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#1
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
Hello all,
I have tried searching the newsgroups for my question, with no luck. Though that certainly doesn't mean I didn't miss something. At my old lab we had a frame grabber card that allowed us to make contour plots of an image from a ccd camera. I would like to do something similar at my new job for a demonstration and later for actual use. What we have are some very nice web cams (Toucam II and StellaCam-EX) that I am trying to use to image the focus of a HeNe laser. I have LabView programs that will take a line-out along the x- and y-axis of the image and fit that to a Gaussian. This is very useful when determining how well a laser focuses. I am including the astronomy groups, because you guys play with these cameras all of the time and I'm sure someone needed to do something similar, like taking an image of a star to see how well their telescope focuses. Ultimately my problem is that the software that comes with both cameras does not allow me to save in the format that I need and I was wondering if there is software (freeware, shareware) that will alow me to save in the needed format. Thanks for the help Kevin |
#3
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
Nicholas Sherlock wrote: wrote: Ultimately my problem is that the software that comes with both cameras does not allow me to save in the format that I need and I was wondering if there is software (freeware, shareware) that will alow me to save in the needed format. try ImageJ, its freeware, science oriented, and has a twain interface. Steve Roberts |
#4
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
I don't know if this will help, but here is a link to a free image
processing software package intended for robot imaging. It will work with most USB based web cams, but I am not certain of the exact software interface. http://www.roborealm.com/ Joe Dunfee |
#5
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
wrote:
Hello all, I have tried searching the newsgroups for my question, with no luck. Though that certainly doesn't mean I didn't miss something. At my old lab we had a frame grabber card that allowed us to make contour plots of an image from a ccd camera. I would like to do something similar at my new job for a demonstration and later for actual use. What we have are some very nice web cams (Toucam II and StellaCam-EX) that I am trying to use to image the focus of a HeNe laser. I have LabView programs that will take a line-out along the x- and y-axis of the image and fit that to a Gaussian. This is very useful when determining how well a laser focuses. I am including the astronomy groups, because you guys play with these cameras all of the time and I'm sure someone needed to do something similar, like taking an image of a star to see how well their telescope focuses. Ultimately my problem is that the software that comes with both cameras does not allow me to save in the format that I need Which is ....? and I was wondering if there is software (freeware, shareware) that will alow me to save in the needed format. There is no way to answer the question since "the format you need" is unknown.... -- Carsten A. Arnholm http://arnholm.org/ N59.776 E10.457 |
#6
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
Joe is correct. You should be able to save a webcam image in a variety
of formats using RoboRealm. You may also be interested in the focus module at http://www.roborealm.com/help/focus.php which was built to help one improve the focus of an image that may act similar to the LabView procedure. STeven. www.roborealm.com |
#7
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
My apologies. What is clear in my head is not always clear on paper!
Ultimately a text file with columnsxrows=total pixels and each entry being the "intensity" on that particular camera pixel. Thanks everyone for the other answers despit my lack of clarity. Kevin Carsten A. Arnholm wrote: wrote: Hello all, I have tried searching the newsgroups for my question, with no luck. Though that certainly doesn't mean I didn't miss something. At my old lab we had a frame grabber card that allowed us to make contour plots of an image from a ccd camera. I would like to do something similar at my new job for a demonstration and later for actual use. What we have are some very nice web cams (Toucam II and StellaCam-EX) that I am trying to use to image the focus of a HeNe laser. I have LabView programs that will take a line-out along the x- and y-axis of the image and fit that to a Gaussian. This is very useful when determining how well a laser focuses. I am including the astronomy groups, because you guys play with these cameras all of the time and I'm sure someone needed to do something similar, like taking an image of a star to see how well their telescope focuses. Ultimately my problem is that the software that comes with both cameras does not allow me to save in the format that I need Which is ....? and I was wondering if there is software (freeware, shareware) that will alow me to save in the needed format. There is no way to answer the question since "the format you need" is unknown.... -- Carsten A. Arnholm http://arnholm.org/ N59.776 E10.457 |
#8
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
wrote:
My apologies. What is clear in my head is not always clear on paper! Ultimately a text file with columnsxrows=total pixels and each entry being the "intensity" on that particular camera pixel. That is a very generic description that would suit almost any image file format on the planet. Webcams deliver 8bit AVI files, encoded using a codec depending in the camera in question. Lots of programs can extract the AVI frames to BMP for example. FITS files would perhaps suit your needs more directly, but there are also many variants of FITS files. You also have to take into account that webcams are typically equipped with a colour chip. This also influences the file format. You get 3 intensities per image pixel after debayering. Clear skies Carsten A. Arnholm http://arnholm.org/ N59.776 E10.457 |
#9
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
wrote:
My apologies. What is clear in my head is not always clear on paper! Ultimately a text file with columnsxrows=total pixels and each entry being the "intensity" on that particular camera pixel. Carsten A. Arnholm wrote: That is a very generic description that would suit almost any image file format on the planet. I don't think so. By text is surely meant something like ASCII. Under that interpretation, something like plain-text PPM, PGM, or PBM would be acceptable; possibly something like XPM or XBM would work, too. But not GIF or JPEG or PNG. There are image file converters available that will convert any of the image file formats to PPM, which can then be manipulated quantitatively by a simple script. -- Brian Tung The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/ Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/ The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/ My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html |
#10
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Program for getting line-outs from web cam images
Brian Tung wrote:
wrote: My apologies. What is clear in my head is not always clear on paper! Ultimately a text file with columnsxrows=total pixels and each entry being the "intensity" on that particular camera pixel. Carsten A. Arnholm wrote: That is a very generic description that would suit almost any image file format on the planet. I don't think so. By text is surely meant something like ASCII. Under that interpretation, something like plain-text PPM, PGM, or PBM would be acceptable; possibly something like XPM or XBM would work, too. But not GIF or JPEG or PNG. There are image file converters available that will convert any of the image file formats to PPM, which can then be manipulated quantitatively by a simple script. You are right. I missed the "text" part and focused on the "columnsxrows=total pixels". But for image processing I would still suggest using something like Fits as the starting point instead. It is more compact, more efficient, can provide more precision and there is free programming tools for it (e.g. CFITSIO). Clear skies Carsten A. Arnholm http://arnholm.org/ N59.776 E10.457 |
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