Veho Discovery Vms 001 Usb Microscope Drivers

the Veho VMS-001

as used on a Linux PC,

with 'guvcview'

Introduction :

The Veho VMS-001 'USB microscope' is a low-cost (less than $60) microscopethat can be plugged into a USB port on a personal computer to view smallobjects with a 20 to 200 factor of magnification.

There are better microscopes that facilitate precise and non-frustrating focusing(frustration is discussed below), but they generally cost about $170 or more.

The microscope has 8 built-in LED lights that provide good lighting of theobject. There is a dial that can be used to adjust the amount of lightshining on the object.

You can capture still images in the JPEG image file format, and you cancapture videos in the AVI video file format. (You can use software onyour computer to convert the image and video files to other formats.There are many such conversion programs [free] available for the Linuxoperating system.)

You can see some examples of static image captures in theIMAGES section below.

The three main controls on the microscope (other than the double-jointed stand,used to adjust the distance from the microscope aperture to the object of interest)are

• brightness control (dial) for the circle of 8 LED lights
• knurled, rotating built-in cylinder for adjusting focus
• a snapshot button

The snapshot button is rather useless because it moves the microscope whenyou try to take a picture. This is reported to result in fuzzy pictures.It is better to use the image-capture button of the software for youroperating system to capture an image.

You will need the brightness control dial and the knurled focus-knob,but they have the disadvantage of moving the microscope when you try to turn them.Neither of them is easy to turn.

The knurled focusing-knob on mine is especially hard to turn,so if you have spent a lot of time positioning the microscope (with the double-jointedstand) and positioning your specimen (on a slide or jar lid or whatever),it is especially frustrating when you undo the positioning by trying to rotate theknurled knob to focus properly -- or by trying to rotate the brightness dial to changethe lighting.

FEEDBACK to low-cost USB Microscope makers:
You need to put brightness and focus controls on a pad separate from the microscope ---or, at least, you need to make sure that each unit is manufactured so that bothof those dials turn easily -- at a feather touch.

Microscope documentation :

A user manual for the Veho VMS-001 can be seen via this 25-pagePDF file.

In particular, note that the Veho manual says it supports Still captureresolutions of: download free, software for windows.

2560x2048 (5M interpolated),
2000x1600,
1600x1280 (2M non-interpolated),
1280x1024,
1024x960, 1024x768,
800x600,
640x480,
352x288,
320x240,
160x120

And the Veho manual says it supports the same Video capture resolutions.

Unfortunately, many people report that they have only been able to achieve a maxof 640x480 resolution. I have had the same experience (up to 2010 Aug 07) whenusing the 'guvcview' software on Linux (described below)to control image captures.

If I find a combination of parameters that overcomes that limitation, I plan toreport it on this web page.

Here is a video showing a 2 minute demo of the microscope.

Microscope software

The Veho microscope comes with a small CD disc that holds the PDF manual andtwo installations of image capture software: one for MS Windows computers andone for Mac computers.

The Veho manual spends most of its pages describing the use of the user interfacesof these two installations of the image capture software.

Magix sound forge pro 12.0 build 29. Since I use the software on a Linux computer (using Ubuntu 9.10) and since thereis no detailed description of how to use the microscope under Linux, I provide such adesription below, using the 'guvcview' program that is easily installed on UbuntuLinux with a few mouse clicks --- via the 'Ubuntu Software Center' option.

(Before buying the microscope, I found some postings on the internet where peopleannounced that they were able to use the Veho VMS-001 USB microscope on theirLinux machines. For example, the Veho VMS-001 is said to be usable under Linuxat thisreviews page at freelabs.com.)

(By the way, I bought the microscope via phone order atJ and R Inc. of New York City --- $60 in July 2010.)

The image capture information is in the following categories, on this page :

• Viewer-SOFTWARE (for Linux - 'guvcview')
• SCRIPT (for running 'guvcview')
• IMAGES (some sample images captured with 'guvcview')

Instead of using this menu of categories (sections) to go to a sectionand then scanning that section for information, you canuse the 'Find text' option of your web browser to find phrases of interest,such as 'veho' or 'microscope' or 'image' or 'focus' or 'video' or'audio panel' or 'guvcview' or 'script' or '/dev/' or '/bin/' or whatever.

Viewer-SOFTWARE : ('guvcview' on Linux)

Here are images of the three control panels of the 'guvcview' program for Linux:an image panel, a video panel, and an audio panel --- which are accessible inone window.

In addition, there is a separate viewport window in which the still (or moving)image of the microscope subject can be seen.

This is the viewport window that shows the image being
currently captured by the microscope.
If you move the microscope or the subject being viewed,
the image changes instantly.

Here is how I use the panels, to capture still images:

• Since I am not going to make a video with an audio track, I do not use the audio panel at all. And I do not actually use the video panel when capturing still images, but it is appropriate to note that some of the controls for capturing still images are on the video panel. For example: the image resolution control and the specification for a base name (and directory) for the image file(s).

  [NOTE to maintainers of the 'guvcview' program (Nobuhiro Iwamatsu - iwamatsu at debian dot org, in 2010 ---- or to documenter Paulo Assis - pj.assis at gmail dot com): The organization of those options should be changed. Either move them to the Image Control panel --- or move the resolution control to a new panel that provides controls that are applicable to both still image capture and video image capture.]

• Once I get the image lined up - with magnification, focus, and brightness set - I simply click on the 'Cap. Image' button at the bottom of the 'GUVCViewer Controls' window.

• I have it set so the image goes into a subdirectory of my home directory called 'MICROSCOPE' --- usually with a filename like 'Image-3.jpg'. I navigate to that directory (using the Nautilus file manager, available in Ubuntu Linux) and right-click on the filename to select an application to edit the image file.

  I like to use an image processing program called 'mtpaint' to crop the file --- and, if necessary, adjust the brightness of the image using the 'Gamma correction' option of the 'Transform colors' option in 'mtpaint'. You can also do things like 'invert' the image to change a dark-on-light image to a light-on-dark image. I have started a web page with helpful hints on how to use 'mtpaint'.

  You will typically also rename the file and move it to an appropriate directory.

Launching 'guvcview' :

To startup 'guvcview' so that it recognizes the USB microscope (instead ofa web cam or other video device) --- and so that it is ready to take stillimages rather than video, I made a startup script called 'guvc.sh'.

I will describe the script contents in another section below. You can simplyhighlight and paste that code into your own script file on your own Linux computer.

When one has the script file ready,it is easy to make an icon on your desktop to launch the script --- whichimmediately brings up the 'guvcview' control panel window and theviewport window. The viewport window immediately shows the image that the microscopeis capturing.

(The following images, that show how to make the desktop icon, were captured on anUbuntu 9.10 PC, using the Gnome desktop environment.)

You simply right-click on the (Gnome) desktop and choose the 'Create Launcher ..' optionfrom the popup menu. Here is an image of that popup menu.

When you choose 'Create Launcher..', you are presented with this Create Launcherpanel, in which you enter a name for your icon and the fully-qualified name ofthe script file that you want to launch by double-clicking on the desktop icon.

Here is the help that you get for 'guvcview' by entering the command'guvcview -h' at a command prompt in a terminal window on Linux: Samsung m7603.

The 'man' help that you get by using the command 'man guvcview' is slightlydifferent from the built-in help. For easy reference, I make that 'man-help' available inthis 'man-help' text file.

You can sometimes get additional insight into parameters used by a program by applying theLinux/Unix 'strings' command to the executable --- to see the human-readable stringsin the executable. For easy reference, I make the output of the 'strings /usr/bin/guvcview'command available inthis 'strings' text file.

As a further note on the run-parameters of 'guvcview':

I found that the 'guvcview' program saves its default run parameters (and changes that youmake to them when you use the program) in 'rc' (run control) hidden files in your homedirectory. In fact, for a video device assigned to /dev/video0, 'guvcview' createsa '.guvcviewrc' file. And if there is a second video device assigned to /dev/video1,'guvcview' creates a '.guvcviewrc-video1' file.

In my case, the /dev/video0 device corresponded to a USB webcam -- a Logitech C500.And the /dev/video1 device corresponded to the Veho USB microscope.

For easy reference, here is a sample image of a '.guvcviewrc-video1' file which corresponded to the Veho VMS-001 USB microscope.

For completeness, here is a sample image of a '.guvcviewrc' file which corresponded to the Logitech C500 webcam.

I see that, in the '.guvcviewrc-video1' file, there is a 'sound=' parameter thatcan be set to 0 or 1. There does not seem to be such a parameter option via theguvcview command line options. It would be handy to specify something like '-a 0'to indicate that no sound recording is wanted. The initialization messages comingfrom 'guvcview' indicate that it spends a little processing time, during startup,trying to determine if sound recording should be done.

Here is a sample of 'guvcview' messages from when the program starts up. Note thatthere are four

'bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)'

messages at the beginning, indicating thatthe progam is trying to setup sound recording.

I use several of the 'guvcview' command-line parameters ---notably '-d', '-s', '-m', and '-t' ---to formulate the 'guvcview' command within the launcher script. See the scriptin the next section.

SCRIPT : (for running 'guvcview')

Here is an image of the script that I am using to run 'guvcview' with suitablestartup parameters.

The bottom part of the script, after the 'exit' statement, is simply comment linesto help me remember what I did --- and what I might want to try in the future.

You can paste this code into your own script file on your PC. Remember to makethe script executable. For example: you can use the command

chmod 755 guvc.sh

at terminal window command prompt --- after positioning yourself in the directoryin which you placed the script file.

Alternatively, if you are using the Nautilus file manager, you can right-clickon the 'guvc.sh' file, choose 'Properties', and use the 'Permissions' panelto make the file executable.

Happy image capturing!

IMAGES :
(showing the quality of images at various powers - 20 to 200)

End of a paper clip (20x)

Middle of a paper clip (20x)

Fingernail (20x)

Mousepad material (20x)

Part of label on the surface of a camera chip (40x).
Note the two bright white spots on the right.
That is the reflection from 2 of the 8 LED lights
surrounding the aperture of the microscope.

A grain of salt (200x).
This is 'Sale marino fino' (fine sea salt),
brand name: 'Masserie di Sant'eramo', from Italy.

Note that there is a 'depth of field' effect.
That is, the salt crystal is so 'tall' that
parts of the crystal (at a certain level) are
in focus, while other levels are out of focus.

For contrast, the salt was put on a dark background
(an inverted black plastic lid of a tennis ball can).
The background may look bluish because of the LED lights.

Introduction :

The Veho VMS-001 'USB microscope' is a low-cost (less than $60) microscopethat can be plugged into a USB port on a personal computer to view smallobjects with a 20 to 200 factor of magnification.

There are better microscopes that facilitate precise and non-frustrating focusing(frustration is discussed below), but they generally cost about $170 or more.

The microscope has 8 built-in LED lights that provide good lighting of theobject. There is a dial that can be used to adjust the amount of lightshining on the object.

You can capture still images in the JPEG image file format, and you cancapture videos in the AVI video file format. (You can use software onyour computer to convert the image and video files to other formats.There are many such conversion programs [free] available for the Linuxoperating system.)

You can see some examples of static image captures in theIMAGES section below.

The three main controls on the microscope (other than the double-jointed stand,used to adjust the distance from the microscope aperture to the object of interest)are

• brightness control (dial) for the circle of 8 LED lights
• knurled, rotating built-in cylinder for adjusting focus
• a snapshot button

The snapshot button is rather useless because it moves the microscope whenyou try to take a picture. This is reported to result in fuzzy pictures.It is better to use the image-capture button of the software for youroperating system to capture an image.

You will need the brightness control dial and the knurled focus-knob,but they have the disadvantage of moving the microscope when you try to turn them.Neither of them is easy to turn.

The knurled focusing-knob on mine is especially hard to turn,so if you have spent a lot of time positioning the microscope (with the double-jointedstand) and positioning your specimen (on a slide or jar lid or whatever),it is especially frustrating when you undo the positioning by trying to rotate theknurled knob to focus properly -- or by trying to rotate the brightness dial to changethe lighting.

FEEDBACK to low-cost USB Microscope makers:
You need to put brightness and focus controls on a pad separate from the microscope ---or, at least, you need to make sure that each unit is manufactured so that bothof those dials turn easily -- at a feather touch.

Microscope documentation :

A user manual for the Veho VMS-001 can be seen via this 25-pagePDF file.

In particular, note that the Veho manual says it supports Still captureresolutions of: download free, software for windows.

2560x2048 (5M interpolated),
2000x1600,
1600x1280 (2M non-interpolated),
1280x1024,
1024x960, 1024x768,
800x600,
640x480,
352x288,
320x240,
160x120

And the Veho manual says it supports the same Video capture resolutions.

Unfortunately, many people report that they have only been able to achieve a maxof 640x480 resolution. I have had the same experience (up to 2010 Aug 07) whenusing the 'guvcview' software on Linux (described below)to control image captures.

If I find a combination of parameters that overcomes that limitation, I plan toreport it on this web page.

Here is a video showing a 2 minute demo of the microscope.

Microscope software

The Veho microscope comes with a small CD disc that holds the PDF manual andtwo installations of image capture software: one for MS Windows computers andone for Mac computers.

The Veho manual spends most of its pages describing the use of the user interfacesof these two installations of the image capture software.

Magix sound forge pro 12.0 build 29. Since I use the software on a Linux computer (using Ubuntu 9.10) and since thereis no detailed description of how to use the microscope under Linux, I provide such adesription below, using the 'guvcview' program that is easily installed on UbuntuLinux with a few mouse clicks --- via the 'Ubuntu Software Center' option.

(Before buying the microscope, I found some postings on the internet where peopleannounced that they were able to use the Veho VMS-001 USB microscope on theirLinux machines. For example, the Veho VMS-001 is said to be usable under Linuxat thisreviews page at freelabs.com.)

(By the way, I bought the microscope via phone order atJ and R Inc. of New York City --- $60 in July 2010.)

The image capture information is in the following categories, on this page :

• Viewer-SOFTWARE (for Linux - 'guvcview')
• SCRIPT (for running 'guvcview')
• IMAGES (some sample images captured with 'guvcview')

Instead of using this menu of categories (sections) to go to a sectionand then scanning that section for information, you canuse the 'Find text' option of your web browser to find phrases of interest,such as 'veho' or 'microscope' or 'image' or 'focus' or 'video' or'audio panel' or 'guvcview' or 'script' or '/dev/' or '/bin/' or whatever.

Viewer-SOFTWARE : ('guvcview' on Linux)

Here are images of the three control panels of the 'guvcview' program for Linux:an image panel, a video panel, and an audio panel --- which are accessible inone window.

In addition, there is a separate viewport window in which the still (or moving)image of the microscope subject can be seen.

This is the viewport window that shows the image being
currently captured by the microscope.
If you move the microscope or the subject being viewed,
the image changes instantly.

Here is how I use the panels, to capture still images:

• Since I am not going to make a video with an audio track, I do not use the audio panel at all. And I do not actually use the video panel when capturing still images, but it is appropriate to note that some of the controls for capturing still images are on the video panel. For example: the image resolution control and the specification for a base name (and directory) for the image file(s).

  [NOTE to maintainers of the 'guvcview' program (Nobuhiro Iwamatsu - iwamatsu at debian dot org, in 2010 ---- or to documenter Paulo Assis - pj.assis at gmail dot com): The organization of those options should be changed. Either move them to the Image Control panel --- or move the resolution control to a new panel that provides controls that are applicable to both still image capture and video image capture.]

• Once I get the image lined up - with magnification, focus, and brightness set - I simply click on the 'Cap. Image' button at the bottom of the 'GUVCViewer Controls' window.

• I have it set so the image goes into a subdirectory of my home directory called 'MICROSCOPE' --- usually with a filename like 'Image-3.jpg'. I navigate to that directory (using the Nautilus file manager, available in Ubuntu Linux) and right-click on the filename to select an application to edit the image file.

  I like to use an image processing program called 'mtpaint' to crop the file --- and, if necessary, adjust the brightness of the image using the 'Gamma correction' option of the 'Transform colors' option in 'mtpaint'. You can also do things like 'invert' the image to change a dark-on-light image to a light-on-dark image. I have started a web page with helpful hints on how to use 'mtpaint'.

  You will typically also rename the file and move it to an appropriate directory.

Launching 'guvcview' :

To startup 'guvcview' so that it recognizes the USB microscope (instead ofa web cam or other video device) --- and so that it is ready to take stillimages rather than video, I made a startup script called 'guvc.sh'.

I will describe the script contents in another section below. You can simplyhighlight and paste that code into your own script file on your own Linux computer.

When one has the script file ready,it is easy to make an icon on your desktop to launch the script --- whichimmediately brings up the 'guvcview' control panel window and theviewport window. The viewport window immediately shows the image that the microscopeis capturing.

(The following images, that show how to make the desktop icon, were captured on anUbuntu 9.10 PC, using the Gnome desktop environment.)

You simply right-click on the (Gnome) desktop and choose the 'Create Launcher ..' optionfrom the popup menu. Here is an image of that popup menu.

When you choose 'Create Launcher..', you are presented with this Create Launcherpanel, in which you enter a name for your icon and the fully-qualified name ofthe script file that you want to launch by double-clicking on the desktop icon.

Here is the help that you get for 'guvcview' by entering the command'guvcview -h' at a command prompt in a terminal window on Linux: Samsung m7603.

The 'man' help that you get by using the command 'man guvcview' is slightlydifferent from the built-in help. For easy reference, I make that 'man-help' available inthis 'man-help' text file.

You can sometimes get additional insight into parameters used by a program by applying theLinux/Unix 'strings' command to the executable --- to see the human-readable stringsin the executable. For easy reference, I make the output of the 'strings /usr/bin/guvcview'command available inthis 'strings' text file.

As a further note on the run-parameters of 'guvcview':

I found that the 'guvcview' program saves its default run parameters (and changes that youmake to them when you use the program) in 'rc' (run control) hidden files in your homedirectory. In fact, for a video device assigned to /dev/video0, 'guvcview' createsa '.guvcviewrc' file. And if there is a second video device assigned to /dev/video1,'guvcview' creates a '.guvcviewrc-video1' file.

In my case, the /dev/video0 device corresponded to a USB webcam -- a Logitech C500.And the /dev/video1 device corresponded to the Veho USB microscope.

For easy reference, here is a sample image of a '.guvcviewrc-video1' file which corresponded to the Veho VMS-001 USB microscope.

For completeness, here is a sample image of a '.guvcviewrc' file which corresponded to the Logitech C500 webcam.

I see that, in the '.guvcviewrc-video1' file, there is a 'sound=' parameter thatcan be set to 0 or 1. There does not seem to be such a parameter option via theguvcview command line options. It would be handy to specify something like '-a 0'to indicate that no sound recording is wanted. The initialization messages comingfrom 'guvcview' indicate that it spends a little processing time, during startup,trying to determine if sound recording should be done.

Here is a sample of 'guvcview' messages from when the program starts up. Note thatthere are four

'bt_audio_service_open: connect() failed: Connection refused (111)'

messages at the beginning, indicating thatthe progam is trying to setup sound recording.

I use several of the 'guvcview' command-line parameters ---notably '-d', '-s', '-m', and '-t' ---to formulate the 'guvcview' command within the launcher script. See the scriptin the next section.

SCRIPT : (for running 'guvcview')

Here is an image of the script that I am using to run 'guvcview' with suitablestartup parameters.

The bottom part of the script, after the 'exit' statement, is simply comment linesto help me remember what I did --- and what I might want to try in the future.

You can paste this code into your own script file on your PC. Remember to makethe script executable. For example: you can use the command

chmod 755 guvc.sh

at terminal window command prompt --- after positioning yourself in the directoryin which you placed the script file.

Alternatively, if you are using the Nautilus file manager, you can right-clickon the 'guvc.sh' file, choose 'Properties', and use the 'Permissions' panelto make the file executable.

Happy image capturing!

IMAGES :
(showing the quality of images at various powers - 20 to 200)

End of a paper clip (20x)

Middle of a paper clip (20x)

Fingernail (20x)

Mousepad material (20x)

Part of label on the surface of a camera chip (40x).
Note the two bright white spots on the right.
That is the reflection from 2 of the 8 LED lights
surrounding the aperture of the microscope.

A grain of salt (200x).
This is 'Sale marino fino' (fine sea salt),
brand name: 'Masserie di Sant'eramo', from Italy.

Note that there is a 'depth of field' effect.
That is, the salt crystal is so 'tall' that
parts of the crystal (at a certain level) are
in focus, while other levels are out of focus.

For contrast, the salt was put on a dark background
(an inverted black plastic lid of a tennis ball can).
The background may look bluish because of the LED lights.

Bottom of this
Microscope - USB digital - Veho VMS-001 page--- with info on how to use the microscope on a Linux PC using the'guvcview' software.

To return to a previously visited web page location, click on theBack button of your web browser, a sufficient number of times.OR, use the History-list option of your web browser.
OR ..

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Page was created 2010 Aug 07.
Page was changed 2011 Jun 06.
Page was changed 2018 Dec 18.
(Added css and javascript to try to handle text-size forsmartphones, esp. in portrait orientation.)