webcam - capture images and upload them to a webserver
using ftp
SYNOPSIS
webcam [ config file ]
DESCRIPTION
webcam captures images from a video4linux device like
bttv, annotates them and and uploads them to a webserver
using ftp in a endless loop.
CONFIGURATION
At startup webcam reads the configuration from the given
config file or ~/.webcamrc if none is specified in the
command line. It looks like this (the given values are
the defaults):
[ftp]
host = www
user = webcam
pass = xxxxxx
dir = public_html/images
file = webcam.jpeg
tmp = uploading.jpeg
passive = 1
debug = 0
auto = 0
local= 0
[grab]
device = /dev/video0
text = "webcam %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
infofile = filename
width = 320
height = 240
delay = 3
input = composite1
norm = pal
rotate = 0
top = 0
left = 0
bottom = -1
right = -1
quality = 75
trigger = 0
once = 0
The annotation text is processed with strftime. Check the
strftime(3) or date(1) manpage to see how you can format
the timestamps. The text can also be read from a extern
file (use infofile for that). input is the video source
(TV/composite/whatever), norm the TV norm. delay is the
delay between two images in seconds. quality is the JPEG
If debug in the ftp section is set to 1 the complete com
munication between webcam and the ftp utility is printed
to stderr. auto enables autologin via ~/.netrc (starts
the ftp utility without the '-n' switch). If local in the
ftp section is non-zero, files will be stored locally
(using the dir, tmp, and file parameters) rather than
ftped.
top, bottom, left, and right in the grab section allow
cropping the image after it is grabbed. They should sat
isfy 0<=top<bottom<=height and 0<=left<right<=width. (0,0
is the top, left corner.) If rotate is positive, the out
put image will be rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees
that number of times (1, 2, or 3).
With trigger set to a non-zero value webcam will upload
the image only if the content of the image has changed.
It just looks for the maximum difference between the last
uploaded and current image and if it is greater than the
specified value the image will be uploaded. If once is
set to 1 webcam will upload a single frame and quit.
archive can be used to create a (local) archive of the
webcam images. Just specify a the filename for the files
as argument. The filename will be processed with strf
time(3), so you can use the place the usual time format
controls into the string to get unique filenames.
AUTHOR
Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1997-2001 Gerd Knorr
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
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