Processing 1.0 - Processing Discourse - Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups

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Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups (Read 1227 times)

jungalero

Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups
Dec 22^nd, 2007, 7:03pm

Hello all,

I've been working on some interactive sketches based on video from a webcam and I'm hoping to enter at least one into a student gallery show next spring. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a hardware setup that would be both functional and appropriate for a gallery setting.

Ideally I'd have a 20-24" monitor with a webcam and an extremely small computer of some sort running Linux. Any thoughts on the best computer, monitor and webcam to use or what the ideal Linux distribution might be?

Thanks for your time.

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups Reply #1 - Dec 22^nd, 2007, 7:59pm Mac Mini's are very popular for gallery setups, they are relatively inexpensive, small, light, and quiet. Samsung makes good quality screens with the plastic easy to remove. The 1394store sells high quality camera, with different lenses. Casey

jungalero

Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups
Reply #2 - Dec 22^nd, 2007, 11:15pm

Thanks for the response, Casey.

It would be *great* to have a Mac Mini, but it's a bit beyond my budget at the moment. I've been looking around at little embedded Linux systems, but I haven't seen anything that could run an OpenGL sketch on a large monitor.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for Samsung deals. I've noticed that now and then Dell has crazy deals on their displays, but there's nothing very appealing at the moment.

The Fire-I cameras look slick, too, though they seem a little pricey.

douglas edric stanley YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 35	Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups Reply #3 - Feb 8^th, 2008, 12:33pm Hi Casey. REAS wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2007, 7:59pm: The 1394store sells high quality camera, with different lenses. In the past, I've had problems getting 1394 cameras to work on the Mac. This was about a year ago. Can you confirm that there are Mac drivers for the 1394 cameras that work in Processing

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups Reply #4 - Feb 9^th, 2008, 9:53pm I've been using these cameras on Mac OS X 10.4+ for over a year without a problem. I naively didn't expect problems and I didn't have any. I've been using them with Processing and the Video library. Casey

douglas edric stanley YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 35	Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups Reply #5 - Feb 10^th, 2008, 1:12pm Perhaps it depends on which model you use (640x480, 30fps, Color/BW, etc). Can you give me a model no. of one of the cameras from 1394 you use? From there I can compare it's spec sheet from the one we had troubles with.

REAS YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 712 CA	Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups Reply #6 - Feb 13^th, 2008, 9:00am These two: http://www.1394store.com/eshop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=55&pf%5Fid=5310 http://www.1394store.com/eshop/product.asp?dept%5Fid=55&pf%5Fid=2050

douglas edric stanley

Re: Hardware Recommendations for Gallery Setups
Reply #7 - Feb 14^th, 2008, 5:31am

Ah! Ok. Now I get it. That makes more sense. I thought you were talking about these people (my mistake):

http://www.theimagingsource.com/en/products/cameras/

Their website used to be named www.1394somethingorother.com. Their cameras are very good quality. I just can't get their drivers to work on Macs, even the ones that are supposed to work. They work great on PC's and Linux though.

That said, I haven't tried the ImagingSource camera with the OpenCV native capture, which goes through a wholly different route than Win VDig (which sucks anyway), and is therefore far faster than the Capture class, so from here on in I'm looking for OpenCV compatible cameras. I'll have to test these Unibrains for that. If not, it actually wouldn't be all that hard to add support in, but I would have to modify the OpenCV base. I looked into it last week, it's not rocket science.

Looking on their site, I see that Unibrain also has some nice Industrial quality cameras, with standard cases and threads for optics, and some that give you B+W with speeds up to 80fps. Hmmm. I think I'll have to get one of those. Thanks for the links.

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