Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 9 Aug 1996 13:42:19 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Gary Kline <kline@tera.com>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   (fwd) winc: color UNIX support for the WinCam (fwd)
Message-ID:  <199608092042.NAA27808@athena.tera.com>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
	
	Fellow FreeBSD'ers,

	Enclosed in a posting from alt.sources on my FBSD system
	relating to a medium-resolution color CCD digital camera.
	The author, Paul Fox, has done a unix port. 

	Thought I would share the news.... 

	gary





----- Forwarded message from Gary Kline -----

Xref: tao alt.sources:3193
From: pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (Paul Fox)
Newsgroups: alt.sources
Subject: winc: color UNIX support for the WinCam
Date: 8 Aug 1996 03:20:45 GMT
Organization: FoxHarper Associates
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <4ubmed$biv@news1.wing.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: gutso.american.com
X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0]

hi -- a while ago i bought a WinCam.One digital camera (www.wincam.com) to
play with.  it's a cheap ($200) 640x480 color ccd camera that connects to a
serial port.  it comes with Windows software for taking pix, along with a
copy of Paint Shop PRO.  this is all great if you run Windows mostly, but i
don't.

so i got in touch with the folks that make it, to ask when they'd be doing
a linux or other unix version.  one thing led to another: they let me have
some specs, i wrote a bunch of code, they let me have some of their code
for the tricky color processing parts, and now i'm pleased to announce
that the latest version of "winc", my package of unix code that drives the
camera, is available, does color, and is licensed via copyleft, i.e. the
GNU public license.

you can see examples of pictures taken with the WinCam at their website --
they have the usual high-quality still examples, and a number of live
cameras as well.  two of the live cameras are running winc on a linux box. 
there's a pointer to my ftp site there (on the support page), or you can
get it directly from ftp://id.wing.net/pub/pgf/winc/winc-23.tar.gz.  if you
have trouble getting in, keep trying -- it's a busy server.

i have no financial connections with StarDot Technologies -- i just wanted
to be able to play with digital photos, needed a camera that could be some
distance from my computer, and the WinCam filled the bill.  i'd like to
thank StarDot for being willing to publish some of their code under the
GPL.  (well, my translation of some of their code -- it used to be
assembler, now it's C.) i hope it helps them sell cameras -- it's certainly
made mine more useful to me.

to describe winc, i'll just quote part of the README...

----------------
What you get is:
    - three programs:
	- winc, which will take pictures from the command line --
		it has too many options, and does too much.  i use
		it during development of the winc library, so it can
		do just about anything the library can.  usually, though,
		all you want is "winc -c >image.pnm".
	- wincd, which will repetitively take pictures, only saving
		the ones that are "interesting".  i use this (in
		combination with "wincd_script") to drive a web page of
		recent pictures of my dog, waiting at home until i get
		there.  no, i won't publish the URL.  :-)
	- fwinc, a simple X11 program which continuously displays
		low-resulotion "viewfinder" images.  this is useful for
		aiming and focusing the camera.  it could (and probably
		will be) easily extended to be a more general WinCam
		application.
    - a library: libwinc.a, which can be linked into other programs.
    - some patches for the "xv" image manipulation tool, which give it
	simple built-in wincam support.
    - a shell script (wincd_script) which does periodic snapshots, and
	    will optionally save past snaps.

----------------

paul

-- 
---------------------
    paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma)


-- 
  Gary D. Kline         kline@tao.thought.org          Public service uNix


----- End of forwarded message from Gary Kline -----






Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199608092042.NAA27808>