Jacob

This is a tall order and more of a gear/setup question, but I need some advice and any would be greatly appreciated:

I got a grant to build an installation with some buddies that will measure the distance between two people in three different rooms.

I got a demo jitter patch to work using one FW video camera attached to the ceiling, pointing directly down on the people moving in the room. It uses a mix of Pelletier's cv blob tracking objects, a little presence sensing operation, and the good old pythagorean theorem to track distance between two discreet moving objects.

The problem is that now I need to replicate this three times in three adjacent rooms, and I want to be able to do this with as few separate computers as possible, and with long runs between the cameras on the ceiling to the computers running my jitter patch (yikes!).

At this point the camera system tracks visible light (not an infrared camera) and is therefore best if the camera can lock exposure (controllable aperature). The movement tracking processes need to be independent (each room's camera tracks it's own movement only), but could possibly be processed in fewer than three cloned patches on fewer, than three computers if this is possible.

->Can anyone please suggest portable cameras (make/model) that might be good for this and how I could run it into jitter? I have a budget, but not a huge one. Again, a lock-able aperture would be best.

-What's the best way to hook up three separate external cameras? Is firewire still the only way, or can i use USB since its easier to run a long cable? I also have one composite (rca)->FW converter, and could buy two more, if USB doesn't work and it is easier to run RCA cable than FW.

-Can more than one external camera be read by a single jitter patch, or do I need three identical patches running on three separate cpus?

A lot of tough questions I know, and I greatly appreciate any advice, especially from folks who have set up similar installations which used multiple camera inputs to track, process, etc.

p.s. i'm happy to send my tracking patch to those who are interested, but i didn't want to take up space here, since my question is more about hardware/setup.

I got a demo jitter patch to work using one FW video camera attached to the ceiling, pointing directly down on the people moving in the room.  It uses a mix of Pelletier's cv blob tracking objects, a little presence sensing operation, and the good old pythagorean theorem to track distance between two discreet moving objects.  

The problem is that now I need to replicate this three times in three adjacent rooms, and I want to be able to do this with as few separate computers as possible, and with long runs between the cameras on the ceiling to the computers running my jitter patch (yikes!).  

->Can anyone please suggest portable cameras (make/model) that might be good for this and how I could run it into jitter?  I have a budget, but not a huge one.  Again, a lock-able aperture would be best.

-What's the best way to hook up three separate external cameras?  Is firewire still the only way, or can i use USB since its easier to run a long cable?  I also have one composite (rca)->FW converter, and could buy two more, if USB doesn't work and it is easier to run RCA cable than FW.

p.s. i'm happy to send my tracking patch to those who are interested, but i didn't want to take up space here, since my question is more about hardware/setup.


advice-for-best-external-cameras-for-interactive-installation

I might recommend looking for a web cam like the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. It offers high resolution, auto exposure which can be disabled, a gain control and is relatively inexpensive. I have used two of these at the same time though Max could get a little finicky when initializing them both at the exact same time. You can also easily run them a fairly long distance using one or more active USB extenders or a USB-to-Ethernet/Cat5-to-USB extender. I've used three 30foot RadioShack active USB extenders in series for one setup and 100feet of Cat6 cable with the inexpensive IOGEAR USB Ethernet Extender GUCE51 for another. The IOGEAR Ethernet extender was more reliable though I should note that it would not work with 175feet of cheap Cat5 although it is rated for up to 198feet.

"-Can more than one external camera be read by a single jitter patch, or do I need three identical patches running on three separate cpus?"

Yes, a single patch can read multiple cameras at the same time though you can run into hardware I/O bandwidth limitations. It can also be a little difficult to know which identical webcam corresponds to which location.

I'll pick up one of those cameras and do a couple of tests.

Anyone else with his or her own advice/experiences with this sort of thing, please chime in!

Thanks for the great advice dambik!
I'll pick up one of those cameras and do a couple of tests.
Anyone else with his or her own advice/experiences with this sort of thing, please chime in!
Thanks again!
Jacob


Well from the cabling side of things, I'd say definitely look at cat5 kits. You can also get boxes for composite video, vga, dvi/hdmi or FireWire in addition to the mentioned USB ones. So just work out what your preferred connection will be and then find a suitable cat5 kit to match.

Dambik (and everybody): I got a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 by accident, since I think you were referring to the "Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac."

The Logitech video control software that came with the camera I got is only for Windows and I'm running a Mac. After calling the help desk I got a url to download a Mac friendly driver, although it's only controls are only for resolution and not exposure/autofocus etc, at least while it is reading video from the Webcam Pro 9000.

Dambik, did you have luck with exposure control using Vision Pro for Mac (if that's the camera you used)? Did you use Logitech Webcam Software, and if so, does it need to be running while you're running your Jitter patch?

There are other 3rd party apps (iGlasses, etc) that give you these controls over isight cameras, but they run along with selected programs only (ichat, skype) and Jitter doesn't seem to be one of them.

Again, what I am looking for is a USB video webcam with an ability to turn off the auto exposure (for video tracking purposes)

Dambik (and everybody): I got a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 by accident, since I think you were referring to the "Quickcam Vision Pro for Mac." 

The Logitech video control software that came with the camera I got is only for Windows and I'm running a Mac.  After calling the help desk I got a url to download a Mac friendly driver, although it's only controls are only for resolution and not exposure/autofocus etc, at least while it is reading video from the Webcam Pro 9000.

Dambik, did you have luck with exposure control using Vision Pro for Mac (if that's the camera you used)?  Did you use Logitech Webcam Software, and if so, does it need to be running while you're running your Jitter patch?

I do use a Pro 9000 on Windows. You don't need to run any software to use the camera but the latest Windows driver gives you an option to open a settings window whenever the camera is accessed. This same settings window can also be accessed by sending a "settings" message to jit.dx.grab. I'm not familiar with the Mac side of this camera but I would recommend sending jit.qt.grab a "settings" message and see what pops up and look for the "advanced" settings. Hope that works for you.

We tend to use analog cameras for these kinds of applications. Two common camera companies are:

And the two firewire digitizers I've used are:

http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_US/products/converters/dfgusb2lt/

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/312315-REG/Grass_Valley_602005_ADVC_55_Analog_to_Digital.html

We do the cable runs with BNC cables w/ RCA adapters on either end. Nice thing about this route is that you can do super-long cable runs and the cameras have interchangeable lenses.

Watec: http://www.wateccameras.com/
UNIQ: http://www.uniqvision.com/

DFG: http://www.theimagingsource.com/en_US/products/converters/dfgusb2lt/
Canopus: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/312315-REG/Grass_Valley_602005_ADVC_55_Analog_to_Digital.html

We do the cable runs with BNC cables w/ RCA adapters on either end. Nice thing about this route is that you can do super-long cable runs and the cameras have interchangeable lenses.


A lot of people seem to use Point Grey firewire cameras, but I prefer analog cameras since you can do longer cable runs:

http://www.ptgrey.com/products/fireflymv/fireflymv_usb_firewire_cmos_camera.asp

Just noticed that Point Grey has Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) cameras. I wonder if that would work for you. Note: you'd need a gigabit ethernet interface in your computer and a gigabit ethernet switch.

Advice for Best External Cameras for Interactive Installation