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WebCamImageSave, Capture Periodic Webcam Images

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:50:38 +0000

Webcams can be used for a variety of purposes. From video conferencing over monitoring a room for security purposes to connecting them to the Internet to make it available publicly.

WebCamImageSave is a new application by Nirsoft for the Windows operating system that can capture periodic webcam images. This can be handy for documentation purposes, the creation of art (e.g. time lapse movies) or as a personal log.

The program is portable and can be started right after it has been downloaded and unpacked on the computer system. It can be used with any webcam that is compatible with Video For Windows, which should be the majority of available webcams.

The program displays a configuration window on startup. Here it is possible to change the file name format and other settings. The software supports variables for the file name, for instance to add the date and time to it.

The interval in which captures of the webcam are taken and the jpg quality, in case jpg is selected as the image format, can be selected in the options as well. The program supports png and bmp next to jpg, the file name determines the image format.

A custom label can be added to captures. This includes date and time as well as custom label text. This is optional and can be disabled in the settings. The position, text color and shade color can be configured in the options.

The software will start taking captures of the webcam automatically once the options window has been closed. It is optionally possible to disable the automatic capturing and take stills manually with the F8 key.

Advanced users find command line options at their disposal to capture and save webcam stills from the command line or batch files.

Users who run into troubles or configuration issues should read the known problems and limitations section over at the Nirsoft website for troubleshooting help.

WebCamImageSave is compatible with recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Webcam Gadget for Windows

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:24:10 +0000

If you look at the available gadgets for Windows Vista and Windows 7 you notice that most provide the same features like displaying hardware stats, time and date or media related information. Windows users have to dig deeper to find gadgets that do not belong in a category that is swarmed with the same type of gadget; TWIV, which stands for Timed Web Image Viewer, is such a gadget.

The gadget can be configured to display an image by entering an url that is pointing to that image. It can therefor theoretically be used to display a permanent image. More interesting than that is the ability to point it to the url of an webcam image that gets automatically updated regularly server side.

This is the intended use of the gadget. The Windows user has to specify the image url and the interval in which the image will be pulled from the server in seconds. The default interval is set to 9999 seconds with the option to change the interval during the configuration.

The gadget is compatible with the jpg, png and gif image formats and will display the image in a 320×240 window on the computer desktop.

TWIV can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Home Video Surveillance System Utilizing Webcams

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:28:33 +0000

Home video surveillance system can cost thousands of Dollars. A cheaper but still valid alternative is to utilize equipment that is already available in the household. One of the possibilities includes webcams that can be used as video surveillance systems with the right software or service.

Ugolog is one of these services that can turn a webcam into a basic home video surveillance system. It has its limitations obviously as this is usually limited to single room surveillance unless multiple webcams are connected to the computer systems of the home. One of the major advantages of Ugolog besides offering a free version is that it requires no software installation. The full service is started and controlled on a web interface.

The limitations of the free service are a maximum utilization of two webcams, 500 snapshots and 5 minutes of video per day. Those are fairly acceptable values for a video surveillance system. Interestingly enough the premium plans are freely usable during beta phase with the state of the art plan allowing to add unlimited cameras with 15K snapshots and 4 hours of recording. These plans will eventually turn into subscriptions.

Everything is controlled on the web interface of the service which is only available to registered users. Users can access previous recordings, watch a full day in fast access mode or record videos or snapshots. The main advantage of Ugolog is that it is operating system and web browser independent and that its only requirement is a webcam that is connected to a computer system. Grabmotion is a similar software that can be used to monitor a room.

Computer Mouse Head Control

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:17:46 +0000

HeadMouse 2 is a interesting software program for computer users who cannot or do not like to use their hands when controlling the computer mouse. The software is compatible with most Windows operating systems including Windows Vista or Windows XP. The only other requirement is a webcam with a minimum resolution of 640×480. The program will initiate a user face detection during first run to calibrate the webcam for best results. All that is needed to do in this phase is to move the head until a drawing of a face appears in the middle of the computer monitor.

That’s the end of the calibration phase and HeadMouse 2 can be used from then on to control the computer mouse. The mouse cursor can be moved by turning the head into the direction it should be moved. Turning the head to the left side would move the cursor to the left while turning it up would move it up.

There are three different methods to perform a mouse click. A mouse click can be initiated by closing the eyes, opening the mouse or not moving the head around for 1.5 seconds. At least one method has to be activated. Objects like windows or icons can be moved using the very same principle by clicking once on the object to activate it, moving the head to move it and clicking again to place it.

There are several occasions where HeadMouse 2 could come in handy. It provides the means to control the mouse with a webcam and movement of the head. While it is not as fast as using the hands to control the computer mouse it provides sufficient means to work with the computer.

HeadMouse2

Microsoft Touchless

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:58:48 +0000

Microsoft Office Labs are always good for a surprise. For anyone who does not know what Microsoft Office Labs is about: It basically is used to publish software programs created by Microsoft employees in their spare time that relate to Microsoft products.

Microsoft Touchless (via Shell City) is an interesting application that fits well into the touchscreen craze that Microsoft started with the Windows 7 announcement. Everyone knows that Windows 7 will provide better support for touchscreens. Users without a touchscreen could make use of Touchless which utilizes a webcam to provide a touchscreen-like experience.

A Touchless demo can be downloaded from the Office Labs project page which contains four demonstrations. Snake is the well known snake game while Defender offers a up to four player pong experience. Map is a basic map application which supports rotating, zooming and moving while Draw lets the user draw on the screen.

Touchless requires a computer running Windows XP or Windows Vista and a webcam that is DirectX9 compliant. The application can be started by extracting the contents of the archive to the computer system and double-clicking on TouchlessDemo.exe.

Microsoft Touchless provides access to the Touchless SDK which can be used to create third party applications that make use of the system. The whole package is Open-Source and could provide a way to add basic touchscreen support to webcam owners in Windows 7 which would surely explode the number of users that would make use of the Touchscreen features.

Debut Video Capturing Software

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:10:07 +0000

Debut [via Labnol] Video Capture Software is a tiny software that can capture the screen, a webcam or capturing device. The software has a size of only 412 Kilobyte and for that an immense amount of options and settings. Part of the screen or the full screen can be recorded into various output formats like avi, 3gp or mp4 which can be all configured to change the quality settings of the video. Naturally audio can be recorded as well using various available codecs.

While the normal options to record the screen or webcam are top notch Debut comes with a feature that I have not seen in any other video capturing software yet. Debut can start with Windows and start the recording process immediately. A maximum recording time can be specified with the option to start a new recording immediately afterwards or to stop the recording.

This is useful in combination with the next feature of Debut. A completed recording can be processed in a number of ways. The recording can be send as an email attachment, uploaded to an ftp server, mirrored on a local or network drive or sent to another executable that can be specified by the user.

Debut is compatible to several Microsoft operating systems including Windows 98, 2000, XP and Windows Vista.

Monitor a room with Grabmotion

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 06 May 2007 07:27:45 +0000

If you are looking for a cheap and reliable way to monitor a room you could take a look at the freeware Grabmotion which uses webcams to monitor rooms. Grabmotion constantly monitors the room and starts default processes once a motion was detected. Processes that can be defined include sending an email with an attached image showing the room during the time the motion was detected, sending an sms through a gateway, saving an image to the hard drive or playing a sound alarm.

The main advantage of Grabmotion is that it is plattform independent because it was programmed in Java. It will work with most – the developer claims all – webcams and evidence will be saved even if the computer itself will be stolen or destroyed. (an email will be send with the image). It is also possible to request an image from Grabmotion which will also be send by email. It is possible to schedule monitoring times, it does not make sense to run Grabmotion if you are at home working on the computer.

Installation instructions:

Download the grabMotion software (2.5Mo)
Install Java JRE (Java Runtime Environment) for windows download it at Java Sun site.
Install JMF (Java Media Framwork) download JMF
Open the command prompt
Type : java -jar grabpack.jar
… if you get an error try to type the full path like :

c:\java\jdk1.4\java -jar c:\mydownload\grabmotion\grabpack.jar

Grabmotion can be easily bypassed by simply turning of the power supply for the computer. It is still nice to see if your brothers, sisters or friends do snoop around in your room while you are gone.

Dorgem Webcamp Capture Application

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 13 May 2006 12:34:17 +0000

Are you using webcams at home or in your company ? Maybe you wondered if it would be possible to record those webcam sessions ? Dorgem is a freeware application that lets you record your webcam(s). As you can see in the screenshot it´s very easy to use. It supports multiple cameras, has a build in webserver and can be used as a security camera because of its motion sensoring support.

Two quick and dirty webcam searches

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:24:26 +0000

Just check out this two relatively new webcam searches using Google. Happy hunting. Update: This requires more explanation. The two search links listed below use advanced Google parameters to find webcams that are publicly available on the Internet. It is then possible to view the webcam image directly in a web browser. And while that is something that some webcam owners have configured their cam for, it is possible to stumble upon webcams that have been put on the Internet accidentally.

The commands use advanced Google search parameters. It is however possible to run the searches on other search engines as well.

If you look at the parameters of the first search engine you will notice that the following commands have been used:

intitle:”Biromsoft WebCam” -4.0 -serial -ask -crack -software -a -the -build -download -v4 -3.01 -numrange:1-10000

intitle: Searches only documents that match the title queries. Please note that the – operator filters out matching titles.

The second search phrase uses a different command:

site:viewnetcam.com

Site: The site command searches only for results that are hosted on the selected website. All other results are filtered out automatically.

The commands search for two specific webcam models and applications. Interested users can use a site like Webcam Search to find additional web cam models, websites and applications that they can then use to craft new searches on the Internet.

Here is a list of queries to get you started:

inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=
inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=Refresh
inurl:”ViewerFrame?Mode=”
inurl:axis-cgi/jpg
inurl:axis-cgi/mjpg
inurl:”MultiCameraFrame?Mode=”
inurl:view/indexFrame.shtml
inurl:view/index.shtml
inurl:view/view.shtml
liveapplet
intitle:”live view” intitle:axis
intitle:”live view” intitle:axis
intitle:liveapplet
allintitle:”Network Camera NetworkCamera”
intitle:axis intitle:”video server”

You can search on Google, Bing or Yahoo for additional related search queries. Just search for webcam hacks and similar phrases to find additional suggestions and options.