Free cameras software for linux

Remote Capture for Canon PowerShot cameras project is a tool for controlling Canon PowerShot cameras.
The following cameras were reported to work with Capture. Please send a report to extend the list.
Canon PowerShot S50
Canon PowerShot A60
Canon PowerShot A70
Canon PowerShot A75
Canon PowerShot A80
Canon PowerShot A85
Canon PowerShot A95
Canon PowerShot A510
Canon PowerShot A520
Canon PowerShot G6
Canon Digital IXUS 400 (aka PowerShot S400)
Canon PowerShot S410
Canon PowerShot S500
The main advantage of Capture over gPhoto is that the consecutive shots are taken without the camera lenses being closed and opened again. When taking several thousand shots in a row, this indeed lets the camera live longer.
Enhancements:
- This release adds some minor enhancements and fixes.
- The code is stable.

Camorama is a webcam application featuring various image filters.
Camorama allows you to view video from your webcam and apply various image filters to it. Camorama project can also upload images via ftp.
Camorama is a program i wrote to learn gtk and v4l. As you can see, i am still learning. It is pretty simple at the moment, and i hope to make it much more complete. I also plan to make it more generic, as i initially wrote it with only my own creative webcam 3 in mind.
Hopefully it will work with other cameras. i will test on anything i can get my hands on, but that might take a while. Right now you can change the video settings using the gui and apply some crappy filters i wrote to mess around with.
It runs at a reasonable speed, but i would like to get the fps up as high as possible. Still figuring that out. As for requirements, you will need at least gnome 2 and v4l. I havent used anything else crazy, and that should do it.
Enhancements:
- Lots of bug fixes.

Cammgr manages a collection of web cameras. It will bring cameras online or offline, and initiate or suspend image capture operations.
Any camera can be controlled provided a driver is available. Cammgr supports multiple images per camera, default images for inactive cameras, per- user/host/camera notifications, and an easy-to- use configuration file.
Cammgr can scan Apache log files to auto-initiate image capture, and tune capture frequency can to the minimum needed to ensure that clients receive a new image on request.
Enhancements:
- Support for Axis network cameras was added.
- A bug where the pipe file descriptor was left open across shell exec was fixed.
- A client capture manager from where all capture processes are dispatched and monitored was created.
- A bug where the capture process did not go away when cammgr exited was fixed.
- Other miscellaneous cleanups were done.

DigicaMerge project is a commandline tool to merge directories of pictures taken with digital cameras. If youve got a digital camera, your hard disk probably contains many directories full of pictures all named with the same names.
This utility allows you to merge such directories contents into a new directory, and renames all the pictures on the fly, ensuring no filename clash will occur.
You can define your own naming scheme, using either a set of predefined variables or any recognized Exif tag which may be present in your pictures, and also specify a pattern to select only certain files.
Installation:
- Extract it :
$ gzip -d digicamerge-x.xx.tar.gz | tar -xf -
where x.xx is digicamerges latest version number.
- Install it :
Go to digicamerges directory:
$ cd digicamerge-x.xx
Just type:
$ python setup.py install
You may need to be logged in with sufficient privileges (e.g. root)
This will generally install digicamerge in /usr/local/bin or an equivalent path depending on your system.
- Launch it :
Just type :
$ digicamerge
And read the long help message which contains examples.
Enhancements:
- A command line option was added to automatically remove duplicate pictures when merging directories.
- The manual page is now included in the package.

Digital Camera Protocol is another command-line utility for DC21x cameras, this one looks and works just like "ftp" command. Not written by me, but uses some of my low-level Kodak code from digicam.

Python Traffic Analyzer is a Python base class and sample driver script written to retrieve and manipulate images from the TrafficLand cameras and calculate a numeric value representing the current traffic flow.

PyTrAn, an example driver script, an image collector and an image mask creator are available for download from the link shown at the bottom. To use the PyTrAn package begin by choosing a camera that you wish to analyze, for this example well use the camera captioned above.

We want to construct a mask over the area of the image that we are interested in, namely the road. In this particular example the road takes up the majority of the image but that is not always the case.

We will apply the mask over captured images to fine tune the area over which we are looking for movement. To create the mask we will first need to collect a sequential series of snapshots from the target camera. The image_collector.py script was written for this task:

$ mkdir mask_200003
$ cd mask_200003
$ ../image_collector.py 200003 30
Collecting 30 images...
30

Done.

The script is hard coded to capture images on a 2-second delay. The delay is necessary to ensure the image has changed. I believe 2-seconds to be the absolute minimum. Once complete, 30 images numbered 1 through 30 will be created in the current directory.

We construct a mask from these captured images by creating a diff-image for each sequential image pair and then adding each diff-image together. Naturally, a script was written to automate this task as well:

$ ../mask_maker.py 1 30
Creating a diff for each sequential image pair.
Diffing 29

Creating the initial mask from the first image pair.

Adding the rest of the diffs to the mask.
Masking 29

Done.

A number of .diff files are generated in this process. These files repesent the movement between individual sequence pairs.

The .diff files are simply intermediary files, the important bit is the mask file, which is generated as the sum of all differences.

The mask file may be dirty (as in this case) and require manual cleanup. The basic shape of the road however is clearly visible, evidence that we can with minimal effort automate the mask generation process. Also, this run was conducted at night, day-time images yield better results.

There are a few final steps we need to take before we can use the example PyTrAn driver script. First we need to convert the mask to ASCII (noraw) format:

$ pnmnoraw mask > mask_200003.ascii

Then we need to open an ImageMagick display window and get its X-window-ID using xwininfo. Finally, update camera_id and window_id in pytran_sampling.py and launch the driver:

$ ../pytran_sampling.py
DEBUG> grabbing frame from camera 200003
DEBUG> rotating image: pytran.this > pytran.last
DEBUG> refreshing image in 3 secs
taking a 5 minute sample at various thresholds.
DEBUG> grabbing frame from camera 200003
DEBUG> generating frame diff on pytran.last, pytran.this
DEBUG> displaying image: pytran.diff
DEBUG> converting pytran.diff to ascii
DEBUG> calculating traffic ratio...
ratio[5]: 55%
DEBUG> calculating traffic ratio...
ratio[10]: 52%
...
...
5 minute sample[5]: 67.88
5 minute sample[10]: 42.66
5 minute sample[15]: 30.57
5 minute sample[20]: 23.03
5 minute sample[25]: 18.39
5 minute sample[30]: 14.79
5 minute sample[35]: 12.42
5 minute sample[40]: 10.53
5 minute sample[45]: 9.06
5 minute sample[50]: 7.85

The sampling script will take 5 minute samples at varying color thresholds. The optimal threshold must be manually chosen. Furthermore, you will need to sample the traffic ratios during both heavy and light traffic times to get a good feel for your acceptable range. Also, keep in mind that the traffic ratio value is simply the percent change detected, or in other words the movement detected within the masked region. This means that a completely empty road will register similar values to a road so congested it looks like a parking lot. The time of day can be combined with the traffic ration to determine the logical truth.

With this task implemented and abstracted more complex systems can be built. When I find the time Id like to create a system that will take multiple potential travel routes and times, and during the travel time e-mail the traveler with the best route to take. Another idea I had would be to record the traffic flow values for each camera, for each day and for each half hour interval. Travelers and other interested parties can then analyze traffic patterns to determine the fastest route dependant on date/time.

Axmjpeg application retrieves JPEG images from an MJPEG over HTTP stream that conforms to the Axis Video API, HTTP Interface Specification.
Axmjpeg retrieves JPEG images from an MJPEG over HTTP stream. The HTTP stream must conform to Revision 2.x of the "Axis Video API, HTTP Interface Specification" (which is available from "http://www.axis.com/techsup/cam_servers/dev/cam_http_api.htm").
Axmjpeg also supports Revision 1.x of this specification provided the optional "Content-Length:" header is enabled.
This tool was written for cammgr, the web camera management software available from "http://freshmeat.net/projects/cammgr". Specifically, it allows cammgr to support the great range of Axis network cameras available from "http://www.axis.com".
However, its easy to come up with other uses for axmjpeg.
The manual page describes the full range of functionality; the basic list is:
- save JPEG images to the same (optionally renamed) file.
- save each JPEG image to a unique file.
- pipe JPEG images to shell commands (for more processing).
- time-based capturing, where only one image per the specified interval will be selected for processing.
Axmjpeg was developed on FreeBSD and tested on a wide range of Unix systems including several Linux variants, HP-UX, Tru64, and SunOS.
Enhancements:
- The image-fetching code was extended to support cameras that send binary headers in the MJPEG HTTP stream.
- This version of axmjpeg is known to support the "SQ IP Cam" and the "GP-280 Network IP Camera."

VISCA Camera Control Library is a library for controlling a VISCA(tm) compliant camera through the RS232 port of your PC. VISCA, on its side, is a protocol developed by Sony so that a lot of machine vision cameras from Sony are compliant with VISCA.

Typical cameras include the FCB-IX47 family of camera block for OEMs. Note that other devices, such as VCRs, can be controlled. Drop me a line f you know other functions that you would like to be implemented and for which you have the opcodes.

libVISCA has been tested only with an FCB-IX47P. This does not mean that its the only camera compatible, but some others might require addition/changes. In the current version, libVISCA has interface functions for every command/inquiry of the specifications. This includes zoom, focus, digital effects, white balance, and much more.

Every function composes an RS232 message, up to 12 bytes long. The message is then sent to a function that will actually send the 12 bytes after appending a header and footer. The function also waits for answers from the camera, such as ACK and completion messages. If its an inquiry, the reply is stored in the input buffer of the interface structure.