libptp2 and ptpcam for RICOH THETA camera control with a USB cable

You may want to consider libgphoto2 as it is a newer code base that is actively maintained. libgphoto2 also does not require libusb-compat and will compile against libusb-1.0-0-dev.

More information is here.

This is based on ptpcam.

Original project page.

Modifications

• support for USB 3.0 SuperSpeed USB (SS), though it's not clear if the THETA Z1 USB3.0 implementation supports this speed - by nickel110
• support for video file transfer greater than 4GB - by nickel110
• autoconf version and configuration files updated to make it easier to modify code on Ubuntu 20.04 and 18.04
• some unused code for non-THETA cameras deleted to make the code easier to edit
• PTP_VENDOR_THETA added with 0x00000006, which was previously assigned to PTP_VENDOR_MICROSOFT
• recovery and retry to wake from sleep - by nickel110, commit
• as of October, 2021, --reset-delay is deprecated and replaced by the recovery and retry patch from nickel110

libusb-1.0 library

I like to use libusb-1.0 instead of installing the older libusb-0.1. In order to compile with libusb-1.0, I use the libusb-compat package which presents the API for the older libusb to the current libusb-1.0. Make sure you run sudo ldconfig after installing a library. /usr/local/lib should be in your /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libc.conf path. You can confirm this with cat /etc/ld.so.d/conf/libc.conf. If it is not in your library path, add the line /usr/local/lib to the file.

Installation

On Ubuntu 20.04 x86 and JetPack 4.6 NVIDIA Jetson (Ubuntu 18.04).

$ sudo apt install libusb-dev
$ sudo apt install automake-1.15  # on ubuntu 20.04
or
$ sudo apt install automake   # JetPack 4.6 or Ubuntu 18.04
$ cd theta_libptp2
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig -v 

If the build fails, try the following.

$ autoreconf -i
$ ./configure
# if on Ubuntu 22.04 run aclocal prior to automake
$ automake
$ make

# if you don't have a build system installed, you may need some basic 
# tools

$ sudo apt install build-essential
$ sudo apt install libtool
$ sudo apt install automake
...

Test with RICOH THETA

Connect camera to computer with USB cable. For most commands, the camera needs to be on, not in sleep mode.

get camera info

theta --info

THETA Device Info
==================
Model: RICOH THETA Z1
  manufacturer: Ricoh Company, Ltd.
  serial number: '10010104'
  device version: 2.10.3
  extension ID: 0x00000006
  image formats supported: 0x00000005
  extension version: 0x006e

Wake RICOH THETA from sleep

 theta --set-property=0xD80E --val=0x00

See this post if you are having problems putting the camera to sleep or waking it up from sleep.

See this YouTube video on the modifications and testing.

Put Camera in Still Image Mode

 theta --set-property=0x5013 --val=0x0001

Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
'Still Capture Mode' is set to: 0x8005 (-32763)
Changing property value to 0x0001 [(null)] succeeded.

Take Picture

$ theta --capture

Initiating capture...
Object added 0x00000017
Capture completed successfully!

List Devices

Only one device attached at the moment. You can use this to get the device ID of a particular camera.

theta --list-devices

Listing devices...
bus/dev	vendorID/prodID	device model
001/013	0x05CA/0x2716	RICOH THETA Z1

Put into live streaming mode

theta --set-property=0x5013 --val=0x8005

Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
'Still Capture Mode' is set to: [Normal]
Changing property value to 0x8005 [(null)] succeeded.

Put camera to sleep

theta --set-property=0xd80e --val=0x01

Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
'UNKNOWN' is set to: 0
Changing property value to 0x01 [(null)] succeeded.

List Files

theta --list-files

Listing files...
Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
Handler:           Size: 	Captured:      	name:
0x00000091:      8028786	2022-11-17 19:19	R0010085.JPG

file transfer of 2.2GB video file with no problem

$ theta --get-all-files
Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
Skipping file: "R0010085.JPG", file exists!
Saving file: "R0010086.MP4" 
is done.
craig@jetpack-4:~/Documents/tmp$ 
craig@jetpack-4:~/Documents/tmp$ ls -l
total 2182384
-rwxr----- 1 craig craig    8028786 Nov 17  2022 R0010085.JPG
-rwxr----- 1 craig craig 2226722795 Nov 17  2022 R0010086.MP4

Delete File

theta --delete-object=0x00000092

Object 0x00000092 (R0010086.MP4) deleted.
craig@jetpack-4:~/Documents/tmp$ theta --list-files

Listing files...
Camera: RICOH THETA Z1
Handler:           Size: 	Captured:      	name:
0x00000091:      8028786	2022-11-17 19:19	R0010085.JPG

Credit

• libptp2 (c)2001-2006 Mariusz Woloszyn [email protected]
• ptpcam (c)2001-2006 Mariusz Woloszyn [email protected]

Action Shot of NVIDIA Jetson with RICOH THETA Z1

TH-3 Case has a port for the USB cable that is connected to a Jetson with Jetpack 4.6

Compiling with libusb-1.0 using libusb-compat

To compile against libusb-1.0 instead of libusb-0.1, I am using libusb-compat.

• libusb-compat-0.1

After installing compatibility layer.

craig@jetpack-4:/usr/local/lib$ ls -l libusb*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 Nov 17 10:01 libusb-0.1.so.4 -> libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  75896 Nov 17 10:01 libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 149794 Nov 17 10:01 libusb.a
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    941 Nov 17 10:01 libusb.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 Nov 17 10:01 libusb.so -> libusb-0.1.so.4.4.4

Community Discussion

There are many discussions about the USB API on the .guide forum.

For information on a test I did with the NVIDIA Jetson with Jetpack 4.6 and libusb-1.0, see the topic below. Please ask questions on the forum.

• NVIDIA Jetson and USB API for RICOH THETA