Microsoft Surface 4 camera resolution

[MengHuiHanTang]

This post concerns only the ream camera of the latest Microsoft Surface 4. 

Here is the question. I developed a simple app to use the rear camera to capture an image and do some simple processing. The highest resolution available is 1920X1440. So I selected this mode and thought I was done, until I found there was a 'HD' button in the built-in app 'Camera' from Microsoft. 

After switching to 'HD' mode, the dimensions of the images from this app are 3200X1800, a lot higher than the specified resolution of the camera. 

I wonder how the 'Camera' app manages to enhance the image resolution so much? Is this possible from Labview??Thanks for any thoughts/comments.

[aflojo]

Hi Meng,

I have a few questions for you in order to be able to dig into answering your original question.

1. Are you doing Vision Acquisition in LabVIEW using the Vision Acquisition driver or a Microsoft DLL?

2. Where did you select the 1920X1440 resolution? In LabVIEW? In NI MAX?

2. If you go into NI MAX can you see the camera?

3. Have you looked to see if there is an HD property in the driver you are using to acquire (similar to how you are toggling that option on in your screen shot)?

[MengHuiHanTang]

1. Are you doing Vision Acquisition in LabVIEW using the Vision Acquisition driver or a Microsoft DLL?

I am using Vision Acquisition in LabVIEW.

2. Where did you select the 1920X1440 resolution? In LabVIEW? In NI MAX?

I did not select, I did not even look in MAX. I simply connect to the camera, configure grab and grab image. I guess the default is 1920X1440.

Like I said, I did not know that Microsoft Camera app could save images with higher resolution. 

2. If you go into NI MAX can you see the camera?

I did not look into MAX. But I enumerated the camera's attributes. In its available Video mode, 1920X1440 is highest resolution.

3. Have you looked to see if there is an HD property in the driver you are using to acquire (similar to how you are toggling that option on in your screen shot)?

I looked through all the camera attributes, but I did not see any property associated with HD. That does not say it does not exist. I might just miss it or look at the wrong places. 

Thanks for your time and help.

[aflojo]

Thank you for the information. Based on looking at the Microsoft specs for that camera and the information below, the Vision Acquisition Driver is most likely interfacing with the camera through a direct show interface. When we are interfacing with third party cameras using direct show we can only change attributes that you are seeing when you enumerate them based on what Microsoft gives us access to (and even then they have to give us read-write access for us to be able to edit the properties). 

Therefore, if you don't see an attribute to toggle on the HD video and the maximum resolution you can set the resolution property is 1920X1440, you are probably not going to be able to use HD Video with the Vision Acquisition software.

I would recommend calling Microsoft and seeing if they have an SDK that you can use to acquire from the camera in HD mode.

[MengHuiHanTang]

Thanks for the explanation. 

[aflojo]

No problem. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions after speaking with Microsoft.