acquiring a webcam image without vision toolbox

[CanadianKyle]

I am trying to capture an image from a webcam (or even a cheap digital camera) as part of a project I am doing. I simply want labview to take a picture and save it on command. However, everything i have searched requires the vision toolbox (a $4K+ addition) which is simply out of my range as a student. Does anyone one know a simple way to capture and save an image?

Thanks!

[MikeS81]

Hi CanadianK...,

see this link please. You can change the example to only on WebCam.

Hope it helps.

Mike

[CanadianKyle]

Do you know if you can record this though? or take a snapshot? I need to set it up so that I can  rotate an object and take snap shots every few degrees of rotation.

I can get the webcam to view in, however I cannot find a way to take the image such that it can be stored.

Thanks!

[MikeS81]

Hi CanadianKyle,

there is also a command to send the image to the clipboard. You can then read it from the clipboard to store it to a file.

If you don't find it, then i can send you an example in the evening.

Mike

[MikeS81]

Hi CanadianKyle,

attached you will find an example which shows how to take a snapshot from your webcam.

Hope it helps.

Mike

[sardarsree]

No it is not working. how i can take snap from laptop camera to labview front panel.

[James-D]

Hi CanadianKyle,

Examples, tutorials and articles on interfacing a webcam with LabVIEW without NI-IMAQ or some type of NI Vision Acquisition Softare are scarce. Depending on the lifetime of the project you are working on I would recommend downloading an evaluation copy (free for 30 days) of NI-IMAQ from ni.com. You can then make use of a number of examples to accomplish your goal including the one in the URL below:
https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-3479

Otherwise, I can refer you to these forum posts that could possibly be of some hepl to you:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/2-hours-finished-the-webcam-program/m-p/782481?requireLogin=False

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Grab-images-from-USB-Webcam-Peter-Paret-s-driver-too-slow/m-p/736552...

http://forums.ni.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?submitted=true&q=avicap32.dll

The evaluation copy of some NI Vision softare is probably you're best bet. Without it, my research doesn't seem to show any standard or straight-forward way to interface a laptop webcam with LabVIEW.

I hope this information helps!

Regards, 

[CTRInsurgent]

You could use ADVision Toolkit, http://vi-lib.com/ - it's an OpenCV wrapper. It does have all the limitations of OpenCV, but for simple webcam capture, it should work OK.

[NICOLAS2013par]

This lib work in LV 2012 ?. thank in advance.

[alexderjuengere]

---

@NICOLAS2013par wrote:

This lib work in LV 2012 ?. thank in advance.

---

hi NICOLAS2013par,

I haven't tested it in detail, but I was able to install ADV-1_2_6+ (I use plain LabView, no Vision Toolkit) and run those vis I needed - I used LabView 2013 SP1 32bit  on  windows 8.1 64bit

Regards,
Alex