Oculus supports any number of documents at one time, limited only by the amount of memory available. Each document conceptually represents a single "webcam". A document has a single FTP or local destination, and a single video input to it. However, multiple documents may share the same video input.

In pay-for-view situations, you might create two documents that both use the same video input. One would be a low res version with infrequent updates, while the second would be a higher quality with more frequent updates.

Documents are saved locally on your hard drive. These documents contain the information about your FTP or file locations, any captions you have set up, along with all other Oculus settings for this document. It is important to remember that this document is different from the images that you upload to your web site. If you want your webcam to run automatically when you computer starts up, you can place a alias to your document (or even the document itself) into the Startup Items folder.

When using an unregistered copy of Oculus your FTP user name and password, the file paths, and any local file names, are cleared out when documents are opened. You'll need to re-enter this information each time you open a document until you have registered your copy of Oculus. In all other ways, an unregistered Oculus remains fully functional.

Each document can be online or offline (inactive). In this way, you can suspend updates to your webcam in situations you would rather not have others observe. Oculus provides lots of control and options over what will be displayed in these situations. Details on configuring these options can be found in the Schedule section.

Most of the time, you'll watch Oculus through the main window. This is the place where you can see the last uploaded image, see the status of the web camera, information about uploads, and where you can adjust captions.

The Main Window

In the main window, you will see the most recently captured image, along with any captions that you created for it. You can save a copy of this particular image (complete with captions) by dragging from anywhere in the upper portion of the window to the desktop.

Captions can be edited by double-clicking on them. Captions are selected by single-clicking on them. You can select multiple captions by shift-clicking each of the captions you would like to select. Captions can be moved in the window by dragging them. Selected captions can be moved by using the arrow-keys. Shift-arrow will move the captions by 5 pixels. You can delete selected captions by using the delete key. Using the tab key will select the next caption in order.

You can change the caption order by opening the Captions window and click-dragging the titles of the captions to create the order that you wish. Captions are drawn from top to bottom, and if your captions overlap one another, you may have a specific idea of which should be visible on top. Click and drag captions to re-order them in the list.

The main window can be used to resize your webcam by just dragging the grow box. In the upper left corner of the window, the dimensions of the end image will be displayed. By default, Oculus allows you to grow the image to any size, but constrains the document to be the same aspect ratio as your camera. By doing this, the image will not become stretched or distorted. By holding down the shift key, you can cause Oculus to lock the window to multiples of the input device (such as quarter, half, double, etc). And by holding down the option key, Oculus removes all constraints and allows you to resize the window to any shape or size you wish.

At the top of the window, you can see a status as to the current online or offline status of this web camera. You can click on this button to toggle online or offline if, for example, you are stepping out of the office for the evening. The offline status can also be switched from the Webcam menu, or via AppleScript.

The lower portion of the window shows status. This includes when the next picture will be taken, the online or offline status of the camera, and status about any current file transfers that are taking place. If you want to see more details, you can click on the triangle to reveal more advanced status. The image above shows the full window with all of the status shown.

The extended status area shows the frequency of timed capture (and how long until the next capture), the frequency of motion detection, the amount of motion detected in the last image, and the current sound level in the room. This status area adjusts to display only those triggering options that you have selected for this document.

If the timed capture and motion detection intervals are the same, only one timer bar is displayed.

By default, Oculus will update the contents of the main window only after an upload has happened. Sometimes, you might wish to see images captured before the upload. Do this by selecting Show Preview before Upload in the Document dialog. Oculus will then update the image in the main window for the last five seconds before upload. You also are warned of impending capture by watching the timer bar in the extended status area. It will turn yellow, then flash red just before the picture is taken.

A Frame Differenced Image

If you select the Show Frame Difference option from the Document Dialog, Oculus will display areas of detected motion outlined in red. This can be useful for determining what sort of motion is triggering Oculus. It should be noted that very noisy video signals will often cause false detection unless the Sensitivity is set very high.

Minimalists can turn off the Show Preview in Window option in the Document Dialog to reduce the main window to just the status area.

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