to keep time from being wasted and here are my own suggestions.

[Windows]:

1) Download Canon Powershot SDK,RAW software.

2) Convert VC++ to VB6 and enhance some DLL

3) Parsing the minimal but primary functions on camera remote capturing (pictures/images)

4) Use two cameras in just a single PC

5) Do the tricking & tweaking (OCR,Imaging )

[Linux:]

1) Convert VB6 made program in Windows to Linux

..and that is it!

Requirements:

Methodology:

Remarks:

Conclusions:

Linux Database Programming(Gambas2)

2010-09-07T05:09:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

Objectives:

Requirements:

Methodology:

Remarks:

Conclusions:

Serial Communication Programming (Gambas2)

2010-09-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

Objectives:

Requirements:

Methodology:

Remarks

Conclusions:

PICMe in Linux

2010-07-18T02:40:00.001-07:00

Introductions:
And now the PICMe OpenGL version ,

Objectives:
To port PICMe (Windows) Downloader into Linux Downloader
To enhance the use of PICMe in Linux OS platform

Requirements:
qt
gtk
kde
gb.net

Methodology:

Detail(1)Fedorra 13 with Gambas IDE(Visual Basic for Linux)

Detail(2)PICMe linux opening the code

Detail(3) PICMe linux executing the downloader

Detail(4)PICMe linux executing its serial monitor

Detail(5)PICMe-linux showing its loading with progress bar

Remarks:
It is quite laborious but offering it for free somehow relieves fatigue in burning eyebrows and that my hair is decompressing-(Oh,come on go to R&D)

Conclusions:
PICME for Linux is now available

Optical Character Recognitions (Gambas2 & Tesseract/OCROpus)

2010-07-17T02:35:00.000-07:00

Introductions:

This topic is quite interesting and a lot more fun, to tell you frankly,I had a little applications experience of using it before. Perhaps this time ,I have a simple way to use these freely available OCRs . Of course, back in our old school age we didn’t have cameras, mobile phones nor inexpensive Digicams, to apply such kind of software .But it so cumbersome of doing jotting/writing every time during class hours then and wouldn’t it have saved hours of copying notes!

Basically , this blog is just a complementary to my project "Robo-Book Scanner" and what we will be discussing here are: the main software that will make it easier to use OCR's engine (Tesseract or OCROpus) as a back end applications.And by using Gambas version(VB for Linux) which has an advantage featured of designing front end GUI.

Hence using Open source software as what I have said awhile ago, requires a lot of tweaking before we avail it by our own convenience .Anyway- that is how we patronize and support open community -freedom for all digital applications(my own term). Optical character recognition (OCR) is a system of converting scanned printed/handwritten image files into its machine readable text format. OCR software works by analyzing a document and comparing it with fonts stored in its database and/or by noting features typical to characters. Some OCR software also puts it through a spell checker to “guess” unrecognized words. 100% accuracy is difficult to achieve, but close approximation is what most software strive for.

To make it short ,we need to come across of how we can use Gambas 2 & Tesseract to work one application together ,and for us to see how each would give an excellent results as Robo-Book Scanner software which is an OepnGL release OCR software tool.So, our intentions is to use Gambas as IDE /GUI for OCR and its engine no other than- Tesseract or OCROpus.

The last one , is to give you a brief an idea technically

1) We need to hack Tesseract engines, i have read some articles "Hacking Tesseract V0.04" and this is the website - http://tesseract-ocr.repairfaq.org/ and if we could combine testing OCROpus which documentations can be found here -http://code.google.com/p/ocropus/wiki/InstallTranscript well that is better!

2) We need to study Gambas interfacing with C/C++ specially their shared libraries in the Linux Kernel. "How To Program Components In C/C++" and this website -http://gambasdoc.org/help/dev/overview

3) How we open image file in Gambas version 2 (esp: *.TIFF,JPEG,BMP ) and other available free "pdf"converter ;in this website - http://gamblis.com/2009/08/08/sharpdevelop-tutorial-how-to-rotate-an-image/

Objectives:

Requirements:

g++
scons
svn
libpng12-dev
libjpeg62-dev
libtiff4-dev
libavcodec-dev
libavformat-dev
libsdl-gfx1.2-dev
libsdl-image1.2-dev

Methodology:

Installing iuLib

Download iulib 0.3 package from iulib's google code page. http://code.google.com/p/iulib/
Get any missing libraries, run: sudo apt-get install libpng12-dev libjpeg62-dev libtiff4-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libsdl-gfx1.2-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev

if you get errors downloading any of these libraries, change your package download server. See the note at the top of this document.

Run: sudo scons install (This will help avoid an error in the next step. Make sure to have scons installed.)
Run: sudo make install

Installing Tesseract

svn co http://tesseract-ocr.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ tesseract-ocr
cd tesseract-ocr
./configure
make
sudo make install

Install OCROpus


# pick one of the following

release="-r ocropus-0.4.4" # this selects release 0.4.4

release=""

# download everything

hg clone $release https://iulib.googlecode.com/hg/ iulib
hg clone $release https://ocropus.googlecode.com/hg/ ocropus
hg clone $release https://ocroswig.ocropus.googlecode.com/hg/ ocroswig
hg clone $release https://ocropy.ocropus.googlecode.com/hg/ ocropy
wget -nd http://mohri-lt.cs.nyu.edu/twiki/pub/FST/FstDownload/openfst-1.1.tar.gz
hg clone $release https://pyopenfst.googlecode.com/hg/ pyopenfst
date;

# compile iulib

cd iulib
sudo sh uninstall
sudo sh ubuntu-packages
scons -j 4 sdl=1
sudo scons -j 4 sdl=1 install
cd ..
date;

# compile ocropus

cd ocropus
sudo sh uninstall
sudo sh ubuntu-packages
scons -j 4 omp=1
sudo scons -j 4 omp=1 install
cd ..
date;

# compile openfst 

tar -zxvf openfst-1.1.tar.gz
cd openfst-1.1
./configure
make -j 4
sudo make install
cd ..
date;

# compile ocroswig

cd ocroswig
make
cd ..
date;

# compile ocropy

cd ocropy
sudo python setup.py install
cd ..
date;

# compile Python bindings for openfst

cd pyopenfst
make
cd ..
date;

You may have to update your LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include /usr/local/lib, for example:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib:/lib

Remarks:

Conclusions:

Pointer (Coding skills & technique)

2010-03-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

Interlude:

Or pointes, these could be one of the challenging scheme a programmers must be adept or skillful to . Almost data declarations in a compiler epscially to an objected oriented programming languages ,a pointer is a bit extra technique which is interesting to be learned.Basically, one reason is the minimizations of coding and the eficacy of applying it in a given program.

Here , we coud have a look of some methods how we would be able to learn adopting and simpliying the use of a pointer to debug a source code.My experienced way back then in dealing with this "pointer" seriously was the challenged that convinced me in porting a TCP/IP Stack code from one c compiler to another(AVR glib libraries to CCS libraries and hopefully to SDCC).

Another are the encouragement that I need to convinced these kind of tricks by myself; 1)I am able to run PIC16F877a as an ethernet server and include details of applications to it, 2) published the documents if nescessary for free.So I decided to recode first the Microchip TCP/IP Stack -a sort of: enc28j60(h,c) , mac(h,c) then the stacktask(h,c) before I can make any algorithm or programming flow of my own style.

Here is that thing I was thingking then-a simple ping reply
main()
{
initialise :
MCU
ENC28j60
tweaking the TX/RX between the two interface
detect for a raw packet then send back to it.
}

Even with a copied uChip TCP/IP Stack it couldn't been easy as what had been thought than done -especillay when porting the code.So,need to consider really the functions of buffer,register and bank selector in enc28j60 as to how I could minimized the program to fit exactly from 32Kb to an 8K!(RAM) flash memory of PIC16F877a. In order to make it more definitive, it is the pointer issues that burned my eybrows -just on porting code of the program.And now, let us discussed a learning schemes how pointer/s are adopted using its advantages in coding a program instead.

Let's take a scrutinizations to these:
Pointers and Constants:
Given the following:
char buﬀer[100];
char name[20];

//pointer to const char
const char *p = buﬀer;
p = name; // ok
*p = ’x’; // error!

//const pointer to char
char * const p = buﬀer
*p = ’x’; // ok
p = name; // error!
const char space = ’ ’;
const char *p = &space; // ok
char *q = &space; // error!

GAMBAS (Opensource Visual Basic)

2010-03-16T01:38:00.001-07:00

Introductions:

Visual Basic is one of the most dominant programming languages throughout the decades and the favorite to all professional devoted programmers. VB6 which was considered as a third-generation event-driven programming language derived from BASIC. Lately, it was revealed that majority of the database program deployed all over the world was developed by using visual basic.Visual Basic got its throne because it had influences so many BASIC programming languages (compiler/interpreter).There are more features that VB platforms offers :uGUI,DBase ,OSX ,DLL ,Web scripting and add ons killer applications.

If we are going to review its predecessor we will find out that its origin is basic for dos to its latest versions until then enhanced to VB for dos (GUI running in Dos). Then later that development came the VB 5-6 (final version was until 1998) up to the designated successor -VB.net.

No wonder ,Gambas was inspired by VB programming ingenuity and intended to provide a similar experience for developing BASIC programs to Visual Basic. Gambas is intended to be an alternative for former Visual Basic developers who have decided to migrate to Linux or Unix like OS.

So Kudos! to VB and its migration in Linux-Gambas.

Objectives:
To be familiar with Gambas
To adapt Gambas with previous VB6 knowledge back ground
To create a simple sample program in Gambas
To use Gambas in MCU embedded support programs.

Methodology:

Detail(1) : sudo apt-get install

Remarks:

Conclusions:

The Big Four(Assembler,Basic,Pascal and C/C++)

2010-03-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

It was my first year in highschool when we had an informal orientation of learning a basic computer concepts it was then that I experienced operating a computer - an 8086 AT IBM computer(atlast ! the real keyboard not a dashboard drawing).Fresh from my memory as I was able to remember those weird techy things, I took my first programming lesson way back our third year in highschool. Well, we're a little bit fortunate because our school was supervised by an Italian priesthood(Sumascan order ) and the technology that they had were unselfishly shared to us.

We we're taught a couple of languages: one was GWBASIC and another one was the Pascal 3.0 (I wish I had that right version).I found an easiness of GWBASIC's usage -why? oh,perhaps from the word itself it is "basic" .Alas! We had then the first unforgetable "Hello World" and several program statement;" Enter 1st Number" plus "Enter the 2nd Number" and " The Sum is:" there all begun our world of programming from cut and paste to syntax modifications.

So after our high-school graduations, and serious life was soon eminent to be faced of; I took computer engineering course becuase I really miss computering.During my college, burning eyebrows there was only one rule I insidted my self to stick learning into-"Explore the BIG 4". I am pertaining to the most important computer languages I should have to study (burning eyebrows as I've said) very well: Assembler,Pascal,Basic and C.

Assembly language made me appreciate computer architecture ,Pascal hits me to the extremities of graphical User interface as Super Mario then was so popular computer games-and to inform you it was developed in Pascal. But as oppurtune knocked the door for computer programmer s I'ved realized then that there were changes in maket demand of software programming ;VB6 and a VC++ for application programer and a C origin JAVA++ for a WEB programmer . VB6 dominate much on Database programming wich included killer apps : interface to ADO,MSQL,MSACCES and etc.VC++ and it continous revision with its excellent platforms such device drivers,libraries and addons beside C/C++ entices the majority of the use of computing research to almost University/Insitutions ( a middle level class of programming).

In my own analogy that is business and MicroSoft had supported these two programming languages and included to its package accesories-Visual Sutdio. It was not so surprising becuase MS Windows was built in C and so was its rival OS Linux.Though of such cases Pascal now caveat is Delphi and Assembly never joined the competitions except it play as a useful programming tool to hardware embedded programming. Sometimes Assembler is being used as an inline interface to its 3 contemporaries compiler or interpreter-BASIC,PASCAL and C/C++.

So , what I learn through it was that somehow this " Big 4" really influenced our digital world -nonetheles the syntax the logic and functions.

Real Basic( Porting VB in Linux)

2010-03-15T18:28:00.001-07:00