Subject: Camera Servers

From: Daniel Beavers <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 16:00:57 -0400

I am looking for a camera that I can view and control over the
internet.  I want pan, tilt, zoom, and focus.  Multicast would be nice
but not required.  What I want to do is plug in power, plug in the
network, mount the camera, and walk away.  I am aware of the following
devices:

 - AXIS 240 Camera Server and cameras at
http://www.axis.com/glocal/products/camera_servers/

 - RCS5000 at http://www.carecams.com/

 - NetworkEye at http://www.microplex.com/microplex/info/networkEye.html

Of these the AXIS 240 Camera Server seems to come the closest.  With
this partial solution I still have to go find a camera with pan and tilt
hardware.  

Are there other options that I am not aware of?  If the 240 is the best
solution does anyone have experiences with camera solutions they can
share?  Does anyone have other suggestions and pointers?

---

From: Deb Agarwal (ITG staff) <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 13:45:48 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Daniel,

We here at LBL have been using the Sony EVI-D30 and Canon VC-C3
which are both RS-232 controllable.  We are in the midst of building
a device server and remote camera control interface which we are
nearly ready to release.  The software will all be freeware.  So
far we have only tested the server (equipment drive software) on
Sun and SGI but it should not be hard to get working on other
platforms that have RS-232.

The user interface is a java program to control the camera.  You
currently need to run vic to view the image.  We are looking into
adding a viewer to our tool.

Thanks,
Deb Agarwal
Lawrence Berkeley Lab

---

From: Magnus Danielson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 02:15:16 +0200

>>>>> "DA(s" == Deb Agarwal (ITG staff) <[email-masked]> writes:

 DA(s> Hi Daniel,
 DA(s> We here at LBL have been using the Sony EVI-D30 and Canon VC-C3
 DA(s> which are both RS-232 controllable.  We are in the midst of building
 DA(s> a device server and remote camera control interface which we are
 DA(s> nearly ready to release.  The software will all be freeware.  So
 DA(s> far we have only tested the server (equipment drive software) on
 DA(s> Sun and SGI but it should not be hard to get working on other
 DA(s> platforms that have RS-232.

Back in the Stockholm IETF 95 we had such a system up running both for
the Parkervision/JVC cameras as well as the small Canon once. The
system had remote steering over IP with device server running on both
Irix and Solaris (and Linux I assume) as well as a Tcl/Tk based user
interface with X/Y/Zoom/Distance/Iris control, preset positions etc.

We had the students mastering this tools as well as the videoequipment
over a weekend so it was fairly easy to use.

I remember clearly how one IETFer ducked when the big Parkervision/JVC
camera swinged 180 degree's to pick his face up at the center mike ;)

I am sure that this hack can be found again. It has been used since
with further refinements.

Cheers,
Magnus (Mbone'r at the Stockholm IETF)

---

From: "Christophe Tronche" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 16:56:50 +0200 (MET DST)

Hello.

I've also made a Web-controlled camera last year using the Sony
EVI-D31 camera and be very happy with it. I used an SGI indy for image
acquisition. The camera is controlled via an RS 232 port, and the
protocol is publicly available (however, you need additional video
hardware, unlike with the AXIS, for example). The EVI offers
interesting additional features such as automatic tracking of a moving
target. 

Sony's description of the camera is at

http://bpgprod.sel.sony.com/model.bpg?cat=Cameras+%26+Camcorders&subcat=Industrial&model=EVID30

Thomas Moeslund's technical report describes the camera's protocol and
includes sample code:

http://www.vision.auc.dk/~tbm/Sony/

-- 
Christophe Tronche		[email-masked]
Tel: (33) 01 47 40 28 48	Fax: (33) 01 47 40 28 65