
winc
----

winc is a software package useful for getting images from a WinCam digital
camera.  The Wincam.One is a slick little 640x480 color camera, connected
to your computer with a serial port (it can even be modem-connected).  The
price right now (August '96) is $200.  See the Stardot Technologies website
at http://www.wincam.com for more information on the camera itself. 

What you get with winc is:
    - three programs (which i've used, as of winc-25, under Linux, FreeBSD,
      and Solaris), namely:
	- winc, which will take pictures from the command line --
		it has too many options, and does too much.  i use
		it during development of the winc library, so it can
		do just about anything the library can.  usually, though,
		all you want is "winc -c >image.pnm".
	- wincd, which will repetitively take pictures, only saving
		the ones that are "interesting".  i use this (in
		combination with "wincd_script") to drive a web page of
		recent pictures of my dog, waiting at home until i get
		there.  no, i won't publish the URL.  :-)
	- xwinc, a simple X11 program which continuously displays
		low-resulotion "viewfinder" images.  this is useful for
		aiming and focusing the camera.  it could (and probably
		will be) easily extended to be a more general WinCam
		application.
    - a library: libwinc.a, which can be linked into other programs.
    - some patches for the "xv" image manipulation tool, which give it
	simple built-in wincam support.
    - a shell script (wincd_script) which does periodic snapshots, and
	    will optionally save past snaps.
    - man pages


StarDot Technologies, the makers of the WinCam, have supported this effort
in a couple of ways.  First, they created a developer program, in which they
make available some of their more private stuff to those simply willing to
sign an NDA.  Kindly, their NDA explicitly permits the publication of
source code based on a reading of that "private stuff".  Second, they
provided me with the source code for their color processing module.  It was
written originally in x86 assembly code -- to make it portable to UNIX, I
rewrote it in C, and StarDot has blessed the publication of that
translation under the GNU Public License.

If you do use this code with the WinCam, i'd appreciate it if you'd drop
the folks at StarDot a note to that effect -- they've been very nice to me,
and answered a bunch of questions, and made this all possible -- and if
it's helping them sell cameras, i'm sure they'd like to know that....  :-)
It is especially generous of them to make their color processing code,
which does moire pattern elimination on the image, available under the
GPL.

If you use winc, or fix it, or enhance it, or have something to contribute,
please drop me a line!

i've set up a mailing list for winc discussions.  subscribe by
sending a message with the word "subscribe" in the subject or body
to:
	pgf-winc-request@foxharp.boston.ma.us

once you're subscribed, the address for sending to the list itself is:

	pgf-winc@foxharp.boston.ma.us

paul fox
pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us
