pwc
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [pwc] Which image-grab program?

To: Philips Webcam Linux Driver <>
Subject: Re: [pwc] Which image-grab program?
From: "Jameson C. Burt" <>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 22:39:56 -0400
I use  "vgrabbj",  which is a separate package in Debian Linux.
For example, I might enter 
   vgrabbj   -q 50   -i sif  -d /dev/video0   -f /tmp/vicam.jpg
I have yet to see vgrabbj packaged correctly to add timestamps,
though it has most everything for this.
I once profligately spent my time getting fonts for the vgrabbj timestamp,
but I skip this on all computers since.

Another VERY nice application is
   camserv
With this, you can serve images from another computer thru a port; initially 
9192,
and capture it by mozilla or wget on any other computer.
One contributor to LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) laboriously added 
camserv
so he could serv his webcam from a diskless/floppyless handsized computer over 
ethernet.

>From one central computer in my house, I pickup the camserv webcams with
/usr/bin/wget   http://mango:9192/singleframe   --output-document 
/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam1.jpg
and combine 5 of them into a 3x2 grid of webcams as one big 50KB jpg image,
/usr/bin/montage   -tile 3x2   -geometry +1+1   -background "#861"   -quality 
75  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam1.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam1.jpg 
  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam2.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam2.jpg 
  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam3.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam3.jpg 
  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam4.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam4.jpg 
  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam5.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam5.jpg 
  \
   -label  "@/var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam6.txt"   /var/www/webcam/tmp/webcam6.jpg 
  \
   /var/www/webcam/tmp/montage.jpg

The camserv package could use more documentation,
and its example config file could be more clear.
Yet it's the best webcam server over ports that I have found.

You would correctly infer that my shell script does more than I mention here.

So, I use "vgrabbj" on my local computer,
and wget to grab webcams served by "camserv" daemons on other local computers,
creating a large jpg montage of webcams.
I serve these with Apache with the early shell command in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
  echo "Content-type: multipart/x-mixed-replace;boundary=HereItComes
so I serve the montage of webcam images several times (actually every 20 
seconds for 4 times).

All this is wonderful, magical.
I very much thank the pwc writers and maniacs.
I have a Vicam (3Com HomeConnect), which is purportedly better than Philips 
webcams,
but its kernel version still has no gain (automatic gain control), 
so my $200 CCD 3Com HomeConnect works no better than a cheap $20 CMOS webcam.





On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 02:08:58PM +0200, Steve wrote:
> I'm using PWC with a Logitech 4000. I need a utility to simply grab and save 
> a 
> JPG from the camera - something that could be called from within a shell 
> script. What would people recommend.
> 
> (Incidentally, grabbing always fails in xawtv - don't know why).
> _______________________________________________
> pwc mailing list
> 
> http://lists.saillard.org/mailman/listinfo/pwc

-- 
Jameson C. Burt, NJ9L   Fairfax, Virginia, USA
       http://www.coost.com
(202) 690-0380 (work)

LTSP.org:  magic "mysterious and awe-inspiring even though
                  we know they are real and not supernatural"
_______________________________________________
pwc mailing list

http://lists.saillard.org/mailman/listinfo/pwc

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

Disclaimer: Neither Andrew Taylor nor the University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering take any responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU