Free genius webcam software for linux

Genius project is a calculator program similiar in some aspects to BC, Matlab or Maple. GEL is the name of its extention language (stands for "Genius Extension Language", clever huh?), in fact, a large part of the standard genius functions are written in GEL itself.
Main features:
- Arbitrary precision ints, multiple precision floats, using all the power of gmp.
- Rational numbers, stored as quotient and denominator.
- Complex numbers, stored in cartesian coordinates as usual.
- Automatic typing, no need to declare types of variables.
- Math-like-looking expressions, tries to be as much a what you mean is what Genius understands, up to a limit of course.
- Matrix calculations, with many related functions.
- Modular arithmetic, including inversions and modular arithmetic on matrices.
- A complete programming language. In fact large part of Genius standard library is written in GEL.
- Can output matrices in LaTeX, Troff (eqn) or MathML, this is I think a very cool feature that allows you to copy stuff directly from the Genius console to a document in LaTeX, troff or MathML. I in fact use this even to just enter matrices into LaTeX documents to begin with.
- 2D Function line plots, standard 2D graphs of up to 10 functions at once, with possibility to export to EPS or PNG
- 3D Function surface plots, with possibility to export to EPS or PNG
- GUI IDE where you can edit and run/test your programs
- A plugin interface, not yet really used.

fswebcam is a small and nifty Webcam program for Linux. fswebcam captures images from a V4L1/V4L2 device or from files, averages them to reduce noise, and draws a caption on the final image.
Enhancements:
- Many changes and fixes were made, including configuration file support.

webcam_server is a program that allows others to view your webcam from a web browser.

The program itself is a server that provides a live feed of images to clients using a Java applet embedded in a web page. webcam_server uses the video4linux interface.

Naken Web is both a tiny web server capable of serving static web pages with built in ability to serve out live and prerecorded video in MJPEG format from video4linux devices and AVI files. Naken Web is small enough (22k to 32k) to run on embedded platforms and has been tested on the Gumstix embedded computer. Naken Web can be configured to serve out video from URLs similar to commercial IP cameras including Axis networked cameras.
History
A couple years ago I modified my Naken Chat chat server so that would act like a web server and serve out JPEG images out of an AVI file. Pressing the refresh button on a web browser to grab a new image would display the next image in the video based on the time that the web server was started. In other words, the video would play at normal speed in the browser. If you wait 5 seconds before pressing refresh and the avi plays at 30 frames a second, 150 frames are skipped so the time in the video is always accurate.
Main features:
- Serve out AVI files as if they were a live webcam
- Serve out static html web content like any other webserver
- Executable size is currently around 22k (32k with video4linux compiled in)
- Small/fast enough to run on embedded platforms such as Gumstix
- Alias URL strings of commerical IP cameras inluding Axis
- Video4Linux support for live video (early stages.. but working width bttv and sn9c102 based video)
- No dependencies unless video4linux is compiled in (libjpeg is needed then)
- Client Pull/Server Push for MJPEG video
- Username/Password Basic-Authentication
- Runs on both Unix/Linux and Microsoft Windows platforms
Version restrictions:
- If youd like to serve out AVI files the AVIs need to use the MJPEG codec. If you have a video encoded with mpeg or some other fileformat/codec, you can convert it to AVI/MJPEG using ffmpeg with the following line:
- ffmpeg -i myvideo.mpeg -vcodec mjpeg -b 10000 -s 352x240 -an out.avi
- Obviously you need to change myvideo.mpeg to the name of your input file, out.avi to what you want the output file to be called, -b is the bitrate and will affect the size of each jpeg in the avi file along with the quality of the video. The -s option is the resolution of the video. The -an option tells ffmpeg to leave out audio.
Enhancements:
- The performance of the server was increased significantly.
- Support for CGI was started.
- Support for Video4Windows devices was added.

Gqcam is a Linux clone of the QuickPict software that comes with the QuickCam. Originally it was written using GTK+ for the frontend, Alex Belits qcread for the backend, and a bunch of C to tie it all together.
It still uses GTK+ for the frontend, but as of version 0.2 it uses the Video4Linux interface as a backend. To compile it you will need GTK+, a Quickcam (one of the old greyscale parallel port ones), and a computer running Linux with Video4Linux support for the Quickcam compiled in or as a module.
It is currently fairly early in development, and now works with both the color and greyscale QuickCam. No, that doesnt include the QuickCam VC or any other ones (that I know of). Unfortunatly, Logitech/Connectix dont want to let us know how their new cameras work..
Main features:
- Brightness Control
- White Balance Control
- Contrast Control
- 3 Size Settings
- 2 Depth Settings
- Freeze Picture
- Snap Picture (saves in png, ppm and jpeg format)
- Command-line interface (good for webcam use)
- Snapping on a timer
- Support for the greyscale and color Quickcam, as well as CPiA based cameras and most any other driver that supports the read() command
The cameras I have gotten gqcam to work with or have had other people tell me it works with are:
- Greyscale Quickcam
- Color Quickcam
- Anything listed below this line I have not tested and know very little about
- Ezonics EZcam
- Creative Web-Cam II
- Philips USB PCVC675K
- Webcam III
- TerraCAM USB
- Plustek OptiCam 300U

measurenoise is a tool for determing the noise threshold for tools like motion. It uses v4l interface.

Installation for measurenoise:

Get the colorconversion routines from:
http://www.smcc.demon.nl/webcam/release.html#ccvt
build them and copy ccvt.h and libccvt.a to the measurenoise source-directory. Then:
make install

Usage:

measurenoise
or (e.g.):
measurenoise /dev/video1

Do not use the average noise threshold directly: measure it for both dark and light situation and pick the highest value. Then, add 1 or2. Furthermore: first set your device to the same parameters you use in the package with which you use this noise-threshold. E.g.: framerate,
width, height, etc. Also very important is that you point the webcam to something static: there should not be anything moving! For that, you can use dov4l: http://www.vanheusden.com/dov4l/

HasciiCam makes it possible to have live ascii video on the web. hasciicam captures video from a tv card and renders it into ascii letters, formatting the output into an html page with a refresh tag, or in a live ascii window, or in a simple text file.
It gives the possiblity to anybody that has a bttv card, a unix box and a cheap modem line to show live (h)ascii video can be viewed without any need for extra applications, plugins, java etc.
Main features:
- low bandwidth live cam "streaming"
- command line settings
- customizable refresh rate
- amazing live mode
- gives you the coolest .plan you ever had
- draws nifty symbols on your face
Enhancements:
- More Webcams are supported (grabbing YUV420P).

GtkCamShot software is a webcam snapshot utility. It is a quick hack which shows you the view from your webcam, updating ever half-second. Theres a simple button for saving images on the main window.
Building:
To build the source youll need several libraries installed.
If youre running Debian GNU/Linux just run :
apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libimlib2-dev giblib-dev
Usage:
To use this youll need a Webcam which is supported by the Linux kernels videodev API.
I use a Philips PWC camera, and it works just fine via /dev/video0
Enhancements:
- Changed preferences dialog to a property sheet.
- Added ability to change format string for timestamps.
- Added proper about box.