Linux Instructions for using OpenLiveStacker - artyom-beilis/OpenLiveStacker GitHub Wiki

Installing from the package

Just untar it at any location needed tar -xvf OpenLiveStacker_v*.tar.bz2 and run ./bin/ols_gui After running it a menu entry for OpenLiveStacker will be added

Running the app UI

You start the app by running ols_gui - it creates as startup menu to run actual stacking process that is controlled via browser

image

  • Select the camera driver and options if applicable
    • For Meadebased ToupTek camera check OEM checkbox
    • For indi/indigo cameras provide the correct ip:port
    • For watch directory - provide correct format, size and directory to watch
  • Enable camera debug option - for debug purpose
  • Memory size limit - limit the memory OpenLiveStacker can use or 0 for unlimited
  • IP/Port the OLS will listen on - for web interface
  • Data - location of all the data - stacked frames, calibrations frames, astap database etc. Default is ~/OpenLiveStacker
  • Option to start indi or indigo drivers - note install independently
    • Indi camera and mount drivers
    • Indigo camera (note indigo mounts are not supported yet) This is convenient when you don't want to run indi via EKOS/KStars - lightweight solution
  • Save configuration - just save settings (done automatically upon start)
  • Start OpenLiveStacker - start actual stacking software (you can now access it via web interface http://127.0.0.1:8080 or the port/url provided
  • Open Browser - automatically open the browser window for OLS
  • Stop and Exit - stop services indi/indigo, OLS and exit the programm

Running the app on Linux from command lince

Build the app (see Readme) and run ./bin/ols_cmd config.js.

The config.js contains following fields:

  • libdir - path to directory with drivers, in our case build

  • driver - the name of the driver to be used: either asi, toup, indigo or uvc, according to the camera type you are using, or alternatively you can use wdir - watch directory driver for generic camera assuming camera can save images into directory as "live-stream".

    For Meade touptek based camera, toup.oem - set to true for Meade touptek based cameras.

  • astap - configuration of ASTAP plate solver

  • http - configuration of HTTP server (you can change IP and port there)

Open browser and access http://127.0.0.1:8080/ - this is the interface. Or access via remote IP on the 8080 port.

Permission to access camera

If OpenLiveStacker does not find the device or have permission issues you have several options:

  1. Provide proper udev rules that provide access to the USB device, for example create file /etc/udev/rules.d/mycamera.rules

    SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="03c3", MODE="0666"

    where 03c3 is for example vendor id of the camera. Use your camera's vendor ID. You can find it by check output of lsusb.

  2. Run chmod a+rw /dev/usb/NNN/MMM where NNN and MMM are device indexes of USB camera, you can find it by running lsusb -t, need to done every time camera is connected.

  3. Run app as root

Using indigo driver

By default it connects to localhost indigo server.

You can connect to remote host by setting indigo.connection to "host:port" or load the driver directly, by setting its name:

"indigo": {
    "connection": "indigo_ccd_svb" 
}

Don't use indigo driver with indi server - not supported

Using indi driver

By default it connects to localhost indigo server.

You can connect to remote host by setting indigo.connection to "host:port" or load the driver directly, by setting its name:

"indi": {
    "connection": "192.168.2.101:7624"
}

Starting external indi or indigo server

You can start the server automatically with OpenLiveStacker by providing a "start_cmd" command to start for example indiserver

"start_cmd" : "indiserver indi_svbony_ccd"

Using watch directory driver - for any camera

It is for integration with Indi, Raspberry PI, DSLR and other cameras that can save in real time images into directory.

You need to build it with libraw support to handle raw or dng files and with libcfitsio for support of FITS files

In this case you use wdir driver and configure it with following parameters:

  • width and height - image size
  • format - image format - can be rgb48 or raw16 for raw or firs images images or other 16 bit images (tiff, 16 bit png), rgb8 for 8 bit images (like jpeg)
  • path - the path to directory to watch

For example config.js

{
    "libdir" : "./build",
    "driver" : "wdir",
    "wdir" : {
        "width" : 2028,
        "height": 1520,
        "format" : "rgb48",
        "path" : "./wd"
    }
}

WARNING: once it runs any image or file that is copied to the directory will be processed and removed!

Setting up plate solver on Linux

Install/download astap_cli (or normal astap) and download one of the recommended databases:

  • D50 - for: 6 > fov > 0.2 degrees, around 900MB
  • D20 - for: 6 > fov > 0.3 degrees, around 400MB
  • D05 - for: 6 > fov > 0.6 degrees, around 100MB
  • G05 - for: 20 > fov > 3.0 degrees, around 100MB
  • W08 - for: fov > 20 degrees, around 0.3MB

That make sure that your config.json includes exe path to astap_cli or to astap and db points to unpacked database location. If you use ordinary installation of ASTAP that has standard db location you can keep exe as just astap or astap_cli without full path.

Here example

{
    "libdir" : "./build",
    "driver" : "asi",
    "astap" : {
        "exe": "/usr/local/bin/astap_cli", 
        "db": "/opt/astap"
    }
}

It is also possible to download ASTAP database from configuration menu