I know there has been bits about this subject already posted, but here we go again. I'm just looking for a few basic pointers before I dive in.

I would like to:

. Send an image to the server from my local P5 due to webcam usage
. Have an applet on server that when viewed will display this image
. The number of images grows so my remote server based applet would need to reflect changes.

I'm thinking that I might set up a dir on server that the remote applet looks at and pulls in images one at a time, displays them and then loops. This directory can contain a flexible number of files, the names of which are sequential time stamped.

I'd need a bsic security measure that prevented my remote applet from trying to open a file being transfered from my local P5, but that's about it I think.

I could then just dump files to this dir from my local P5 applet that I'm running.

I've done some basic stuff with the File class, but would appreciate any pointers.

Thanks

A great start,

Thanks.

Depending on how quickly you need to send them, you can run a separate thread to pass the images in the background.

First, you create a class which takes an image and uploads it to your server.  Make it implement Runnable, and have a public void run() method...

Code:

class UploadRunner implements Runnable {
  PImage toupload;
  UploadRunner(PImage toupload) {
    this.toupload = toupload;
  }
  public void run() {
    // image uploading magic goes here
  }
}

 

Then create a new thread with your runnable object, and start it.

Code:

PImage imageToUpload = copy(); // or something
Thread uploadingThread = new Thread(new UploadRunner(imageToUpload));
uploadingThread.start();

 

I think Processing has ways to make threads behave nicely when stopping and starting a sketch (perhaps search for registerDispose or some-such on this forum update: here).  The Sun Java tutorial on threads is also worth reading.

Word to the wise: I wouldn't imagine that starting a thread every frame was a sensible thing to do.

if you're starting new threads on your own, they should die out just fine.. you don't need to stop them (stopping a thread is a no-no anyway) you just let their run() method finish up on its own and the object will be garbage collected.

the stop() and registerDispose() thing is more about a separate, continuously running thread than launching several new ones that are simply used to complete their own asynchronous operation.

...at least that's what i understand from your approach here.