Looking for a way to trigger zones using a wireless camera
Hi!
Im new to max and very new to Jitter. But im trying to build a reliable system for a video trigger that uses a wireless camera and hope someone on this forum might have some experience about this kind of setup.
My goal is to mount a camera in the celing looking down at IR-leds on the floor, and each led is grouped into a zone using something like the video trigger developed by zach poff: https://cycling74.com/project/project71-video-trigger/
when something gets in the way of the leds the zone is triggered and something fancy happens. The problem right now is that I have never worked with wireless cameras before and hope someone might know a little about such hardware. Since the setup needs to be working during changeing light conditions I thought it would be best to work in the IR-spectrum. This also means I have to use a camera without a IR-blocker and a IR bandpass filter.
I´ve been looking at different IP cameras and it seems possible to get a feed into max using the jit.qt.movie object and a read message pointing at the url of the rtsp feed.
This is one of the cameras I´ve been looking at: http://www.amazon.com/Foscam-FI8918W-Wireless-Network-Viewing/dp/B0046710G6/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1325326901&sr=1-1
Any help and thoughts on which hardware to use would be very much appreciated!
Also, there might be a musch easier way to do this and ofc Im open to other suggestions!
/Christian
If you can receive image from the camera in jit.qt.movie you are at home - but you have to test it (also image quality and transmission delay). Another question is related to lens: you need lens with angle (and distance between camera to floor) wide enough to monitor the space you want to test.
Software part is relatively simple to prepare. But I have a ready-made patch somewhere on my HD, and I'll be trying to find it and post.
Thanks for your reply!
I might have to use two cameras since its a pretty big area I have to cover, even if the height is 5 meters from the floor.
It would be wonderful if you would like to share your patch, as I mentioned im new to jitter, and I really think it would help to see how you made your patch.
Cheers
http://www.zachpoff.com/software/video-trigger/
might be good start.
The old version has the patches attached.
Zach Poff has a very nice UI to clic and drag areas on a preview.
Y
Here is my basic, entry-level patch for "zone detection" in video. You can simple add more zones and features, because the routine is really simple.
Moreover I made some more complex tools for motion tracking (eg. like https://vimeo.com/30480928 or https://vimeo.com/17401153) for my various projects, and some of them are available online, for free (the problem is: no english guide), I think my "ActiveZones2OSC" tool (link: http://www.wrocenter.pl/lab/activezones2osc/) is something, you need. I'm working on new versions with full english guide, I need time... more time.
This is all really impressive work. I think I can modify your patch for my needs on the motion detection side. The problem im facing right now has to do with the camera. It seems like IP-cameras cant offer a very good frame rate when streaming into Max. Im looking at the possibility of using a wireless hdmi stream through a black magic interface ( http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/intensity/software ) into max. But Im not sure if this would work.
Thank you for the patch Yaniki and great work!
/Christian
> wireless hdmi stream through a black magic interface
I'll be keeping my fingers crossed ;-)
You can also use eg. USB camera (I'm using PS3 Eye "hacked" a bit for IR light) with USB extension cable (not "ordinary" cheap extensions, but USB-ETHERNET-USB or [witch I tested and it's working great] USB-fiber-USB cable, witch may be even very long).
Hmm.. The ps3 eye is a great and cheap camera. But do you know if its possible to somehow make a usb-WIFI-usb connection?
> a usb-WIFI-usb connection...
You want to establish any type of a wireless connection or WI-FI? What distance between camera and receiver you want to handle?
For wireless transmission you may find some gizmos (eg. http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/226467160/USB_RF_Transceiver_USB_Wireless_Data.html or http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/280476783/Wireless_Data_Transmission_USB_Module_JZ874.html), but I'm not sure about quality - I'm typically working with fibre cables (I tested this solution for 30 - 50 meters distance).
For "real" WI-FI best idea will be, I think, just to connect PS3 Eye to the computer and computer to the net ... another computer - connected to the same net may to receive the data from the firs one. I'm not sure about the quality of this solution (but it's strongly depends on network quality). But from the other hand: in this case you can do all the zones detection on the first computer, and to transmit via net only messages about zones statuses (instead of the video) - this should be very efficient.