Vision 2017 | Video Capture (Spout/Virutal Cameras)

[Daniel B. Chapman]

I wanted to check in to see if there has been any progress on the Video Capture bug I raised a month or so ago. I have another pair of projects at a moderate scale and I would prefer to use Vision for my projector layouts.

 

What's the status of the camera inputs?

[PVA - Admin]

Please link to the thread, the last one I could find around that time from you was a wishlist item.

[Daniel B. Chapman]

Jim this was a phone-support request. I don't have a thread on it, I can probably drum up some e-mails if that helps. Eddie should have some knowledge of it. 

 

The attached image sums up the problem, web cams (virtual or otherwise) don't show up in the video capture dialog on either my Windows PC or my Mac. Vision 2.2 has the same problem.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Daniel B. Chapman

[Charlie Winter]

Has there been any progress on this?

 

I too am about to begin a project with video, and was hoping to utilize Vision for some previz elements.

 

 

[Daniel B. Chapman]

Jim,

 

I'm also tagging this. I've raised a formal support ticket as well. I have a ballet and two operas that I would really like to have Vision available for. I've edited my above post to display a picture of the problem in Windows 10 (using a virtual cam). However I have the exact same problem on MacOS/Facetime (physical camera) (Macbook Pro Mid 2010 with Discrete Graphics).

 

Can we get an update on this? It is clearly a critical bug and I'm wondering if the development team has a "clean box" that they are testing on because they seem to be unable to reproduce the error based on my last conversation with them. I'm happy to allow a remote debugging session if that's what it takes to solve this problem. 

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by Daniel B. Chapman

[PVA - Admin]

Marked as a bug, however no new information as of yet. It's still active in engineerings list.

 

ESP-125

[Brendan Gray]

So, just to clarify-  video capture in Vision is broken, with no information about when it might be fixed?

 

That rules it out for a project that we are working on right now.  We'll be using MA3D in the short term, and now we're evaluating Realizzer for other projects. 

 

This is the second project in as many months where we have not been able to use Vision due to bugs.     

 

I made current and upgraded our Vision license last summer, with the hope that the acquisition by Vectorworks would bring improvements.  Aside from a superficial re-skinning and some library integration, I have seen very little indication that Vision is getting better anytime soon.  

 

I'm wishing I had spent that money elsewhere.

 

Best

 

Brendan

 

 

 

 

[Gaspar Potocnik]

I have to say I support Brendan on this one, same thing happening to me in the past months.

 

On 27/1/2017 at 1:21 PM, Brendan Gray said:

So, just to clarify-  video capture in Vision is broken, with no information about when it might be fixed?

 

That rules it out for a project that we are working on right now.  We'll be using MA3D in the short term, and now we're evaluating Realizzer for other projects. 

 

This is the second project in as many months where we have not been able to use Vision due to bugs.     

 

I made current and upgraded our Vision license last summer, with the hope that the acquisition by Vectorworks would bring improvements.  Aside from a superficial re-skinning and some library integration, I have seen very little indication that Vision is getting better anytime soon.  

 

I'm wishing I had spent that money elsewhere.

 

Best

 

Brendan

 

 

 

 

 

[Robert Janiak]

Which capture card instead problematic virtual cam is good for Vision? Any plans for improve video capture tools? I need video input but I can't invest for capture card now if you plan fix this or add CITP or other magic tool. 

 

Robert

Edited February 10, 2017 by Stage Vision

[Brendan Gray]

I look forward to seeing how the update works.  I am troubled that my post in this thread from January 27 and my more importantly my support email form January 19 got absolutely no response from VW.  and here we are nearly 3 months later.  We completed that project in MA3D.  

[Brendan Gray]

Hi Edward-

 

Thanks for the apology. I did email as well.  Strange.  

 

Anyhow, SP3 will open a test file with a single Cosmopix fixture, but the fixture behavior is, well, weird. (I think the parent/child relationships are off).  Here is a link to a screen grab video showing the aberrant behavior:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zc5zq6ommilfuyc/Cosmopix VIsion 2017 SP3 weirdness.mp4?dl=0

 

 

[Mark Eli]

On 3/30/2017 at 1:28 PM, Brendan Gray said:

Hi Edward-

 

Thanks for the apology. I did email as well.  Strange.  

 

Anyhow, SP3 will open a test file with a single Cosmopix fixture, but the fixture behavior is, well, weird. (I think the parent/child relationships are off).  Here is a link to a screen grab video showing the aberrant behavior:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zc5zq6ommilfuyc/Cosmopix VIsion 2017 SP3 weirdness.mp4?dl=0

 

 

Hey Brendan,

Which mode of the cosmopix is that?

[Charlie Winter]

@meli

 

The Cosmopix is in 64ch mode.

[Mark Eli]

@cwinterLD

 

 

Not sure what's going on yet, but I did notice I got better results when loading a file from vectorworks as apposed to the add instrument tool. Give that a try and let us know if you still see the same thing

[Daniel B. Chapman]

I'd love a response on this thread. It has been roughly six months since I re-raised this issue and I'm curious why there's so little response especially considering the broken state of Vision 2017 in regards to video capture.

 

Here's a link to a simple OpenFrameworks example (I'm going out on a limb to say you're using Qt so it isn't really all that foreign as OpenFrameworks is just a collection of standard OpenGL libraries). The receiver code is less than 500 lines in total. If we can't get resonable capture card support I would like the ability to implement it myself via Spout or Syphon. 

 

https://github.com/leadedge/Spout2/tree/master/SpoutSDK/Example/ofSpoutExample/src/ofSpoutReceiver

 

[klinzey]

Daniel,

We are currently working to put together a list of supported capture devices and general requirements for capture devices that should work with the current implementation.

Video capture was tested with the limited number of capture devices we had in-house for SP3 as the protocols we use support a wide range of capture devices.

We have reached out to our beta testers to help us identify capture devices that are currently supported and identify devices that still have issues.

The engineering staff is working to address these issues and will add support in future releases and service packs for a wider range of devices.

Sprout, Syphon and several other technologies are being investigated as ways to better support using video into Vision in the future.

 

Kevin LinzeySpotlight
Features Manager
Vectorworks, Inc.

[Daniel B. Chapman]

Kevin,

 

I can't stress how silly this is right now. Virtual Cameras (not Spout/Syphon) (which are cameras to the operating system) should be a fairly trivial to get working and would allow  me--and I suspect others--to do 90% of what we need to do for single-source designs. 

 

By way of continuing the discussion here's where we are with basic hardware on the operating system (photos to follow):

 

As you can see with Windows none of the streams are detected. I made of point of using XSplit broadcaster rather than spout to prove a point. Skype is happily running in the corner an detects this as a webcam (I should note that Vision detected Spout in the past using this method). 

 

We have a little better luck here with OSX as the FaceTime camera is finally listed but you can see the quality of that image is useless--and rather interesting. I would think that the built in hardware would qualify as the basic check and it isn't functional. 

If we have a piece of hardware that works in a test environment can we list it? I'd like to get this working ASAP and I'm fine with quirks. Lighting Designs often incorporate video at this point in time and I would like to use Vision to visualize my designs. If that isn't/can't happen then I need to find a new tool that isn't projecting low-resolution video at a cardboard model in my basement.

 

(For whatever it is worth I was expecting the OSX  to fail, my other Macbook Pro (2010) didn't list the camera the last time I tried nor did the 2012 iMac at the office. This is on a new Macbook Pro (2016/Touch) so maybe there was better luck on the driver.)

 

[Gaspar Potocnik]

Quote

NOTE: If you are getting no capture devices populating, a blank preview, or a black video screen within vision, please update to Vision SP4 using the direct links below, this is also a full installer:

 

http://release.vectorworks.net/nnapub/all/{brandedmajor}/{brandedminor}/V100/Vision2017-V100-installer4-win.exe

http://release.vectorworks.net/nnapub/all/{brandedmajor}/{brandedminor}/V100/Vision2017-V100-installer4-osx.dmg

 

Completely OFF Topic, but how do I find out SP4 is out?

 

- Updater says I am up to date (guess it still doesn't work)

- No post in the forum that SP4 is out.

- No answer to my question in the SP3 Forum Topic.

- Not in Service Select downloads.

- Wy is it only listed in a Video Capture Topic in te Forum?

 

Just curious...

 

[Gaspar Potocnik]

Any news on the installer @Edward Joseph??

[bbudzon]

All,

Keep an eye on this thread: 

We will be keeping it up to date with the latest information. I would hold off on buying capture cards until we can make some cheaper recommendations (a $3k capture card is unrealistic), but at the very least if you have a capture card already, you can verify that it either does or does not meet the requirements we believe are necessary for capture to work properly.

[Tom Wright]

 

[Tom Wright]

I have a Blackmagic Mini Recorder for instance. Will this work?

 

t