Re: programmatically take pictures?

[Matthew Brush <mbrush codebrainz ca>]

On 07/10/11 12:55, Steve Isaacson wrote:
> Is it possible to programmatically take pictures with Cheese? That is,
> without having a user Click a button.
>
> I ask because I'm thinking about using it for security purposes. For
> example, to take a snapshot every five minutes.
>
> If it's not currently possible, I'll download the source code and take a
> look.

I'm not sure if Cheese supports this, but you could do it with GStreamer 
directly, for example something like this:

$ gst-launch -e \
	v4l2src ! \
	videorate ! \
	video/x-raw-yuv,framerate=1/300 ! \
	ffmpegcolorspace ! \
	clockoverlay valign=bottom \
		shaded-background=true \
		time-format="%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S" ! \
	jpegenc ! \
	multifilesink location="snapshot-%d.jpg"


You could, of course, do this in code as well using a similar pipeline.

There's also available actual software for security purposes such as 
'motion' and 'ZoneMinder'.

Cheers,
Matthew Brush