Using external camera with Mac

Core Library Questions

lectersme..

Using external camera with Mac

in Core Library Questions • 3 years ago

I've trying to use an external camera with one of the vision libraries (Blob Detection), but it obviously defaults to the iSight camera. I followed the API and tried to use Capture.list() in order to get the device name and change which one I was using with Capture().

Unfortunately, list() only reveals these and none of them are my external camera (Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro):
[0] "DV Video"
[1] "IIDC FireWire Video"
[2] "USB Camera"
[3] "USB Video Class Video"

My next step was occupying the iSight camera using Photo Booth. Sure enough, that works. So, I know my Logitech camera works in this Processing script, but this is obviously a good solution. Finally, the only solution that I could find was to use cam.settings() and choose the source from the dialog box.

I still don't consider settings() to be a good solution, since I would rather of course do this in code.

Please let me know anyone else has figured out a solution to this problem.

Replies(1)

aka_media..

Re: Using external camera with Mac

2 years ago

Hello, I think I have a code-based solution you can use...before setting up your real Capture instance, set up another identical one and simply don't use it. As in:

camFake = new Capture(this,640,480,devices[4]);
cam = new Capture(this, 640, 480, devices[4]);

and then in your sketch, just ignore camFake. This works for me, at least, using a USB camcorder and a macbook pro: it allows me to ignore the damn built-in camera and instead automatically use the camcorder in.

(BTW in ref to the "devices[4]" argument, I think you can omit it. I use it because I enjoy being able to see all inputs reported to me at the beginning of the sketch, like so:
****the code below****
String[] devices = Capture.list();
println(devices);
****results in the following output to the console*****
[0] "DV Video"
[1] "Google Camera Adapter 0"
[2] "Google Camera Adapter 1"
[3] "IIDC FireWire Video"
[4] "USB Video Class Video"

Hope this helps,

AKA

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