Quickcam and various platforms

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Hi

> I am in the process of writing a few tools for various astronomers
> who use quckcams and webcams for star imaging. I wish to be able to
> write up packages for generic linux, windows and Max panther. I have
> found for windows the VideoCapture module, which I have had some
> remote success with. I have seen much for Video4Linux for which I
> have no experience (yet). SO my question is this:
> 
> Does anyone know how to access the cameras (USB specifically) in any
> of these operating systems? I don't mind writing a new interface if
> that's what it takes!

I just had a very pleasant encounter with webcams on linux - I tried to use
gnomemeeting from a knoppix distribution, and while gnomeeting itself made
some trouble, the camera was detected correctly and e.g. gqcam can be used
to get images.

I even wrote a simple python-script to search for attached video-devices
using some translated C-code with ioctl-calls. Worked like a charm.

For the QuickCam I had to patch and recompile the kernel, as the module is
not in the tree, but then it worked as expected.

Diez