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webcam(1)		    General Commands Manual		     webcam(1)

NAME
       webcam -	capture	images and upload them to a webserver using ftp

SYNOPSIS
       webcam [	config file ]

DESCRIPTION
       webcam  captures	 images	from a video4linux device like bttv, annotates
       them and	and uploads them to a webserver	using ftp in a endless loop.

CONFIGURATION
       At startup webcam reads the configuration from the given	config file or
       ~/.webcamrc if none is specified	in the command line.

       The config file has at least two	sections.  The	"grab"	section	 holds
       the  capture  parameters.   Any other section describes where the image
       should be uploaded.  Older versions used	"ftp" as name  for  that  sec-
       tion.   Recently	 the  webcam  utility got support for multiple connec-
       tions, thus any section name is accepted	and you	can have more than one
       ftp section (you	have to	use another name for  each  section  througth,
       name them by upload servers for example).

       Here is an sample config	file (the given	values are the defaults):

       [grab]
       device =	/dev/video0
       driver =	libv4l
       text = "webcam %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
       infofile	= filename
       fg_red =	255
       fg_green	= 255
       fg_blue = 255
       width = 320
       height =	240
       delay = 3
       wait = 0
       input = composite1
       norm = pal
       rotate =	0
       top = 0
       left = 0
       bottom =	-1
       right = -1
       quality = 75
       trigger = 0
       once = 0

       [ftp]
       host = www
       user = webcam
       pass = xxxxxx
       dir  = public_html/images
       file = webcam.jpeg
       tmp  = uploading.jpeg
       passive = 1
       debug = 0
       auto = 0
       local = 0
       ssh = 0

       The  annotation text is processed with strftime.	 Check the strftime(3)
       or date(1) manpage to see how you can format the	timestamps.  The  text
       can  also  be read from a extern	file (use infofile for that).  The de-
       fault color for the text	overlay	is white (RGB=255,255,255). Entries in
       the range of 0 through 255 for fg_red, fg_green,	 and  fg_blue  can  be
       used  to	 define	 a  different  color.	Likewise bg_red, bg_green, and
       bg_blue can be used to set the  background  color  (which  defaults  to
       transparent).

       input  is  the  video source (TV/composite/whatever), norm the TV norm.
       delay is	the delay between two images in	seconds.  wait is the  initial
       delay  before  the  first image is grabbed (some	cameras	need some time
       for adapting to lightning, thus don't  return  images  with  reasonable
       quality within the first	few seconds ...).  quality is the JPEG quality
       for the stored images.

       top, bottom, left, and right in the grab	section	allow cropping the im-
       age after it is grabbed.	 They should satisfy 0<=top<bottom<=height and
       0<=left<right<=width.   (0,0  is	 the  top, left	corner.)  If rotate is
       positive, the output image will be rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees
       that number of times (1,	2, or 3).

       With trigger set	to a non-zero value webcam will	upload the image  only
       if the content of the image has changed.	 It just looks for the maximum
       difference  between  the	 last  uploaded	and current image and if it is
       greater than the	specified value	the image will be uploaded.   If  once
       is set to 1 webcam will upload a	single frame and quit.

       archive	can  be	used to	create a (local) archive of the	webcam images.
       Just specify the	filename for the files as argument.  The filename will
       be processed with strftime(3), so you can use the place the usual  time
       format  controls	into the string	to get unique filenames.  Non-existing
       directories are created if needed.

       If debug	in the ftp section is set to 1 the complete communication  be-
       tween  webcam  and  the ftp utility is printed to stderr.  auto enables
       autologin via ~/.netrc (starts the ftp utility without the '-n' switch,
       check the ftp(1)	man page for more info about the ~/.netrc  file).   If
       local in	the ftp	section	is non-zero, files will	be stored locally (us-
       ing  the	 dir, tmp, and file parameters)	rather than ftped.  ssh	set to
       non-zero	makes webcam use ssh instead of	ftp.

CORRECTION OF DISTORTION
       contributed by Frederic Helin, the parameters belong  into  the	[grab]
       section of the config file too.

       distor =	1
	      If distor	param is set to	1, the correction of distortion	works.

       distor_k	= 700
	      This  is	the coefficient	of distortion. This algorithm is based
	      on the paper "Correcting Distortion of Image by Image  Registra-
	      tion" of Toru Tamaki, Tsuyoshi Yamamura and Noboru Ahnishi. More
	      your  lens  has an important distortion, more 'distor_k' must be
	      neared of	0. 700 is the default value. Coefficient k of  program
	      is x100 than article.

       distor_cx = 192

       distor_cy = 144
	      Coordinates  of  the lens	optical	axis: width/2 and height/2 are
	      the default values. The axis doesn't go through the  image  cen-
	      ter. So, you can change its coordinates around the center	of im-
	      age to affine correction.

       distor_zoom = 30
	      Zoom  parameter is used to cache the distorted borders of	image,
	      if you don't like	this. Default value is 100.

       distor_sensorw =	320

       distor_sensorh =	240
	      Dimensions of camera sensor. Default values are for 1/4p sensor.
	      This parameters used to have the same k coefficient  than	 arti-
	      cle.

AUTHOR
       Gerd Knorr <kraxel@bytesex.org>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 1997-2002 Gerd Knorr
       This  program  is  distributed  in the hope that	it will	be useful, but
       WITHOUT ANY  WARRANTY;  without	even  the  implied  warranty  of  MER-
       CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR	PURPOSE.

			   (c) 1998-2000 Gerd Knorr		     webcam(1)

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