webcam man page on Peanut

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webcam(1)							     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
       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
       sshs = 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 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 (television/composite/svideo/camera/what‐
       ever), norm the TV norm.	 delay is the delay between two images in sec‐
       onds.   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
       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
       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
       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  is  set 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, with  one  ssh
       connect per upload.

       sshs  set  to non-zero makes webcam use ssh instead of ftp, with a sin‐
       gle, permanent ssh connection to the server.  This transfer mode	 sends
       uuencoded data over the ssh connection and thus requires uuencode/uude‐
       code (GNU  sharutils  have  them)  being	 installed  on	both  machines
       involved.

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 d�fault 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
	      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	 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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