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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 section.	Recently
     the webcam utility got support for multiple connections, 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 default 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 dif-
     ferent 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 be-
     fore 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  image
     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  posi-
     tive,  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 dif-
     ference 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  between
     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 (using 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]  sec-
     tion 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 Registration"  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 ar-
	    ticle.

     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 center. So,
	    you can change its coordinates around the center of image 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 article.

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 MERCHANTABILITY or FIT-
     NESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

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

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