Use smartphone camera in labiew for timed image sequence - No need to stream realtime

[Carlomeriti]

Hi all.

I'm working with labview 2009, vision acquisition,  and an android smartphone (I have several models).

What I would like to do:

- Grab a timed sequence of images with the smartphone camera and save them into the pc. I have a "schedule" (e.g. image 1 at time 0:01:123, image 2 at time 0:01:876, image 3 at time 0:02:464 ....) and I would like to shoot an image at every predefined time and save it in the pc. The time interval between two images is always higher than 500 ms. During the acquisition the camera is moved by a pan tilt unit. I just have to store images for postprocessing, I don't need live feed.

What I have already done:

- Connected  the camera to labview (with IP webcam following these http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/3D9CEA3E7B26FA4586257A56004E4507)

- Created a labview VI where i have the time schedule

- Tried to use some example VI to grab images

What happens:

- The camera has a poor frame rate (max 10 hz) and looks like is not able to focus fastly while moving and acquire the images in time. I must be sure that when I choose a time the image should be acquired. I don't need high frequency acquisition, but I need precise timing.

What I don't really need:

- I don't need the streaming video. Therefore if there would be a different system architecture where I don't stream a video but I just send to the phone a command and the phone gives back to the pc a single image that would be the best solution for me.

I thought that this could maybe feasible with android devices but I have also windows phones if needed.

Thanks a lot for your help.

[LiciaP]

Hi Carlo,

have you already had a look to this example?

Bye!

Licia

[Carlomeriti]

Dear Licia,

thanks for your answer. I'm sorry (I don't know why) that the link in my first message is broken, because I was linking the page that you suggest. As written in the message, I have done that and found out what I wrote above.

Thanks anyway

[LiciaP]

Hi Carlo,

did you try to run the Snap.vi or Grab.vi (supposing you are using LabVIEW)?

What is the result? Do you get any error?

Bye,

Licia

[Carlomeriti]

Dear Licia,

thanks for your answer. I'm using labview 2009, as you can read in the first post.

The result are described in the section "what happens", what I'm asking is in the same post just two lines below.

Maybe it is not clear, so I'll try to explain better.

I already tried the solution linked with ipcamera and labview, the results are not really good, I would like to have something better. I did not mention it in the previous post, but with the same vi (like snap o grab vi, as you suggested) and another usb camera (not a smartphone one) if have a higher framerate that leads to better results.

Anyway the main issue is that the ipcamera+mjpeg streaming solution is based on a thing that I don't really need (video streaming) so I'm asking if it is feasible a completely different approach where I can just shoot and transfer images without streaming.

This is the real core of the sentence.

Thanks again