 Yeah, hello and welcome. Thank you very much for being here and also thank you for being interested in this great project And I'm working on with a lot of colleagues for some time also also now I will be talking today about the axiom project. I adopted open source cinemates not only about Cameras but mainly about open hardware cameras. Just a brief introduction To those of you who might not know what open source hardware is The idea is to make every step of the production process and all the aspects of the project freely available open source in a way that everyone can get to see and to use freely all the possible technical Schematas and all the technical documentation, but as well the hardware so theoretically people could rebuild the hardware So a little bit about my background. I'm an ambassador researcher with axiom with the project and Doing mainly open hardware research. So I run the artistic technology lab, which is Currently located in Vienna with the research Institute for Arts and Technology and I also run the artistic bokeh initiative, which is a Media arts group and we setting up some kind of exchange with other labs around Europe Mainly working in projects in the domain between art and technology And you can also find this slide online if you are interested in seeing and getting some more information or like clicking through the links or something so We need open source cinema cameras At least that's what I thought also when I was joining the project But why do we need this open source cinema cameras? So mainly Proprietary cameras and I'm talking about all the film cameras, but also photo cameras as well In a way limited by the manufacturers so Of course that means sometimes that you cannot get the actual resolution that you want The actual frame rate that you want compression is not that good as it could be so there the technology is limited by the manufacturers maybe sometimes because they have a Another product that they want to sell or it's some other decision or sometimes it's just that development time is like that the maintenance time for the hardware ran out and nobody is developing the firmware any further and These are hacking communities were targeting this Since quite some time just to give you a few examples maybe some of you know the magic lantern project, which is a project that tries to Create an alternative firmware for various Canon cameras trying to make them also available for video and for other Issues and and tools and the usages that were not actually intended to be and There is actually to this date Except our project no professional open source solution for camera for video camera available. So Actually here I put your quote of the aperture association To explain a little bit. What is the idea behind the project? So the idea is to create completely Free software based cinema camera, but not only cinema cameras also any tools you might need in the process of developing or Producing a movie or moved image production so This axiom project introduces this first professional Extendable and affordable camera also the idea of this project is to make it modular So ideally at the later stage You don't have to throw away your camera, but you can rebuild it. It's like a kind of a maintainable repairable device that you can also Ideally develop your own modules for use it in various different Other uses that were not intended originally or also like develop your own scientific applications for it You name it so Short introduction to the project because I'm not aware if people know the project so good So this aperture project was started and this is actually the association 2006 with this idea To create a professional moving image camera based on the L fel 3 3 3 camera, which is I don't know if People know the L fel camera. It's actually the camera which is used in the in the Actually the company produces cameras mostly for for Google Street review and for the 360 panoramic images this was also The reason why the development of the previously existing Cameras in 2009 was frozen because they were focusing mostly on this panoramic solutions and less on the professional moving images video images cameras so in 2011 the axiom project was started because it was clear into 2011 that it's no chance that L fel will bring in a more professional or new camera that was actually Announced several times but was never released. So the idea was to start from scratch and we didn't know at this time I didn't join the project this time, but when I talk about we I'm like talking in this kind of plural How these in like open source project so The project then decided and the people running the project this time decided to develop completely entirely new system based on Self-developed hardware and completely from scratch actually so this association the partners association was found in 2012 and in 2013 the first prototype was developed, which I will show you briefly and In 2015 now we started a crowdfunding for the axiom beta, which actually was there was the idea to pull together with other people who are interested in camera development to Get hardware cheaper, but also to start developing. This is actually the state where we are right now and Also in 2015 we started the development of another camera the axiom gamma, which I will also briefly introduce so What we What first was happening in 2013 the axiom alpha was developed. It's like here. You see the board is like a Very rough and kind of a bulky big prototype, but it was more of a proof of concept and this is how the case looked and Basically, you see this here on a mounted on a rig kind of bulky big Hardware but but usable and working so we shot a lot of Demo footage with it and we were actually showcasing it here. You see it mounted on a crane system and Actually what you see is like and I chose this picture for a reason because if we look at like professional Maybe see a professional but definitely professional moving image production people always tend to Design their rigs themselves. So it's like a DIY situation the rig is a as a basis and So it's kind of it looks like kind of messy But this is how usually rigs also look in this particular case. It didn't look even that messy in my opinion here's another side view of the of the first rig of the Alpha and Now we have the beta which is actually Ready now we have like three developer versions actually done. I brought also one with me So if somebody So if somebody's interested in actually Watching it or like I can briefly show also what is working already. What is not working? I'm trying to figure out a way like maybe today after the talk also tomorrow to for interested people to Be able like to sit outside and like a little bit watch through the features and through what's actually already working and So the idea was we wanted to develop this camera But of course you need a lot of money in a way to order all these kind of PCBs and the sensors themselves are also expensive We are we looked into various different sensor models But usually the sensor is around 1,000 euro something like that and the complete Better as we have it here excluding the enclosure is around 2300 euro something like that So what we did is with this crowdfunding on Indiegogo We collected interest from the audiences and from people that are Interested in developing it and then to pull together and to develop this The first batch of the cameras so currently we have like two slots for modules But I will talk about this a little bit later. So here you see the the case which is now not ready yet, but This is how the case should look and Also, what I said before ready Every blueprint and all the the technical drawings everything is released on github. So also feel free to to look into the files and also All possible Aspects of the of the camera are open source as far as you can do that because of course you're limited with the sensors You have to buy the sensors from from somewhere Our dream is to in the future develop our own sensor, but this is a very utopian Attempt because it's it's not that easy to develop your own sensor. There's a lot of a lot of Technology and like a lot of patents and this is also the problem with the camera, of course And this is I will also talk about this later a little bit About how hard is it actually to pick sensors and which kind of sensors are possible So here you see an overview of the of the better on the left side You see the two modules the top one is thought in the plug-in module slot This is basically the first attempt to make this completely modular. So People can develop their own modules and make for example different processing modules for currently it's two HDMI outputs, but theoretically there could be other Uses as well. It's basically Possibilities are endless almost so I'm here I just copied out the specs to give you an idea what is theoretically possible with the sensor and also with the with the with this camera, so it's a Theoretically up to 300 frames per second at full resolution possible, which would be 300 frames per second 4k in super 35 millimeters Format which is like amazing currently. We cannot really get like 300 FPS, but we are working on it and extending it and also Developers jumped in and are developing on this currently is like one person actively developing on it and since it's the third Developer camera not produced. We are actually trying to get more people to have the camera to work with it. So Here see how it currently looks without them closing and since Of course, we have 3d printers around. We also tried to 3d print one enclosure so the idea is also to to Have like different enclosures stuff like different materials of enclosures All these kinds of aspects. So just briefly to give you an idea. We also started a Second camera project, which is a kind of a spin-off of this camera But often people think it's the successor of the better, but it's actually not. It's maybe our Mistake to name it like better and gamma, but The gamma is a is a kind of a more a bigger and more professional camera and it's the whole project is Funded by horizon 2020 from the European Union and we have a partner consortium actually the the whole project is is led by the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and we have a consortium of companies and and and and also they are part of association, of course to actually Try to develop ideally six or let's say six prototypes for the gamma in 2016 so this is how it should ideally look so you see it's like quite different from from what the Better looks like the idea still is here to have a completely modular camera, but the modules are much more much bigger and much more in a in a way More fitting in a kind of a production setting and also interestingly What we thought about would be would be maybe a kind of an interesting aspect also for filming in different in Different styles also is like here the idea would be to have the sensor replaceable So you could tear it like like easier than it is in the in the bed That's of course also possible, but here you have to screw around a lot but in the gamma the idea is that it's like a hot pluggable module ideally and Currently our plans to to produce it from the technical aspect are outlined here. So basically as you see, it's a much more Advanced or like like a stronger camera, which is more focused on the professional movie production business market and like all these aspects because we think it's it's theoretically there's a lot of demand there because people are already used to Develop their own rigs and to find like specific cameras and to test around a lot with different lenses and Aesthetics, but we thought also it's important to have like a kind of an affordable cheap small Development version to possibly also find other uses for it. So I'm going to just brief it to this light here. See our team working on the on the gamma So this is what we do and here's the slide from what I already outlined a little bit So the better is more of a development kit and a compact camera for for example drones gimbals Cablecams And it also has of course the same sensors because we are limited from the sensors that we can choose But the gamma is a professional kit for all challenges in a way. It's really a production high-end production camera In a way, you can also put more modules inside for modules So this is Either what we are aiming for but this is still in the future. So this will be 2016 so The idea also behind the whole project is to Make it like easy extendable and easy accessible to other developers. So ideally You don't need to be a FPGA programmer to use the camera So we are trying to make every aspect of it as easy understandable as possible But of course it takes time Ideally we have this open module concept. So we have this kind of demo modules already Produced which are like HDMI output modules, but ideally you can create your own modules It's like basically limitless what you can do with these modules and could also easily exchange them Just to give you an example what what could be this kind of modules like sense sensor applications or Different other output modules than for example a mini display port other other output but also like processing or For example as a recording module. There's a lot of possibilities in the modules and Here's a picture of of the HDMI module, which is now plugged in in the lower part and Also the idea is to have this ecosystem. So the whole Idea behind the camera and the whole project is to have it completely produced in Europe as far as it's possible because of course there's a lot of Problems like the sensors you cannot check if they are really produced We had a really produced but usually not in Europe and ideally also We have a lot of people that can actually work with the camera and repair it for example So the ideally if enough people use it it becomes a kind of an ecosystem by itself. So for example for rentals or for special niche applications such as underwater videography or There's like a lot of like different niches which would need this kind of modularity in a camera Another small side project we are developing is the axiom remote, which is like a Kind of a remote control for these cameras, which would be especially used Especially usable for underwater applications, so I think there's kind of an I think you get the idea of the ecosystem a little bit So currently we're just using it because there's not enough developer units out I mean it's like this is the third one But ideally people like register and you can maybe also also rent out to other people the camera or can actually develop also their businesses around it so There have also been a lot of challenges and there still are a lot of challenges so most of the challenges we face are Interfacing with proprietary and closed source devices like for example, we want to support all possible video Like like recording devices that could actually Of course record the stream, but it's not clear because the developers of all this proprietary cameras don't really say how they will How they use the HDMI standard? I mean you can actually they have to somehow a little bit reverse engineer They actually look what is sent. It's like really interesting because there's like special modes for our recording and all this Different aspects, but also of course this is a big challenge regarding the sensors because we have now three sensors which we can use with the whole camera and it's It's actually interest interesting because we have to interface and talk to a lot of Sensor developers and it's not clear if you get the right documentation that you can use it in a specific productive way so sometimes you have to sign NDA's and In the end you don't get all the documentation you need so it's a kind of a small Amount of sensors that we can use now But we think already it's changing because the manufacturers already saw that there might be demand of course they can sell more sensors So ideally there's also a change over the years I don't I cannot say from now, but it looks also that we might Be compatible with more sensors soon So another challenge would be the dislocated work because it's a quite big community of people working on this project Not only on the cameras, but also on the whole projects around it but actually it's it's working out till now so and Yeah, I just wanted to briefly also tell you how it's possible to join the development or to join the the whole project so currently we are Manufacturing the cameras are like really building the bettas and sending them to the crowdfunding supporters At cost so that that was also what is our aim also to to get a lot of people interested I want to develop with it and soon as far as we can as soon as we can actually Produce more we We will make this kind of voucher system where it's possible to to get this voucher And then also get the hardware on cost We found out that it's a lot of different people that are interested in the in the cameras because of different reasons Something it's like a small camera camera. You can just get and then film with it. It's not the case right now It's very hecky so it runs actually nukes and it it's like kind of a terminal Setting it has no menu still we don't have an HTTP interface nothing So basically we are just in the very early stages of developing Here but of course there are other stages where people would actually join in so we thought with this what vouchers You can actually decide when you want the camera like regarding also the features that are deployed already so Actually, I brought a video of the demo footage shot with the better, which I will briefly show you this was actually shot in Like recorded in there in the RAM of the camera so this was still not possible which they HDMI output but Here was like different modes also of production and Also, you'll notice on the right side the problem with the center configuration So this is not a very clean image and at least not on the right side, but the rest of it is is Quite good. We already fixed this issue. It's an open source project so yeah If we see some errors, we try to fix it fast, but you get the idea. It's like Already producing this kind of images all with a complete open source workflow, which is which is nice of course, you still need recording devices which Recording these images in the case if you record to the RAM You can completely maintain a complete open source workflow in case you're recording from the HDMI That's it's kind of getting hard because there's only proprietary devices out there So yeah Basically also if you want you can You can contact us And also A lot of people from the development team will be In the RC so feel free also to talk to them and of course you can also talk to me later on and possibly also We find a way to showcase the camera and also if you're interested to to to see it What is produces which kind of pictures to see this live? and Yeah, of course getting contact with us or contact me directly But usually if you send to a team at a purchase or people will react and will Try to answer all your question The IRC is quite Frequently used and a lot of people are there because also from the dislocated nature of the project This is a necessity for us how we work together. So yeah, feel free to to join us and also it would be nice if people are interested to develop or to Actually join the project it would be You're very welcome actually Thank you So I guess we have a couple of minutes for Q&A So just line up in front of the microphone. Oh, there you go Quick question. Have you I see you said you have just three Ready cameras already Have you tried any of them in some kind of production setting like the Congress or somewhere else that? You had the cameras working for a few days and come to compare them with the usual stuff That's used the property proprietary cameras Can you again? Say the last sentence I didn't understand it and have you if you've ever tried these cameras in such a production setting Have you compared? Them to the proprietary cameras. Yes. Yes, okay. Maybe a good question actually. So what proprietary cameras do? They have always a kind of an image sweetening. So they changed the image. It's not actually The clear images it would be on the sensor They have all their kind of specific ways of dealing with the image and like for example like smoothing it a little bit And also the debiring is totally different or it's like Different in most of the cameras and most importantly you cannot actually change this process So you cannot change these sorts of algorithms because you are like in a way limited to what the manufacturer gives you So the idea with the with the axiom cameras is also that you can even have your own debiring Algorithm running or like your own different way of producing the the image so it's yes The answer is yes, it's it's different and because Sorry to the microphone at my right you said it's possible to put the images out of the RAM in an Completely open-source workflow in which interface do you put the images out of the RAM? In this case, it's it's connected the camera is connectable via via ethernet cable and also via USB cable So you have to dump it on the over Of course It's like very limited. Yeah, so we can actually record a few seconds But this would be in in in this high frame amount in this case. It's like it's like a small In a way you can compare to a raspberry pi Because it's also like an arm. So so you can just you have to dump it over some some Interface which is fast enough of course. What is the data rate that flows out of the sensor into the RAM? This I cannot answer you in detail But you can actually go to the IRC and ask the developer because I'm not the developer of the camera Okay, thank you Are you at some time planning also to build photographic cameras or just for filming? Yes, of course in it is actually a photographic camera because it takes like still images So theoretically you could use it for for as a photographic camera But the sensors are of course different because you have like higher pixel sensors and they have not so So much frames per second the photographic sensor, but theoretically you could if you find the sensor which is like Documented enough just find it and and and we try if it's working out But it's like it needs development actually so to do this, but theoretically it's possible of course Because I sense there might be interest in that as well Thank you. Thank you. Yeah How see camera currently being controlled command line config files web interface currently it's a it's a command line interface and You control everything in the in the command line So we have a few scripts that run specific set things like exposure So everything is really only on the comment line as for now But we are actively working on a middleware which runs in Python Which is actually partly developed already where we can actually have overlays, which are for example the second HDMI port Visible so you have a menu structure, which is then programmable and you can actually Develop your own menus for it and for your specific cases, but also ideally we're thinking of a of an HTTP interface where you can easily get some For example also an API would be great to have like where you can actually remote control it But so we are planning this of course, but currently it's it's a command line only You said currently the camera codes into RAM or outputs over HDMI Other plans to change that to record to STs or SSDs Yes for the gamma definitely, but for now for the better we wanted to to develop a model that works With kind of existing technological solutions. So HDMI is quite a standard although it also is not that easy because HDMI is also not a really free Format so we were thinking about Mini-display port which would be possible, but it's much more harder to develop so the naked It's the second the next Small Kind of plug-in module will be maybe mini-display port Yeah, hi, which lens mount did you use for your camera? Theoretically it's now for the first one for the alpha we used Nikon Nikon f mount and this one is not Sony alpha mount. So basically the idea is to keep a Low distance to the sensor so that you can apply other lens mounts and you can Apply adapters so you can use the most variety of lenses, of course, there's no no motor controls yet So it's like manual you have to manually Control the lenses okay, and so one more is which kind of are you gonna think about the projection of the cinema? the projection of the Cinema you're gonna do like any projection kind of open source For the sharing of a cinema or it would be great But it's like I'm this is really taking a lot of time to develop this now But it would be great to one thing at a time to develop an open source project would be awesome great. Thanks What do you think about using STI as an output instead of HDMI? Yes? Yes, of course I mean also we are thinking of an STI module But for now it was really the easiest to develop the HDMI module We are thinking of a in the in the gamma of course to have for sure an STI Module, but for now it wanted to make it also fast available that because like developers Want to use it already and a lot of people have ideas for how to extend it so the idea is to to To research all these and to make this like available fast to everyone that people can can start thinking of their own modules And developing this but it's definitely planned. Yeah, okay. Thank you good so I think we're done and Give a please another big round of applause for Matthias