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SnyperBob
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 629
Location: Illinois |
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 Camera/Heads Up Display Support |
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I'm not sure if this has been done in other programs/packages but this is something I just thought of
What about some sort of video camera support. I don't know if it's possible (yes anything is possible I know), but have cameras set up in vCrib.
If there is motion on a camera, it pops up a small window or something on part of the screen. You can click on the window to full screen or something and see what's going on. I know this could get annoying if you have like 4 windows popping up all of the time, but if done properly it could be handy.
Maybe have an active area on the display screen. It normally displays the weather forecast. Possibly have it display active music playing if you're streaming whole house music. Movement is detected in the backyard and it toggles to that camera for a set number of seconds or something. If you don't click to see what it is, it'll toggle back to weather or music display.
Some more ideas for the 'active area' or heads up area of the screen. A call comes in and the caller ID displays the phone number in that area. Or you can stream the news video or something in this area and have the audio going over the house.
I'm just trying to think of more ways to make the visual aspect of vCrib more useful. Yes, it's useful for us geeks, but for a guest looking at the display, they won't find sensors and stuff changing states on the display cool. If you had TV or video popping up it would be hawt.
Is this possible in terms of bogging down the machine or something? If you're running and toggling all kinds of stuff, would that just eat up the CPU or something?
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| Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:20 pm |
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SnyperBob
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 629
Location: Illinois |
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Here's kind of what I'm thinking. It looks like you already have support for a video event box. I haven't gotten more than 1 minute thru the tutorial video, so maybe you explained that more.
I'll check that out after posting. So first screen is the initial map/weather display. Then if there is media running (TV) it would look like the second screen shot. Third screen shot is what it would look like if there was motion on a security cam....
I think this will add a new dimension to the program. For instance, if I have a smaller 7 inch touchscreen in the kitchen displaying vcrib. If I'm watching TV it will look like screenshot 2 above. I can just click the TV box and it will full screen, allowing me to watch TV in the kitchen.
Likewise, if I have a smaller screen and there's motion on a camera, I can click it and view it easily.
I definately realize this would be a huge undertaking to add, but what do you think about the idea? I just think that vCrib would be most useful if it could be run/used with any size screen, not a huge 19" monitor.
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| Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:59 pm |
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CribKeeper
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 652
Location: Overland Park, KS |
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I am not sure if anyone is interested in event video. I almost pulled it out, but decided to leave it for a bit.
As for webcams, I have code ready for vCrib that I am using in my turret application. It is missing Source Enumeration, so as soon as I get that coded, I can have any number of webcam boxes. I will get it added to the list....
Vaughn
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the Crib Keeper
www.vcrib.com |
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| Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:49 am |
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TheMan
Joined: 10 Sep 2007
Posts: 19
Location: SLC, Utah |
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Actually, I like the idea. Have the camera's coded for motion sensing and display whats on them based on the motion being above a certain percentage in a certain amount of time (will need to be tweaked to the environment).
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If you can read this, I can get your credit card information |
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| Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:30 pm |
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d_sellers1
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
Posts: 36
Location: Elgin, TX |
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Actually, I like the idea. Have the camera's coded for motion sensing and display whats on them based on the motion being above a certain percentage in a certain amount of time (will need to be tweaked to the environment). |
Would this be better than actual motion detectors? Depending on how many cameras are available, it might even be able to be used a occupancy sensors that could distinquish between how many people are actually in a room. The only problem that I could forsee with something like that would be the amount of processing power needed to monitor several cameras. In the past I had a program that was able to record from 4 webcam sources and could track motion and then start recording. It was a fairly CPI intensive program...
Another problem that comes to mind are pets. The motion detectors I have claim to be immune to pets 40pounds and smaller. The cameras may detect that motion too...
Just some food for thought. The more features , merrier though.
Derek
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| Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:50 pm |
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Humanzee
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 519
Location: Seattle, WA |
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Were abuot to get a pet or some pets and I've been wondering about this. I supposet that you could have your interior sensor ignore motion in a normal mode, and have your door and window sensors trigger alarms. Its all configureable here so that'd be easy. With a camrea motion detection, can't you set the thresh hold value before a tripped result. If you have a small pet, it could be tuned out of the sensative range. I don't plan on having 10 cameras or anything, I only have one now anyway. So if its possible to do camera based motion detection, then I want it. Even if its limited to a few cameras only. BTW my camrea is closed circuit not IP based.
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vCrib Tester #1, Forum moderator, using INSTEON devices, X10 sensors and remotes via W800RF, All doors are wired with contact closures.
vCrib Wiki |
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| Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:23 pm |
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hobbes487
Joined: 10 Oct 2007
Posts: 266
Location: Boston, MA |
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I just came across this thread from a while ago. I think it would be a great thing to be able view video feeds through the vcrib interface. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to have it pop up automatically, but maybe clicking on a camera on the map would display the video.
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I am not sure if anyone is interested in event video. I almost pulled it out, but decided to leave it for a bit.
As for webcams, I have code ready for vCrib that I am using in my turret application. It is missing Source Enumeration, so as soon as I get that coded, I can have any number of webcam boxes. I will get it added to the list....
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Has this been added yet? What kind of webcams will be supported? I was thinking of getting this deal: http://www.x10.com/promotions/ux21a_5zone_super.html would this type of camera be able to interface with vcrib?
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Brian |
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| Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:04 am |
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Humanzee
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 519
Location: Seattle, WA |
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Event video was something else. Basically, you would take a little video of your light turning off and it would play in the interface each time you turned off the light. Amusing, but not that useful so it was taken out. I have not yet seen support for web cams, cctv cams or IP cams in vCrib. Vaughn may be working on something, but he can be mysterious that way.
_________________
vCrib Tester #1, Forum moderator, using INSTEON devices, X10 sensors and remotes via W800RF, All doors are wired with contact closures.
vCrib Wiki |
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| Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:08 pm |
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CribKeeper
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 652
Location: Overland Park, KS |
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=) I have webcam code. You want it coded like Snyper suggested? I can just make it a little windows that you can add to maps. I can tell you that my code only supports 1 camera at a time because it uses the standard clipboard techniques. I REALLY need some source examples for multiple webcam support. I need that to evolve my USB gun project too.
I will work on this tonight. The first release might be primitive, but we can evolve it later.
Vaughn
_________________
the Crib Keeper
www.vcrib.com |
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| Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:50 pm |
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CribKeeper
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Aug 2007
Posts: 652
Location: Overland Park, KS |
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Wait, I remember my problem with this...
I run the Admin.exe on many computers, if I add the webcam to a Map, it will only work on the machine that the webcam is tied to, but the Map system is not machine based, so other machines would try to display the webcam and show a black box. I will have to think of a way to add a link to the process name, else I could just code support for IP cameras, then maybe every machine could show the video. Else I could make a webcam app that would drop frames into a .JPG and have them placed into all of the image directories, and everytime the map refreshes, it would load the new .jpg. This last method would basically only yield 1 FPS, but would be ok for most things and would solve the distribution problems for USB cams...
I bought a cheap IP cam from Geeks.com if you would rather I work on it..
Vaughn
_________________
the Crib Keeper
www.vcrib.com
Last edited by CribKeeper on Fri Jan 02, 2009 11:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:58 pm |
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hobbes487
Joined: 10 Oct 2007
Posts: 266
Location: Boston, MA |
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That would be awesome! Multiple webcam support would be great, but one would be good too. I like the way Bob has it shown in the pictures. Maybe we could have a webcam object and when clicked it would display the video.
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Brian |
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| Fri Jan 02, 2009 10:59 pm |
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Humanzee
Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 519
Location: Seattle, WA |
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else you could look into streaming media and treat it like a real web cam. I.e. an asx file. Aren't we headed that way with .net anyway?
I'd really think that the best implementation would be to think about how best to handle multi camera support from the beginning. Especially if you consider the ability for motion based triggering. But maybe we don't want to re-invent the wheel. Some third party web cam software can perform different command line actions based on motion. Some analog multiplexers have trigger outputs as well that could hook into a phidget etc. The missing link is getting the video feed into the GUI of your choice and dealing with the recorded video etc. I think maybe one live feed is enough, Its up to other software or hardware determine which source gets presented to that feed. But multi camera triggering would be ideal.
I was thinking about something like this http://www.swannsecurity.com/s/products/view/?product=384 Then capture the monitor out with a tv card. It's got motion triggering and automatically switches to the feed with the motion.
Or I'm thinking of building a separate PC for dedicated CCTV recording. Then figuring out a way to get a live stream from that to the automation / sage server. Currently I have my door camera recording 24x7 in sage tv. Each day I get a new 23gb video file to deal with. So I need a different solution. The nice thing about recording in sage is that I can pull up the video on any pc and any tv in the house. Just need to tune to that channel.
So I guess it would be good for vCrib to be able to display a video source from either a local usb web cam, or a tv card source, or an ip camera source, or a web stream etc. Then we can figure out what to do with it. So the next question is, how do we do facial recognition on that source?
_________________
vCrib Tester #1, Forum moderator, using INSTEON devices, X10 sensors and remotes via W800RF, All doors are wired with contact closures.
vCrib Wiki |
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| Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:37 am |
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Onethingafteranother
Joined: 12 Feb 2009
Posts: 106
Location: London, UK |
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Has cctv on vCrib come any further since the last post in Jan09?
The HA software I have been using up untill now runs it's own cctv server on the PC that has the cameras plugged into it via a BNC PCI board and has motion sense. Then it runs SQL and a process in the background that does all the work of HA (a bit like Master), this communicates with the cctv server software. The Admin type software runs on each machine that you want to control the Master type software from. Does that give any ideas?
It would be great to include cameras in vCrib somehow. As soon as you start to use a 3rd party piece of software, you loose the flexibilty that makes vCrib a winner.
I am still very new to vCrib and have no idea where my HA will end up now as I have changed my plans since the day I saw Vaughn's magic box of the Tube! Therefore I could not say exactly what I would like the cctv function to be able to do, but vCrib has come so far and should be all it can be. Easy for me to say, I know, as I haven't got to code it but if you do develope this fuction, I'll be keen to help test.
Justin
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| Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:37 pm |
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hobbes487
Joined: 10 Oct 2007
Posts: 266
Location: Boston, MA |
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CCTV and webcam integration into vCrib has not come any furthur and probably won't any time soon. It isn't really a priority. That being said I have come up with an alternative that is almost as good.
I am able to get a near real-time image from my web cam to show up on the map tab of vCrib. All you need to do this is a web cam, Dirmon, and webcamXP or Abelcam. You can set up either webcamXP or Abelcam, whichever you prefer, to capture periodic images from your webcam and save them to a specified directory. Then use Dirmon to monitor that directory. Whenever a new image is saved Dirmon will kick off a batch script to copy that image to the Images directory in the vCrib directory and to a place to archive it. Lastly, I created an object in vCrib to represent my webcam, added it to the map and selected my image as the default on/off images.
Now, every few seconds the image from my webcam shows up on the vCrib map. Its not as good as live video, but still allows for some decent monitoring.
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Brian |
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| Thu May 28, 2009 1:06 am |
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Onethingafteranother
Joined: 12 Feb 2009
Posts: 106
Location: London, UK |
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That's a real interesting way round it. I will have to look into these pieces of software and let you know how I get on. Even if the software you mention does not work with actual cameras, rather than webcams, I'm sure I will be able to locate a simular piece of software on my cyber travels.
Thanks Hobbes!
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| Thu May 28, 2009 2:38 am |
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