Webcam as motion detector

Post by **Digit** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 7:10 pm

Hi,

I have a ASUS EEE TOP with a webcam built in. I was thinking about using this cam as motion detector for switching the screen off when there's no motion detected for a specific time (and switching back on when there is). Is that a good idea? Has anyone ever done something like that?

Post by **r_255** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:21 pm

Hey, Digit

Great idea..

I dont know if you are familiar to a programm like webcamxp, but that should do the trick... thanx for the idea.

Post by **Digit** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:44 pm

I know WebcamXP, but thanks for the tip

I've been doing some searching the last hour and found some code examples on how to do motion detection. I have built several examples and copied them to the ASUS to try them out. Currently there's one doing motion detection with a frame rate of 7 fps giving 20% load on the CPU. I think those 7 fps could be less, but have to do more testing on that. Nice thing is that all examples have (.NET) source code included so i can build it right into the application i'm going to make for the ASUS and do the monitor switching without external tool. Or, another possibility could be merging an earlier tool, monitors.exe, with this MD tool.

To be continued

Post by **r_255** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:55 pm

silly me... lol

Thats even better, I would be intrested in such a programm for the mimo screen and i think there are some more....
I guess your solution is also less heavy for atom users.

Post by **Bastiaan** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:47 pm

Monitors.exe works very well on the TOP, not om my Vega screen with MSI windbox....
And of course I am also interested. WebcamXP will need the full version at $75 to do motiondetection.

Post by **TANE** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:40 am

Robert,
I'm also using monitors.exe.
Hope you can run it in the background..I see the dos box every time.
Idea of using the camera for auto turn on is great.

I have no camera attached to my screen ..but any usb camera can do the work...is this going to be your second Homeseer plugin...

Post by **Digit** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:13 am

No not my next plugin

Motion detection (MD) is quite CPU intensive work. And i discovered that lowering frame rate only makes MD worse; it causes that moving ojects in an image are not being recognized as moving objects anymore because the next image is to different from the previous one; so it's not that easy. We'll see...

Post by **Snelvuur** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:42 pm

Juist build this : http://blog.joshuamcginnis.com/2009/03/ ... er-thingy/

maybe overkill?

but its not as cpu intensive..

// Erik (binkey.nl)

Post by **Digit** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 11:33 pm

I bought a german C'T magazine this weekend with an article about Arduino microcontroller. Something for the upcoming short days and long nights

<hr noshade size="1"><font size="1">Robert
http://www.hekkers.net <i>Digit's Online Home.</i></font id="size1">

Post by **Post-IT** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:33 pm

talking about days and nights... maybe an addition would be to let the webcam sense if it is dark or light in the room where it is situated and adjust settings such as dark background or lower brightness settings.