xapmcsImage Image/RSS for Digital Frames

[bdickhaus]

Michael,

I finally got around to picking up one of the Kodak frames. There is something fundamentally wrong as I can't get a basic radar image to work (the example you have in your documentation). This is the debug output I get:

12/2/2010 7:57:01 PM - mcs.Image.CALADAN> - doimage image|800|480|0|0| line 0 object reference not set to an instance of an object.
12/2/2010 7:57:13 PM - mcs.Image.CALADAN> - rss task=3, line=image line 0 object reference not set to an instance of an object.
12/2/2010 7:57:26 PM - mcs.Image.CALADAN> - rss task=3, line=image line 0 empty path name is not legal.

Bill

[bdickhaus]

I got past the first problem, but now I have this one.

12/4/2010 10:58:17 AM | 12/4/2010 10:58:17 AM | xapmcsImage Graphics Save A generic error occurred in GDI+. Line 192 A generic error occurred in GDI+.


I originally tried this on my Pro100, then on a Windows 7 system. Same result. The RSS1.xml file is being created. If I copy and rename another graphic file into the HTML directory, the "feed" works.

Here is my ini file:

[GENERAL]
AliasOnly=
Background=Black
Database=
DebugLog=1
DefaultHeight=480
DefaultWidth=800
DisableNewDevices=
HeaderLinks=xapmcsImage\Links.htm
HTTPPort=8026
RSSFolder=C:\users\hs\xapHTML
SegmentFilter1=""
SegmentFilter10=""
SegmentFilter11=""
SegmentFilter12=""
SegmentFilter2=""
SegmentFilter3=""
SegmentFilter4=""
SegmentFilter5=""
SegmentFilter6=""
SegmentFilter7=""
SegmentFilter8=""
SegmentFilter9=""
ServerURL=192.168.0.2:8026
SQLSource=
StyleSheet=xapmcsImage\StyleNoBody.css
UseSQL=0
[RSS_1]
000100=Canvas;;;30;;
000101=URL;;http://maps.weather.com/web/radar/us...ge_usen.jpg;;;
000102=Crop;620;370;0;60;
000103=Image;800;480;0;0;
000105=;;;;;
[RSS_2]
000200=;;;;;
000201=;;;;;
000202=;;;;;
000203=;;;;;
000204=;;;;;
000205=;;;;;
000206=;;;;;
000207=;;;;;
000208=;;;;;
000209=;;;;;
000211=;;;;;

Bill

[Michael McSharry]

I used you .ini file and had no problems after I changed the download site to

http://maps.weather.com/web/radar/us_sea_closeradar_large_usen.jpg

What I did do is refresh the download to be current with what I am running. You can redownload and replace. I also added debug on the line 192 error to include the filename in the message it was trying to write. I suspect the target location may be the issue, or it could be that NewBitMap is null or something. Hard to guess at a "generic" error.

192:            NewBitmap.Save(sFileOut, ImageFormat.Jpeg)

For you reference I'm also attaching my current .ini file with some addresses and passwords x'd out. While it will not work very well on your system since you do not have the same xAP addressess etc, it does provide a reference. What works pretty well are the two .gif feeds for weather map to provide the time-lapsed display on the frame. For this you will want your frame to be set to redraw every 3 seconds which is the fastest it will do.

[bdickhaus]

Thanks, Michael, it was a permissions thing and adding the file path to the debug pointed me in the right direction. Here is the log entry:

12/4/2010 6:48:25 PM - mcs.Image.PRO100-0 - graphics save \\pro100-03\d\program files\xap\xapmcsimage\html\rssitem1_0.jpg a generic error occurred in gdi+. line 192 a generic error occurred in gdi+.

I don't have the drives shared at this point other than D$. I added a share called "D" for drive D and it started working.

And thanks also for the examples of how you use this. I'm going to dig into that later tonight.

Bill

[Uncle Michael]

I have not used the folder share for any of my testing so I do not have good information on the timing for this mode of operation. I believe that those that use Jon00's scripts to build an image will typically use this mode of operation where the shared folder contains only one file and this file updated by Homeseer. This discussion identified that the file date needed to be changed for the frame to use it rather than the one in its cache. While I do not know, I suspect that the firmware will look at all of its sources for changes at the same polling interval, but this is only a guess.

The bottom line is that I do not think the Kodak frame can be used to display event information where you expect response times measured in seconds.

Sorry to be late to the discussion, but I just stumbled on this exchange.

I've been using the Kodak frame with file sharing for some time. One of my uses is to overly the routine images with a message pane that displays alert messages of various kinds. I've also started using the same space to display now playing information from my music system.

In my experience, it only takes a few seconds from the time I store the updated image until the frame retrieves it. I have several images that cycle, each is displayed for 10 or 15 sec. The message pane is always updated on the next image change. I make no changes other than to store a new image with the same file name.