web camera or else ? 15-30 fps processing of camera videos.

[M.E.Farmer]

JGCASEY wrote:
> The Artist Formerly Known as Kap'n Salty wrote:
> > Newbie wrote:
> > > I am doing some robotics projects but my main area of interest is
> > > trying out several algorithms for the processing of the stream of
> data
> > > coming from the video.
> > >
> > > I am wondering what type of camera I should invest in. Either I
> could
> > > buy a web cam and hope I can find a driver I could either modify
or
> > > use. i.e. every frame is somehow stored on the computer
> automagically
> > > or I could buy a camera not unlike the AVRcam
> > > (http://www.jrobot.net/Projects/AVRcam.html) or the CMUcam and
try
> to
> > > do the processing once the data has been streamed to the nearest
> > > computer ? or should I use an expensive video card, some CCTV
> camera
> > > and a frame grabber to digitize photos so they can be processed
> > > afterwards. I expect my processing algorithms to handle at least
15
> > > frames per second framerate once they are working ont the final
> set-up.
> > >
> > > My constraints are that I would like to avoid as much as possible
> > > complex set-ups even if that means buying a more expensive camera
> > > set-up. For the prototyping, I would like to try my algorithms
out
> > > using a combination of python and matlab (all very slow) and then
> > > expect the same architecture (image files location and flow) with
> > > speedier set-up like python+psyco or C. All the processing would
be
> > > done on a computer dedicated for that. Windows or Linux are
> possible.
> > >
> >
> > An easy approach to this is to use a wireless camera on your robot,
> with
> > the receiver attached to a frame grabber on a remote host. This
> allows
> > you your choice of camera (stand alone video transmitters are
widely
> > available), and you are not limited to only processing hardware you
> can
> > carry on board your robot. You also get full FPS. Frame-grabber
cards
>
> > are inexpensive and widely available for both Windows and Linux.
>
> I wanted to go down that path but cannot get
> information on how to access the images from
> the tv receiver card in real time using my
> own software.
>
> Do you use Java?
>
> John Casey
Ever do search on Google?
This was number 1 and 2 ;). I searched for "python video capture".
I have used this module and it works well, it also has a really nifty
ftp uploader demo script.
http://videocapture.sourceforge.net/

hth,
M.E.Farmer