New Capture Software Version

A brief outage today from 10:03 until 11:17 was caused by an upgrade of the capture software. The new version has no effect on the captured web image, but only provides some improvements for the GUI. There is now an optional real-size preview, showing exactly the image that was captured. Earlier versions had a scaled down preview which fits on the small Dialog window.
A problem had occured in handling the video property pages. It appears that parameters that have been set within the property pages are lost when the video device is opened again. A work-around has been implemented avoiding multiple initialisations of the video.

Anyway, it works fine now :)

New Webcam: 1280x1024 capture

The previous webcam has now been replaced by the Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000. This camera has a much larger wideangle field of view, which now allows to see the front of the James Graham building (to the right) and part of the Acre (to the left). It also can capture at a high resolution: it is currently set to the maximum at 1280 x 1024 pixels.

Image from the MS LifeCam VX-6000:



Image from Philips ToUcam Pro:



Image from the Philips SPC 200NC camera (here only 320x240):



Also, the capture software is constantly being revised and updated, as the development for this tool provides me with additional code for other projects. The current revision 104 allows to select a camera from a set of connected cameras, makes accessible the property pages, and allows to set a compressor.

Change of Camera

Yesterday I connected again the Philips ToUcam Pro to the video capture. It provides a better image quality, despite the problem with the vertical stripes in high contrast. Right now the weather is foggy and hazy, so not much contrast.

The new version of the video capture software was extended to include the property pages. This now allows again to set the image size. These past few days it has been set at 320x240; now it is set to 640x480.

Setting up a Microsoft LiveCam VX-6000 did not work yet, as the USB cable is too long, and as a consequence too little power arrives at the camera (needs 500 mA at 5V). I will have to add a USB power booster. This camera would allow 1280x1024 image capture, at a much better quality than the current capture.

New Version of Capture Software

I have rewritten the complete capture software for grabbing the webcam image and ftp-ing it to the web server. This was necessary, as the old code in Visual C++ v.6 become difficult to handle. Also, I wanted finally to have a video capture class in C# for my further software development activities.

For the webcam functionality and the outer web interface there is no difference: the image is captured as before and uploaded to the server.

Only on my desktop there is a difference: instead of a separate capture window (from the old VideoForWindows preview window) there is now the preview included into the GUI of the main window. The tabbed controls look much cleaner now. The FTP client shows status messages. And I do now have C# classes for video capture and FTP upload.

Hopefully this new version runs as reliable as the previous version!

Change of Camera

The web cam which had been used since the server has been set up, displayed some visual artefacts in areas of high contrast. I have now replaced this camera with another one which does not seem to have this problem. Unfortunately, the image quality is more blurry than the precious camera, and the lens has a smaller aperture angle, which means that a smaller segment is shown. But it seems to have a backlight compensation, which may be useful in the evenings when the camera points in the direction of the sun.

Webcam up again

After the crash of my PC last week, I now have a new one. The boot HD had failed, for some unexplainable reason. Got the new PC yesterday, and today I set up the camera capture.
There is an inexplicable problem: the newer versions of the camera capture software do not work anymore: no video device is being recognised. Strangely enough, the version 1.6 from 7.April 2008 (exactly one year ago) works just fine. So I am reverting to running that one, before I identify and fix the problems of the latest version. The frame rate is now set to 2 minutes, to keep the likelihood for potential problems down. Will be increased when a stable camera capture will have been developed.

I hope to leave the camera running over the Easter holiday.

Happy Easter to everyone!