Webcam Servers

[hills]

That is fantastic!! I've read your how to do it page, but will have to view it in more detail tomorrow. Can I just confirm - if I upload my own images though yawcam, then all I'll need to read up on is the maani slideshow section?

[Gina]

I'm reading up on ImageMagick. That does animation/video, anongst a lot of other things.

[TNETWeather]

That is fantastic!! I've read your how to do it page, but will have to view it in more detail tomorrow. Can I just confirm - if I upload my own images though yawcam, then all I'll need to read up on is the maani slideshow section?

That is pretty much it. You create a xml that the Maani uses to display the stuff.

If you give it a try, I can provide you with that script as it is a bit complicated.

[TNETWeather]

I'm reading up on ImageMagick. That does animation/video, anongst a lot of other things.

I use ImageMagick a lot for a lot of things. Creating animated GIFs is something it is very good at doing. Like:



However, I don't think this is a good use of that ability as I don't think you could get enough frames to make it look good.

For example, The slideshow that I am doing has up to 96 images in it per webcam. There are 5 different shots so I have 5 different collection folders (96 images each):

3.9M ./supm1
3.7M ./esmo1
5.2M ./somt1
3.7M ./whtm1
5.0M ./came1

You would be pretty hard pressed to do something animated as an GIF image to deal with those types of numbers. Even if you did a much less number of frames, it would still be very very large.

[Hillbilly]

That's great Kevin, looks very good. I'll concentrate on getting the basics going first then think about being cleverer! It's a great idea.

[hills]

That is fantastic!! I've read your how to do it page, but will have to view it in more detail tomorrow. Can I just confirm - if I upload my own images though yawcam, then all I'll need to read up on is the maani slideshow section?

That is pretty much it. You create a xml that the Maani uses to display the stuff.

If you give it a try, I can provide you with that script as it is a bit complicated.

G'day Kevin

I'm only just getting around to this now.

Yawcam autmatically downloads the latest webcam image and calls it webcam00 and renames all exiting webcam images to webcam<+1>. I've set it to collect the last 30 images - webcam00 - webcam30.

I've had success getting the slideshow working, using just an xml and html files, but no matter how many slides I put in the xml file, it only plays the last 10. Is there any way of getting it to play more than 10?

This is where I'm at (but will change as I keep modifying it - so may not be working at any point in time )

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfa ... ample.html

[TNETWeather]

You appear to be using the Free version of XML/SWF Slideshow.

The free version has a limit of 10 slides which is most likely what you are running into.

You need the registered version to do more. However, you can't get the registered version of that any more as it has been replaced with SlickBoard.

http://www.maani.us/slickboard/index.php

I've not yet attempted anything with it yet due to no time... but plan on purchasing it shortly and giving it a shot soon.

[hills]

Yep that explains it

[hills]

Just spoke to Maani, you can still register slideshow though this link: http://www.maani.us/xml_slideshow/index ... icense_old

[TNETWeather]

Nice to know.

However if you are just starting out, the Slickboard is much more capable of what it can do though it cost $69 instead of the $49.

I have not yet seen what the code changes would be to make it do the same thing as the Slideshow though.

[Gina]

Isn't there any freeware or open-source software that will do this?

[TNETWeather]

I've tried a number of different ways, including javascript, java etc... but none of them provided the smoothness of the transitions from image to image. The new slickboard has a lot of additional features as well such as sound, actions etc...

Note that Java does pretty good, but it takes a long time to load.

You can use the product for free, but then you are limited to the free version's capabilities.

[Hillbilly]

Said I'd do an update once I had something set up. I looked around and finally purchased a Y-Cam White wireless webcam. Overall this seemed to have good reviews and on balance we needed a wireless cam which relied on a power point rather than a usb one, so had to pay more . The cam is currently inside, but Y-Cam sell an external case, which we could use in the future if we decided to move it outside.

I'm very pleased with the image it produces, I have 50% resolution to keep file size down and it's still pretty clear. To start with I am uploading a fixed image every minute. I have used Yawcam to create the image and like the fact that I can add extra variables to show temperature, rainfall etc on my image. Yawcam also allows me to schedule the file creation, streaming, html availability and ftp transfer, so ftp only during daylight hours to save bandwidth.

I will explore the creation of slideshows at some point, Yawcam can create the files, as Phil has already said. I just need to get my head roubnd the rest of the code!

Thanks for all the responses with ideas. It was a great help for someone starting this for the first time.

http://www.lalocherie.com/weather/webcam.html

[TNETWeather]

Image looks pretty good.

[hills]

Looks great Helen!

Have you automated the "after daylight hours" picture though Yawcam, Cumulus or the toolbox? I also don't upload after dark, but I just leave the last picture up. I'd like to have a message like yours though.