Panasonic PTZ Controls in Isadora

[Elena]

Dear Community,

I have recently got a Panasonic AW-40HE PTZ camera and I would like to know if it is possible to set up the control interface without having to buy a joystick.

I know the camera doesn't allow to use of the VISCA protocol because it goes through RS-422.

I found the protocol instructions here.

I understand I need the NDI | HX license, here.

What I don't understand is, how do I create an interface in Isadora in order to be able to do what the visca interface does. So to create pre-sets and pan/tilt/zoom with sliders from a midi controller?

I don't need to be that precise with the sliders, it will only be a qualitative motion. I will leave the precision to the presets. 

I found another chat on this, about a template from @liminal_andy but I am not sure there was a follow on this.

Is there anyone with advice on this?

Many thanks

Elena

[Woland]

@elena said:

I found the protocol instructions here.

 I can't open this link, but I think you should be able to roll your own User Actor with the Serial actors and use Data Array to store and recall presets.

[Elena]

@woland

It is the link to the license to open NDI communication

I don't know why it doesn't let me post here.

Serial actors and Data array. Can you help me to address this add-on? It's my first time with URL, and IP addresses and I am quite a beginner.

Thanks

elena

[DusX]

@elena said:

Can you help me to address this add-on?

 Can you confirm that this link is to the specification you mentioned: https://eww.pass.panasonic.co.... ?

Looking at that document, it appears you can control the device by sending HTTP requests to structured URLs.
So you should be able to use the 'Get/Post URL Text' actor in the default get mode.
On page 8 of the pdf, it suggests that the URL structure: http://[IP Address]/cgi-bin/aw_ptz?cmd=[Command]&res=[Type]
will allow you to control the device. There are a number of URL examples on that page, as well the Placeholders [IP Address], [Command], and [Type] are defined.
Once you know the IP address of the unit it should be a matter of building the URL, entering it into the URL input of the 'Get/Post URL Text' actor and triggering Go.
Once sent, the device will respond with a text message that you will get from the 'url text' ouput of the 'Get/Post URL Text' actor.  (200 OK... means it worked)

On page 11 we can see some commands for turning on/off the device, with an example URL to reference.
NOTE: something that might be confusing is how the Command (made of the Command + Data text) needs to be URL encoded for the URL text.
In the table on page 11 we see:
The Power On control Command text is "#0"
and the Data value for On is "1"
So we might expect to put "#01" in the URL, however, this needs to be URL encoded. Once encoded it is "%2301"
so the URL to turn on the device is: 

http://[IP Address]/cgi-bin/aw_ptz?cmd=%23O1&res=1

and the URL for turning it off is

http://[IP Address]/cgi-bin/aw_ptz?cmd=%23OO&res=1

Luckily there are many free tools online to URL encode text for you. I used https://www.urlencoder.org/

OR you can easily use the Javascript actor to create a tool for quick encoding in Isadora

This script is all you need in the javascript actor to encode a text input into URL encoded Text.

// iz_input 1 "Text"
// iz_output 1 "URL encoded"
function main()
{
    var value = arguments[0]
    var encodedValue = encodeURIComponent(value)
    return encodedValue;
}

I hope this gets you started.