Facility Control

Hi,

I'm working on a project including small Pana PTZ cameras, and I wonder if I could use dashboard to implement a control system with a touchscreen panel, including thumbnails from the video signal of the selected camera.

Does anyone know if this can be done with Dashboard ? I guess driving the camera won't be a problem, but it might be much more complicated for thumbnails...

thanks in advance,

Jerome

You're probably right in that it is not likely to be a problem to control the camera itself.

As for the thumbnails, that comes down to how the camera serves them up. If they're available via an internal web server (how some camera systems do it), then it could be pretty easy to either link directly to the thumbnails or download them and store them locally.

Do you have an exact model number and software version for the camera?

#DashBoard

Hi,

thanks for your answer. cameras might be Panasonic AW-HE130 PTZ cameras. I don't think they store thumbnails by themselves during preset creation, usually this is done with live video signal corresponding to the selected camera going into a sdi capture card in a computer.

Thanks.

#DashBoard

Hi,

I tried playing a bit with the control of the camera using latest version of Dashboard.

To control the camera using http command, I have to use this kind of command : http://10.10.10.244/cgi-bin/aw_cam?cmd=DGB:0&res=1 (for example this is to switch the bars on).

I tried many things in Dashboard, using Rosstalk commands in custom mode for example , no luck. Do you have any idea ? No problem when I send the command using a classic web browser.

Thanks in advance.

#DashBoard

Use `ogscript.asyncPost('http://10.10.10.244/cgi-bin/aw_cam?cmd=DGB:0&res=1', null, null);`

#DashBoard

Thanks, it works.

#DashBoard

Hi,

ok, I still have to improve my knowledge of ogscript , but I think I could do what I want.

Concerning thumbnails : if I send a http command to the camera like this one using web browser : http://10.10.10.xxx/cgi-bin/view.cgi?action=snapshot&n= , I get a html page with just an embedeed picture. Is there available tools in Dashboard to get the file copied and renamed in a local folder, so that I can display it in Dashboard ?

Kind regards

#DashBoard

To actually download an image from an HTTP Post in DashBoard is tricky (it assumes that you're requesting text documents).

A `
` tag can often be used to fetch the bytes that make up an image but it is a bit of work.

Does the above command return an HTML document with the image embedded or does it just return the image?

One way to check is with the code below.

`

function callback(str)

{

ogscript.debug(str);

}

ogscript.asyncPost('http://10.10.10.244/cgi-bin/aw_cam?cmd=DGB:0&res=1', null, callback);`

#DashBoard

Okay, that would indicate the snapshot is not sending back HTML but is sending the image data.

In DashBoard 6.x, there is no simple way to save a local copy of an image from a URL. The only way to do it is to create a `
` tag that acts as a web browser and download the data. This involves writing the HTTP headers on the outgoing request, parsing through the HTTP headers in the response, reading the data bytes out of the listener's connection, and writing it to a file. It can be done. It isn't easy.

What I can tell you is that the ability to do something like this will be much, much easier in the next release of DashBoard. Depending on your needs, it might be easier to wait until there is an updated beta of DashBoard available (coming in the near future).

If you need it in the short term, I can send you an example of using a listener as an HTTP client but, otherwise, I would wait for the updated beta.

#DashBoard