Izzy controlled PTZ cameras

fubbi

Its relatively easy to set up LANC control with an arduino and then control it with isadora. or any other camera with a remote jack I suppose

if you are into electronics that is :)

http://www.boehmel.de/lanc.htm

http://blog.furiousgreencloud.com/2008/08/arduino-speaks-to-lanc-devices-camera.html

http://wiki.dxarts.washington.edu/groups/tutorialsdemos/wiki/9160b/LANC__Arduino_zoom_control.html

fubbi

keftaparty

Hi,

I'm using little yokes that a friend modifies that they can be controlled with OSC.

It has also a LANC output that you can remote zoom & focus on any sony LANC compatible camera.

It looks like this ( no better photo sorry... )

Fred

I have made a lanc controller for aduino and used it a bit, the code is on my github here

https://github.com/fred-dev/arduino_lanC

There is a link in the arduino code to the circuit diagram. This is an ok solution for remote cameras but I am experimenting with gigevision, it is a great and powerful interface, but not supported on mac outside of the halcon development environment. Gig e vision cameras generally have cmount lenses, which can be controlled through the camera (sometimes this must be done through the onboard gpio which is part of the gigevision spec-like a having some small relays on the camera that can be controlled through the gigevsion interface to apply voltage to the electromechanical zoom drivers).

You can get the control and vision input working easily on windows but getting it directly to Izzy is difficult- instead there is one camera, the point gery zebra 2 that has simultaneous gig e vision and HDSDI- you can power and control the camera over gige and still have the HDSDI feed for a no latency live signal to plug into a capture card or mixer. An expensive solution and a little tricky but coupled with a yoke like the one above you get precise control and very high quality signal.

Next year after a break I will have a chance to focus some time on an easier to integrate solution for using this camera live on stage- in from my research into camera solutions for live shows this one came up trumps so I am keen to make it easy to use.

Here are some more straightforward moving camera brackets.

http://www.b-hague.co.uk/hague_underslung_pan_and_tilt_powerhead_uph.htm

A little hacking of the control protocol (pretty easy there are not so many buttons on the remote), and an arduino ethernet and you would have OSC control.

Fred

Armando

Thanks to everyone for the answers

in fact they all are interesting and have some difficulties. First I'll try to be clear on my needs. For the moments I don't have the need of importing images into izzy. They go straight to the big lcd screens.

So, just pan/tilt zoom and ideally iris control. But I forgot to tell that I need full HD res...

Lanc seems a pretty expensive because it seems to be

As Michael Suggested Canon seems good solution but it is SD

Canon vb-h41 or Canon VB-H610D are and seems to support lots of protocols.... but no futher specifications how and no RS232\. Anyone has tried? some?

IPv4 : TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, SNMP (MIB2), SMTP (Client), DHCP (Client), DNS (Client), ARP, ICMP, POP3, NTP, authentification SMTP, RTSP, WV-HTTP (Canon), ONVIF IPv6 : TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, SMTP (Client), DNS (Client), ICMPv6, POP3, NTP, authentification SMTP, RTSP, WV-HTTP (Canon), ONVIF

Simon Solution Sony PCS P 160P seems good and cheap, but still SD

So I still see no solution even though it is just to control a camera choreography of HD cams......

Thanks anyway for your efforts.

Fred

I have been playing a bit with UVC control, I recently bought a logictech HD webcam and made a UVC control app and syphon out for one of the small HD cameras. I did a quick search and found this

http://mactaris.blogspot.com/p/webcam-settings.html

It is a mac app that does UVC control- In the image it shows a microsoft life cam that has pan tilt and zoom controls and these are accessible via UVC. I have not used this camera or this app but poking around it seems it is possible. It is not clear if the pan tilt zoom features are motorised or not but UVC has the ability to do this it is just a question of the camera.

One thing I did find when working with HD webcams was Izzys quicktime capture was not the best thing to use. I made myself an app in openframeworks that uses the newer qtkit capture library for OSX. It seemed to be much more efficient at decoding the compressed HD stream from the webcam and I got much higher framerates and stable images from this.

I would be more than happy to give a go at getting this camera to work for you (osc control of functions and syphon out to Izzy). I dont have one of these cameras but they are around €80, if you could get to a shop and see one to check if the pan and tilt are motorised let me know- if they are you can test it with the app I linked to - if it works I can make the control app and syphon stream for you.

Of course with a webcam you then have to deal with USB extensions but if you get everything right this may be a solution non ip PTZ at HD for cheap is a big ask so there will always be some compromise.

Lanc is expensive if you get it out of the box, but an arduino solution will cost about €60 and some time to make it (the electronics are so simple they are almost non existent and the code can come from a template).

Let me know

And then a little search found this

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/Conferencecam?wt.ac=ps|9716|sp1&crid=1252

I am sure there are more PTZ webcams around also

Fred

Armando

THanks to everyone for the answers

in fact they all are interesting and have some difficulties. First I'll try to be clear on my needs. For the moments I don't have the need of importing images into izzy. They go straight to the big lcd screens.

So, just pan/tilt zoom and ideally iris control. But I forgot to tell that I need full HD

Lanc seems a pretty expensive because it seems to be

Canon vb-h41 is and seems to support lots of protocols.... but no futher specifications how they are implemented.

IPv4 : TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, SNMP (MIB2), SMTP (Client), DHCP (Client), DNS (Client), ARP, ICMP, POP3, NTP, authentification SMTP, RTSP, WV-HTTP (Canon), ONVIF IPv6 : TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, SMTP (Client), DNS (Client), ICMPv6, POP3, NTP, authentification SMTP, RTSP, WV-HTTP (Canon), ONVIF

In the end all I just want is to control come full hd webcams zoom tilt pan.... Still searching....

keftaparty

Hi Armando, there are some cheap cameras that can be controlled with Lanc ( for zoom & focus ). Nearly all Sony cameras in fact. And most of them output hdmi.

Then you need a pan tilt solution.

I personnaly prefer ( and use ) this solution because for equal prices I get better cameras than the security pan/tilt models.

Best

Mehdi

Armando

Hello again,

Thanks again guys to all of you. So, I'm keeping you posted for information.

The final solution we found is Michael one . I'll explain why [Canon VC-C50i](http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/security_video_solutions/analog_pan_tilt_zoom_video_cameras/vc_c50i_vc_c50ir) is controllable via RS232 although we haven't tested it.

What I want is ton control PTZ of 9 cameras and project into 9 screens in 3 rows of 3.

4:3 proportion is fine for the project, but how to digitize 9 cameras? even though sd res. I'll need at least 3 computers with 3 Blackmagic quad then I need the 9 screens.

I decided to use a good full hd projector. So i connect the 9 cameras to a good videosveilance hard disk recorder and multiplexer. Then I digitize this as one camera, then I split it into 9 parts I project so I can acquire, process and project any image from any source to any screen with 1 computer and one hd multiplexer.

What is the cheapest solution to d digitize 1 HD image (hdmi) And is there a solution to digitize 2 full hd images?

All the best. And thanks again for all the answers. All were great!

keftaparty

Hi Armando, what's the computer, is latency a big issue ( I mean is it important to go down to ~4 frames instead of ~8 ).

Best

Mehdi

Michel

@Armando
Just in case you need it, back in 2007 I made an Isadroa patch to controll the Canon vc-c4 and vc-c50i. HERE is the link to the old forum where you can download it.

Best,
Michel

Armando

Thanks Michael.

You are always as generous as competent as always.

I did download it. I hope I can adapt it for 9 cameras (the canon have in an out rs232). Crossing fingers because I'm buying 9!!!!!!

Michel

The patch is made for 9 cameras already, you can easily select them or control all at the same time. And as I said, daisy chaining the cameras would be very easy. The first camera in the row would be number 1 the second one number 2 and so on. You don't have to adress them if you daisy chain them.

Best
Michel

Armando

Wow, thanks.

I want to do a camera choreography. Your patch seems perfect. I'll send you if I make any changes. Thanks Michael. Just perfect as always.

Apparently handshaking are changet in 1.3 I hope I can understand that. Never did serial....

Armando

@ Michael,

I'm finally going for you your solution. Canon VC50i. But I've seen that the serial cable is not like the one I know. The camera is shipped with an adaptor "Canon VC-EX3 Surveillance Video Camera Interface S-Video & RS-232 Serial Adapter"

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/383568-REG/Canon_0611B001_VC_EX3_Surveillance_Camera_Interface.html

and the serial plug is round so I need a serial cable that goes from keyspan to this thing plus chain to the other 8 cameras and I found it on the canon website under cables. But what I didn't find is the cable that goes from a camera to the next. It is not listed in the canon website at least in the cable section! Any idea about the name or where to find it?

Thanks

Skulpture

It looks like a PS2 cable? Not sure....

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=PS+2+cable&hl=en&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7CERUYOaH4Wq0QW8zYHABQ&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAA&biw=1543&bih=1102](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=PS+2+cable&hl=en&tbo=d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7CERUYOaH4Wq0QW8zYHABQ&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAA&biw=1543&bih=1102)

Armando

thanks. Who knows. It is a 8 pin mini din cable but is it crossed?

this is an explaining pdf 8 pin to RS 232...

After lots of research I found this RS232 to 8 pin mini din cable for vc cameras.

http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=RS%2D232C&eq=&Tp=

But the camera output of rs 232 is 8 pin too. SO I probably need just 8 pin to 8 pin cables.... and there are different configurations of the pins....

The good one is this

http://www.streakwave.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=PA%2DV16&eq=&Tp=

SO I probably need a 8 pin to 8 pin cable similar to this plug

I cross fingers...