Nice work, Kasper! Please keep us posted on the improvements.
Are the settings for the 11 pictures what you want? Maybe more images on the darker side of the range? But then I guess you have the opposite problem…
There’s a compiled binary with the new update at the link below.
https://github.com/theta360developers/HDR2EXR/releases
This might save people the hassle of installing the entire Android Studio and SDK toolchain.
In MainActivity.java, does anyone know what stop_jumps refers to?
private int shutterSpeedValue = 0; // can be 0 to 62. 0 is 1/25000
private static final int numberOfPictures = 11;
private static final int shutterSpeedSpacing = 6;
private static final Double stop_jumps = 2.0;
1 Like
Hi!
yeah, stop_jumps refers to number of lighting stops by which is increased (or decreased) with each exposure of the bracket.
A stop is a unit for talking about the amount of light you capture. Increasing by one stop means you double the amount of light you record. (And decreasing takes half of it.)
Does this make sense?
1 Like
Thank you for the explanation regarding stop_jumps. As I’m a novice photographer, this terminology was confusing to me at first. I read the article below and think I have a better idea now.
https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/what-is-a-stop-of-exposure-in-photography
Shutter Speed
ISO
Illustrate by Picture
The illustration and capture from the site also made it easier for me to understand the “doubling of the amount of light”
I would suggest you to use Gumroad instead of Patreon for small donation for a plugin add-on
Hi everyone !
planning to buy a theta V fort he creation of HDR image to use in 3D software. This plugin looks awesome !
Can someone share an HDR image in EXR file format done with the camera using this plugin ?
Thanks guys !
Alex
Hi All,
I’ve just uploaded the latest version to github. It has all the points I set out for version 1 in it:
- Smaller exr files (half float) about 43 mb a piece
- Better HDR colors in the files -> no more weird red noise, and better white balance
- Also the highlights are now with in normal ranges. Averages colors should be around 0.5 pixel values.
- A tonemapped jpg is also created
- Default settings take 11 brackets with each containing 3 pics which are averaged to reduce noise.
- Default has 2.5 stops jump between brackets
- Camera times and color curves are saved in case you want to play around with them
- Because of the 3 pics per bracket and the averaging the whole thing is a bit slower. Depends quite a bit on the light conditions
- Completely white pics are detected and recycled (this saves a lot of time as they tend to take long to capture)
- Better colors to indicate activity of camera. Blinking means busy, not blinking means ready to shoot.
- Better internal memory management.
- The APK file is in the github, HDR4EXR/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
Please let me know if it works for you and if you run into any problems.
@AlexandreDizeux, I don’t have any good reference pics artoudn now, they all are very testy. Maybe someone can test the app and upload results?
Enjoy!
3 Likes
@Kasper This is a really nice upgrade, in multiple areas. I made two simple mistakes in my testing, which slowed me down. I’m sharing here, even though they are simple, embarrassing mistakes, just in case it helps someone else avoid small issues.
– I didn’t set permissions in Vysor first time through, so I thought the plug-in was failing. I’ve installed lots of plug-ins and have seen the behavior many times but it still seems to confuse me regularly.
– And I didn’t read the updated instructions closely and didn’t see that it takes 3 sets of bracketed images, 34 total.
Anyway, after I got past those things…
Created files look good:
Includes the directory with all the bracketed images:
Outputted EXR file exists, and it’s the size you suggested it would be. I viewed it in GIMP and converted to jpg. Normal use would be different, but for testing, this confirmed output.
Suuuuper small detail: Sometimes you refer to the name as HDR4EXR - The repo and the directory for the apk are all HDR2EXR. Not critical, but I noticed it.
So… you submitting this version to the store? It’s ready, and I think more VFX people will try it out that way. 
No problem, I’ve ordered a theta V so I will do my own test 
If I understood well, if the app is on the store it’s much easier to install it ?
@jcasman thanx for all the testing good to know that it works on your side. Yeah the permissions, I also spend a couple of times thinking whats wrong when it was just that.
Yes let’s start the submitting to the store! Can you help?
One thing I was thinking about. You have to use the the theta file copier on mac to get the files of the device. I saw that there is not something like that for windows, is there an alternative?
@AlexandreDizeux yes the store should make it easier to install!
1 Like
@Kasper, right now I depend on using the adb pull command from the Command Prompt on Windows. It works fine. I use this on the Mac, too, quite often.
Windows File Manager shows the 1 photo for measuring lighting and the folder which includes the 33 bracketed pictures, but it does not show the .exr file nor the two .txt files.
I think he’s wondering about how non-developers with no access to adb can get the EXR file after it goes into the store.
Is the file viewable in Windows File Manager?
Appears to be not viewable in Windows File Manager
We need to figure out a way to get the file onto a Windows machine and delete it from the camera for people without access to adb.
Non-developers also can’t use Vysor to delete the file as Vysor requires adb.
We should test:
- any existing Windows desktop app used to manage normal Android phones and see it works with the THETA V
- Wi-Fi api to see if the RICOH API can view, delete, and transfer the EXR file
- Ask RICOH people we know if they have an idea on how to solve this problem
@codetricity yes that is exactly what i mean. Version 2 will solve this problem because I intent to make it possible to download through the web interface. But in the mean time we should think of an alternative.
Does adb not work when not being a developer?
Alternatively I could probably write a python script to download the files i guess but i should look into that.
1 Like
Unfortunately, I do not think adb will work if the person is not a developer. For adb to work, the camera needs to be in developer mode, which requires the person to join the partner plugin program. Joining the program is free, but realistically too much of a hassle for most people.
Jesse and I will continue to help you look for a solution.
Then for now I think the best solution is adding a python script that copies the files. Shouldn’t be to hard.
I look into it.
1 Like
We can test the assumptions about “Developer Mode” by turning it off as explained in this article.
I’m got this error on the build and added the minSdkVersion to build.gradle in the openCVLibrary section. After the minor change to the gradle file, it builds.
ERROR: Manifest merger failed : uses-sdk:minSdkVersion 1 cannot be smaller than version 9 declared in library [com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:3.0.1] /home/craig/.gradle/caches/transforms-2/files-2.1/52087f1a134c863438d388d5c643f3da/AndroidManifest.xml as the library might be using APIs not available in 1
Suggestion: use a compatible library with a minSdk of at most 1,
or increase this project's minSdk version to at least 9,
or use tools:overrideLibrary="android.support.test.espresso" to force usage (may lead to runtime failures)
@codetricity the apk should be on github aswell so you can download that one. It is in /app/build/outputs/apk/…
On my ipad right now so can’t look into it anyfurther
1 Like