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Webcam Control Tutorial files don't work for Presets or Auto Pan
Thomas Brady from United States  [6 posts]
14 year
I have downloaded the move_orbit.robo file, have it running, and I'm using the default web server and the Logitech Orbit camera. I can use the up, down, left, right buttons just fine. Clicking any of the 4 preset buttons causes the camera to return "home," and the "Auto Pan" button does nothing.
Thomas Brady from United States  [6 posts] 14 year
I should point out that what I'm really after is how to implement a preset myself. I have a working API client in Adobe AIR that will issue movement commands (up, down, left, right, home), but once the camera has moved I can't figure any way to find where where it currently is. Requesting the pan/tilt/roll variables gets me all 0s.
Anonymous 14 year
Thomas,

The logitech doesn't provide that capability. The best you can do is to  home the camera and then move X units in any direction. That will approximately get you to the same position each time ... but it is not the same precision that you get with a servo. That's why the presets are first homing ....

STeven.
Thomas Brady from United States  [6 posts] 14 year
Well, are the presets in that tutorial supposed to work? Currently they are only sending the camera home, and nowhere else...
Thomas Brady from United States  [6 posts] 14 year
Wait, I have two questions, now:

1) How do you move the Logitech x units in a direction? My best guess, currently, is that you send the move command, and wait a certain amount of time before sending the stop command.

2) Is there any way to get the camera to report its current position?
Anonymous 14 year
Thomas,

1) Correct, the camera is NOT like a servo in that you can send the position. As it uses motors you can really only tell it to move and then stop after a period of time.

2) Not that we are aware of. As it uses motors it would need encoders or some other position sensor to report that information. Keep in mind that this camera is made for video conferencing and thus is meant to be adjusted either by a human or based on what it sees.

So if you stick a fiducial or some other marker where you want the camera to stop at you could use that to trigger the motion stop ... but that situation is a little more complicated that what is in the current robofile.

The presets were not set to very large movements so you probably did not notice them. Basically the way they work is to first home the camera since that is the ONLY location that you know and the presets use that for calibration such that after the home is set it moves X and Y units in the appropriate direction relative to home. Since the camera does not support absolute positioning you can only perform relative positioning ... but if you do that always from the same location (i.e. home) then it can mimic absolute positioning.

Also, we did find some variable setting issues in the current version of RR so it may be worth an update if the controls just do not seem to respond ... but keep a copy of your index.html file when you do to avoid losing that during an upgrade (I think the installation checks for that but just to be sure).

STeven.




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