Oculus provides you with a Setup Assistant to help you set up your first web camera. For users who have simple needs, the Setup Assistant can quickly get your camera online. It will step you through the process of setting the options for capture, and even create the HTML for your camera web page. Users who have more complex needs for their web camera can bypass the setup assistant entirely. You access the Setup Assistant from the Settings Menu.
As you supply information to the Setup Assistant, it will attempt to verify that the information you are giving is correct for your web site. Your computer should be set up and connected to the Internet in order for the Setup Assistant to be able to correctly verify the information you supply.
You use the arrow buttons at the bottom of the window to move forward and backwards within the setup assistant panel. You can also close the Setup Assistant at any time if you decide that you no longer wish to continue with the Setup Assistant.
This panel requests some basic information about your webcam and where it will be located. The name of your webcam is the human readable name that you wish to refer to your webcam. Examples would be "My Neat Web Cam" or "The Jones Family".
Next you need to provide the URL the users will type in to access your webcam. This URL depends upon what ISP or server you are using to provide the webcam page. Unfortunately, Oculus has no way to obtain this information for you automatically. It must contain the complete URL. That is, it must have the server name, a directory (if necessary) and the web page filename. (ie. http://servername.com/directory/filename.html)
Finally, because some ISPs or servers use a different path for uploading your data (via FTP) from the path used by your users to access your page (via HTTP), you may need to supply a different path here so that Oculus can upload your HTML and images. For example, if the URL is "http://www.intlweb.com/webcam.html" the FTP path for uploads might be "/web/webcam.html". If you aren't sure, you can leave this last field blank and Oculus will assume that the FTP access path is the same as the URL access path. You can obtain this FTP path information from your ISP, or determine it by navigating through your server using an FTP client such as Fetch.
This panel allows you to enter some information about yourself that will be used to create your web page. The caption information will appear below the webcam image. If you enter an email address, Oculus will automatically create a link on your web page to allow people to email you directly from the web page. You can also provide additional information to appear in the body of the web page. If you leave any of these fields blank, that portion of the webcam page will simply be omitted.
This panel allows you to select where your webcam image will be saved. You can specify whether to upload it to an external server, or save it locally on your hard drive. Oculus can save the image in both places at the same time, so you may select either or both options. When you click on the external server check box, you are presented with a dialog in which you can enter information about uploading to your FTP server. When you click on the local check box, you will be asked to select a location for saving your local file.
For most cases, you need only fill out the name of your FTP server (such as ftp.poubelle.com), your user name for that server (such as tomdowdy) and your password. Oculus provides many FTP options to handle the wide range of FTP servers that are used on the Internet today. The default values for most of these options are fine. If you want more information about these options, refer to the FTP Dialog.
If you are choosing to save your file locally, you need to specific the location on your hard drive where you would like the file saved. You'll also name your file. It is recommended that the file name end in ".jpg" in order to work correctly with the many different browsers that are used on the Internet.
Oculus will create the HTML for a basic webcam page and save it to the location of your chosing. Oculus can upload the page to your web site, save the HTML locally in a file, or place it on the clipboard for additional editing by you.
You can choose to have the images on your webcam page updated in one of three ways:
This is the most compatible method. It tells the viewer's browser to reload the entire page after a period of time. This can be distracting, as the entire page gets updated rather than just the webcam image.
The Auto refresh method uses JavaScript to update just the image on the web page. This is a much smoother way to update your webcam image, but requires that your site visitors have JavaScript enabled in their browser.
In addition to the Auto refresh method, this update method also displays a countdown timer to show your site visitors how long they will have to wait before a new image will appear.
That's it! Oculus is now ready to configure your webcam and prepare the HTML. Assuming you have entered all of the information correctly, your first webcam will be up and running. If you are having problems, check the FTP Log, and the Troubleshooting section of this document.
![]() |
![]() |
Back | Forward |
©Copyright 2000 International Web, Inc. and Poubelle Software ¨¨iPûK[?å20¶"rö¶"römkellnerSetupAssistant.htmlH Monaco+uÅë+uÅë¶$ýÚ¡¨¨i É$XîZckidMPSR&MWBB2íÿÿTðÿÿ Projector Data