[sane-devel] Getting Clever CAM 360 working

[kilgota at banach.math.auburn.edu]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, Martin wrote:

> The camera is identified as,
> idVendor 0x0797 Grandtech Semiconductor Corp.
> idProduct 0x8001 SmartCam
>

Hmmm. I will make some comments, about the output of lsusb -v,
below. The camera _may_ work with an existing driver, but it is not 
obvious that it will...

Theodore

> What can I use to get the pictures downloaded from it to my computer?

Well, it is too early to tell the answer to that question, seems to me...

> Thanks.
>
> Here is the output of,
>
> lsusb -v
>
> ***********************************
>
> Bus 001 Device 009: ID 0797:8001 Grandtech Semiconductor Corp. SmartCam
> Device Descriptor:
> bLength 18
> bDescriptorType 1
> bcdUSB 1.10
> bDeviceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class
> bDeviceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass
> bDeviceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol

1. These three lines indicate that the camera is _not_ mass-storage, nor 
is it PTP. Therefore, it needs to get support from libgphoto2.

2. No existing driver supports this camera, unless something has been 
added to the libgphoto2 CVS tree since I last downloaded it, a couple of 
weeks ago.

3. Going into libgphoto2/camlibs and doing

grep 797 */*

I got the following response:

polaroid/pdc640.c:      {"ScanHex SX-35a", 0x797, 0x8901, {
polaroid/pdc640.c:      {"ScanHex SX-35b", 0x797, 0x8909, {
polaroid/pdc640.c:      {"ScanHex SX-35c", 0x797, 0x8911, {
polaroid/pdc640.c:      {"Typhoon StyloCam", 0x797, 0x801a, {
polaroid/pdc640.c:      {"GrandTek ScopeCam", 0x797, 0x801c, {

which says that the indicated five cameras are supported by the "polaroid" 
driver. And furthermore the various readme files in that directory do say 
something about Grandtech chips. Looks like a possibility.

So I make two suggestions.

 	1. try adding an entry in camlibs/polaroid/pdc640.c which 
resembles the others, but lists the number as it is for yours. That is, 
the third entry should be 0x8001. Just in order to see if it works at 
all, I would suspect that you can just copy the rest of the lines for 
that entry, down to the next "}". Then re-compile and re-install the 
subdirectory libgphoto2/camlibs/polaroid by doing make, followed by make 
install. (You do have or will get a source tree for libgphoto2? Since your 
camera is not yet supported, I am afraid that you will have to go to the 
source code because it needs some hacking done on it).

If this causes the camera to do anything positive, then one is on the 
right track. I would say that the next thing to do, though, is to contact 
the maintainer for the package, Marcus Meissner <marcus at jet.franken.de>
who in that case will be the one responsible, from our project.

 	2. If step one does not give any positive result, then it is 
necessary to look deeper into the matter. It may be in that case necessary 
to install the camera on Windows and install a USB traffic logger, to see 
what the camera is doing. It may be seen that there is a lot of similarity 
with the existing stuff in camlibs/polaroid, or it may be something 
entirely different. At that point, only a direct comparison between the 
log output and what is in the source files in camlibs/polaroid will tell 
the story.

------------------------------------------------------------

Gerard,

Now that I check into the matter more deeply, qbik.ch says you have a 
possibly similar camera and gives a lead to your website. I think I have 
seen that particular page before, when trying to learn more about the 
Grandtech 8290 chip (which uses a somewhat screwed version of mass-storage 
Bulk Transport and for which I ended up doing the kernel support).

But, sorry, I did not remember your webpage when I saw the letter on the 
sane-devel list (which I still receive, having subscribed back when we 
were working on the Canon N670U I got for Christmas a few years ago). Now, 
after wading in on this, I think I see a reason why Martin contacted you. 
Any further comments?


Theodore Kilgore