Andromeda FAQ

Before sending questions on support contacts, please check to see if you can find the answer to your question here. This FAQ is continually growing from each version to the next, so check again from time to time.

Why is the image resolution limited to 640x480 pixels?
The limitation has been included in the 1.0 version and is currently under work to be removed, as from version 1.1 already new devices are being tested which permit larger resolutions.

Does Andromeda 1.x support 16 bit depth color channels (48bits per pixel)?
Unfortunately no. This limitation is inherent to the fact that Andromeda was initially designed to work with 24 bit capable devices, such as web cameras. As new features are added throughout the development cycle, it becomes more clear that the support for 48bit depth is necessary in order to offer a better dynamic range in captured images. In one of the future releases (the current release at the time of this writing was 1.2.3) partial or full processing support for 48 bit depth colors and tiff image files will be added. This means that all processing will be done in 48 bit operations for all capturing devices, improving overall dynamic range of results.

Does Andromeda 1.x support tiff file formats?
See above.

(VFW) Why does the capturing stop along with the preview when entering in screensaver mode or when the preview window is hidden behind a different window from my desktop?
The Video For Windows component require (at least in the current configuration) a preview window to be visible in order to capture images from the device, otherwise it considers the device as disabled or not used. Even when the preview window is minimized, it still leave a very small portion to be visible in order to let the capture to continue. Other video acquisition components do not present the same behavior and from version 1.1, you have the choice to use your device through DirectX subsystem.

Will Andromeda have full movie creation support in the future?
Yes, Andromeda will be able in the future to save image sequences directly to avi files in mjpeg encoding. Until this feature will be available, please consult the documentation pages regarding movie creation.

How can I record from two different cameras at the same time?
Simply use two instances of Andromeda. This is also just a limitation in the first version. There are high expectations that in version 2.0 the Andromeda will be capable of capturing and processing images from multiple cameras at the same time, making use of multiple cores in processors.

Andromeda seems a bit lagging when processing images with many settings activated. Is this going to affect the record of the images?
Yes. When your processor is not fast enough to compensate for all the processing required, the resulting images are delayed, therefore when saving frames to disk, they will also present larger intervals between them. But with current capabilities, Andromeda performs well on systems with PIII processors and just 512MB of RAM therefore you should not be worried too much if your acquisition system is a bit newer than that.