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1997-05-16
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WINCD(1) WINCD(1)
NAME
wincd - a daemon which gets images from the WinCam.One
camera.
SYNOPSIS
wincd [-options]
DESCRIPTION
wincd periodically gets and saves images from the digital
camera known as the WinCam. It is a 640x492 capable color
digital camera, interfaced to a computer via a serial
cable. See http://www.wincam.com for more information
about this camera.
Images grabbed by wincd are dumped in PGM or PNM format to
a specified file. An optional script may be specified
which will run after the image is saved. Optionally,
images may be saved only if they are determined to be dif-
ferent than previous images. "Difference" in this case is
determined by comparing reduced versions of the two
images: if a 64x48 version of the image has fewer than M
pixes which differ by more than R grey levels, then the
images are considered to be the "same". (These limits are
settable with -r and -m.)
wincd controls image exposure automatically, though the
WinCamBrightness configuration variable can be used to
control the brightness goal. (See the winc manual page
for information on configuration variables.)
LOCKING
Under OS/2, wincd.exe locks the com port while in use.
OPTIONS
-h prints the usage message
-p pollseconds
The loop interval is the amount of time wincd will
pause during iterations of the image poll/compare
loop. Default is 10. This is the interval wincd
will pause after it does not take a picture.
-w waitseconds
The wait interval is the amount of time wincd will
pause when it does take a picture. Default is 60.
-n nsave
wincd will keep "small" versions of images that it
has saved in memory, and compare freshly taken
images to these. If it determines that a new image
is a duplicate of one that has already been saved,
it will not save the new one. The -n option deter-
mines the length of this history, which defaults to
6. If simple "take a picture every N seconds"
behavior is desired, set nsave to 0 and use "-w N".
If a comparison history is desired, set nsave to
the length of the history. Use -p to choose how
often wincd will look for changed images, and -w to
"rate-limit" the frequency of real pictures taken.
-r threshold
-m maxdiff
Successive images are compared (in reduced, 64x48
form) until an "interesting" image is found.
"Interesting" is defined as "different than the
last", and that is defined as having more than
MAXDIFF percent of the pixels differ by at least
THRESHOLD percent of the total grey levels. MAXD-
IFF is expressed as a percentage of image area, and
THRESHOLD is expressed as a percentage of maximum
pixel value. When the draft-quality image passes
this criterion, then a full-size image is taken.
(So actually, the premise that comparisons are done
on reduced versions of images is false -- actually,
the reduced and fullsize images come from two sepa-
rate exposures.)
-f filename
Images grabbed by wincd are saved in the specified
filename. It is recommended that this file be
given the suffix ".ppm" or ".pgm", since this is
the conventional suffix for images in PNM or PGM
format. (PPM for color, PGM for greyscale) (These
formats are specified as part of the widely avail-
able PBMPLUS or "netpbm" packages.)
(OS/2 Note: The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG Software
v 6a is currently at:
ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/old/os2/graphics/jpeg6a_os2a.zip
The GBM Utils also deal with the PNM format - they can
currently be found at:
ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/old/os2/graphics/gbm.zip
As the Hobbes archive is re-organizing as this is being
written, expect this to change. )
The filename defaults to "wincd.pnm". The
modification time of the file will be set to the
time at which the picture was snapped, rather than
being set by the system to the time at which
the last part of the file was written. (The time
difference can be tens of seconds.)
-s scriptname
After an image is saved, the specified script (if
any) will be run. It is handed the filename of the
image as its only argument.
-c Grabs color images. This is the default action.
-g Grabs greyscale images, instead of color images.
Greyscale images are 8 bits deep, with a maximum
grey level of 255. Color images are 24 bits deep,
with 255 values for each of red, green, and blue.
The default size of either type of image is
640x492.
-l lighting
Affect the color balance of the image. See the
COLOR BALANCE section of the winc manual page for
more information.
-2 Normally images are captured in a single scan: in
this mode, of the 492 lines in a default image,
only the even rows are "real": the odd rows are
created by duplicating the row above. If the sub-
ject matter is still enough, the -2 option can be
used to force a second scan about 1/8th of a second
later. This will fill in the odd rows with real
data, and yield a higher quality picture.
-z N Sets the image reduction factor to 1, 2, 4. This
might be done when the full imagesize or resolution
is not wanted or needed. The values 1, 2, 4, and 8
represent linear scaling of both the horizontal and
vertical axes. Thus "-z 4" gives an image that is
160x123 rather than the default 640x492. (So actu-
ally, the arguments should really be 1, 4, 16, and
64.)
-e NN or -E NN
Sets exposure in milliseconds(-e) or microseconds
(-E). The shortest possible exposure time is
1/100,000th of a second, the longest is a little
over 1.3 seconds. If neither option is used, winc
will try several exposures until an average pixel
brightness goal is reached, which is set via the
WinCamBrightness variable.
-a Sound an audible alarm when the picture is actually
snapped. The process of "finding" the camera, tak-
ing the picture, and downloading the image is
fairly lengthy. Hearing a small beep when the pic-
ture has been taken can be helpful.
-i IDSTRING
Specify the "name" of the camera to be used. This
name will affect the way in which configuration
information will be looked up. See the section on
MULIPLE CAMERAS on the winc manual page for more
information.
-t tracestring
Turns on program tracing. See the winc manual page
for more information.
STARTUP
winc will load configuration information from the file
$ETC/winc.rc. $ETC, for those of you who don't know, is
the directory pointed to by the "SET ETC=" line in your
config.sys file. This pathname can be overridden with the
$WINC_RC environment variable. See the manual page for
the "winc" command for more details.
COPYING and COPYRIGHT
This software is Copyright (C) 1996, by Paul G. Fox. Spe-
cific image processing code is Copyright (C) 1996, by
StarDot Technologies.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA.
DEBTS
wincd was created with the help of proprietary information
belonging to StarDot Technologies, makers of the WinCam.
Contact them at help@wincam.com for information on obtain-
ing a copy of that information.
AUTHORS
wincd and the winc library were created by Paul G. Fox,
pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us.
Port to OS/2 by Derek J Decker, derek@decker.net
BUGS
Oh well.
4