isightcapture - 1.1

#!/bin/tcsh

# webcam2file.command
# Webcam to file script; for creating a webcam website on a mac.
# September 21, 2007

# Make sure this script is saved with unix line returns and set it executable
# ex: chmod 750 webcam2file.command
# For quick launch in the GUI; In the finder Get Info (command i) and set Open With to Terminal.app
# Then drag the script on to the *bottom* dock.

# Requires: isightcapture and ImageMagick
# ImageMagick is used for date stamping the web image.
# For ImageMagick on the mac; install macports and run the following command to install:
# sudo /opt/local/bin/port install rb-rmagick
# MacPorts: http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/macports/wiki/InstallingMacPorts
# isightcapture: http://www.intergalactic.de/hacks.html

echo "Starting Web Cam"
echo ""

while (1 == 1)

# For more date format options see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_%28Unix%29#Formatting
set date=`date "+%l:%M:%S %p"`

echo "taking photo ${date}"

# Have isight capture the image and save it to the Macintosh website folder.
# Assumes isightcapture is placed in /local/bin; change if not.
/local/bin/isightcapture -w 320 -h 240 ~/Sites/images/cam-raw.jpg

# Comment this line if you don't install ImageMagick or don't want to put a timestamp on the image.
# For more ImageMagick text stamp options see: http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/annotating/
/opt/local/bin/convert ~/Sites/images/cam-raw.jpg -gravity South -background skyblue -splice 0x18 -draw "text 0,0 '${date}'" ~/Sites/images/cam.jpg

#sleep setting regulates time between photos, currently 1 second + write and date = 5 about seconds
sleep 1

end
exit

I used to use isightcapture all the time on my ibook G4 with FireWire iSight. It no longer works with my MacBook; it seems to be confused between the built-in USB iSight and the external FireWire one. There's no way to tell it which one you want, and since I need it for an event webcam, the built-in (unaimable) camera is not a useful choice. I wrote to the developer about a year ago, but never heard back. It's a shame, because this used to be a nifty utility.

This is an excellent utility. Combined with cron, and a tiny wrapper perl script, I'm making a time lapse movie of my house being built. Nobody even has to be logged into the computer.

My perl wrapper script automatically uploads the latest picture to my website so I can see what's happening while I'm at work (my work computer also has a cron-scheduled job to download the latest picture from my website and set it to be my desktop picture, which is really handy).

The ONLY PROBLEM for me is that the iSight camera's autofocus is not very good at the long distance, so most of the pictures are a little blurry, with some being completely blurred beyond recognition.

Would be great if this utility provided hooks to the iSight's programmable focus, brightness, white-balance, etc (see iGlasses, which does all of this, but only works with specific GUI applications, and does not work with CLI utilities, and therefore is no good for this purpose, where I need it to run while nobody is logged in).

Works as described.

Here's a script to use it:

<pre>
#! /bin/bash

while [ true ]; do
sudo /Library/opt/bin/isightcapture /Users/jand/Sites/iSight.jpeg;
date;
sleep 5;
done
</pre>

I wonder what that -n option does.