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Panoramic Monitors

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:43 pm
by d0t101101
Panoramics are slowly finding uses in security applications:
http://digital-lifestyles.info/2006/06/ ... 60-webcam/
http://www.sentry360.com/products/fullsightip/
http://www.cctv.net/Arecont_AV8360_p/av8360.htm

This thread talks about how to make a one shot panoramic device using a Christmas tree ornament (and digital camera). I intend to make one to experiment with. Of course quality will suffer a bit, but it seems usable:
http://www.panoguide.com/forums/tipsntricks/25/

It will be a while before affordable consumer products can do the decoding/unwrapping in hardware, and its probably too CPU intensive to do at a high frame rate... But I hope that one day ZM would provide an interface to manage panoramic security cameras (ie PTZ in software, different views/perspectives, etc).

Just a thought,
.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:59 pm
by zoneminder
I would be happy to look into supporting panoramic cameras if someone wants to send me one to play with :lol:

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 4:23 pm
by boaba
Great idéa and
Phil, you already have one, sort of.

When i saw that you got a Elphel camera a couple of years ago i hoped that it eventually would lead to something like this, maybe not a full 360 degree but something that could make use of a Megapixel-camera to cover larger areas without loosing to much details in distant objects, instead of using a PTZ-camera that might look the wrong way when interesting stuff is going on.

I guess with ZM 1.23 (i have not tried it yet) it should be possible to use wideangle lens and a Mp-camera, even without perspective correction
now that ZM has digital zoom. just zoom in close enough and it will look fairly ok ;-)

With the setup above it would be nice to be able to use the digital zoom with 'ZM_WEIGHTED_ALARM_CENTRES' to present the user with thumb of only the area where there was motion in the Eventpage.

I will try 1.23 soon, the new features look promising!

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:52 pm
by zoneminder
That is true. I was thinking that the cameras themselves would provide an api to select the region captured but if they all just return everything then that would be simpler I guess.