Inspired by a similar thing available for a webcam in Tromso in Norway,
I've been hacking some code to try to get daily timelapse animations of
the images captured from my webcam. While the image available on my
website is only uploaded every 15 minutes, I keep images from every 20
seconds, so I am able to create a video of the images.

The video starts and finished at civil twilight - today's is available
as a 4.5MB download from
http://weathercam.jstott.me.uk/2005/11/2005-11-16.avi - other images
will appear at 1200Z, 1800Z and 2300Z for that day (by changing the date
part of that URL).

I've tried to find the best trade-off with file size, physical size of
the video and quality and hopefully I've got it right enough to please
most people!

I will probably write a page on my website about how I did this - I'm
also planning on getting a better webcam with a wider angle lens to
increase the field of view. A better view would be good too, but I'm
sadly limited by the aspect of the house

Some people might need to download a codec in order to view the
animation - you can do so from http://www.divx.com/

Comments are definately welcome!

Enjoy!

--
Jonathan Stott
Canterbury Weather: http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/
Reverse my e-mail address to reply by e-mail

"Jonathan Stott" wrote in message
...
Comments are definately welcome!

Enjoy!

Jonathan Stott
Canterbury Weather: http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/
Reverse my e-mail address to reply by e-mail

Jonathan,

Canterbury cannot boast the idyllic views of Tromso, but what you have
produced is very good. The midday sounding from Herstmonceux clearly shows
the shear that your camera picks up so well -
http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/soun...Herstmo nceux

Have you experimented with filters in front of the lens to try to eradicate
the period of time where the sun blinds the camera ?

Joe

Joe Hunt wrote:

Canterbury cannot boast the idyllic views of Tromso, but what you have
produced is very good. The midday sounding from Herstmonceux clearly shows
the shear that your camera picks up so well -
http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/soun...Herstmo nceux

Yes, I noticed that too - it shows up very well on the video. It would
be nice if I could persuade someone at the university to let me hook my
webcam up there so you get the view over the city (the top of the
library would also make perfect exposure for my anemometer!)

Have you experimented with filters in front of the lens to try to eradicate
the period of time where the sun blinds the camera ?

I have a circular polarising filter sellotaped to the front of the
webcam - sadly it doesn't seem effective when the sun is shining
directly into the lens. The filter is mainly there to reduce glare from
the double-glazing that the camera is stuck behind.

I want to try using a digital compact camera as a webcam (similar to the
KatKam in Vancouver - http://www.katkam.ca/), so I'm keeping an eye on
second-hand sales on ebay!

--
Jonathan Stott
Canterbury Weather: http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/
Reverse my e-mail address to reply by e-mail

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:58:47 +0000, Jonathan Stott wrote:

I want to try using a digital compact camera as a webcam (similar to
the KatKam in Vancouver - http://www.katkam.ca/), so I'm keeping an
eye on second-hand sales on ebay!

Not sure how well the sensor in one of those would handle the direct
sun. My netcam doesn't like it... B-( Indeed it doesn't really like
the static image, the sky/fells boundary is also very obvious under
some conditions. The axis cameras around here don't seem to suffer
either problem but the picture quality wasn't as good, initially.

Might be worth a wander into a PC World saw the Phillips Toucam Pro in
there the other day at £39.99 (maybe even £29.99!) against their
normal price fo £59.99. This is a USB device but does produce good
images, a couple are in use by people here.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

- And on Thu, 17 Nov 2005 07:50:45 +0000 (GMT), it was spake thus om said in message "Dave Liquorice" :


Might be worth a wander into a PC World saw the Phillips Toucam Pro in
there the other day at £39.99 (maybe even £29.99!) against their
normal price fo £59.99. This is a USB device but does produce good
images, a couple are in use by people here.

Thanks for that Dave, I see they're £36 with £4 P&P...
I think that's cheaper than using the fuel/time/wear on car to go get !

--
Nick in Northallerton
Also @ www.whelan.me.uk
And nickw7coc on
Yahoo & MSN
but I use http://www.trillian.cc as I like it better
also on Skype and Google talk

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:01:09 +0000, Nick wrote:

Thanks for that Dave, I see they're £36 with £4 P&P...
I think that's cheaper than using the fuel/time/wear on car to go
get !

Aye £4 doesn't get you very far in a car these days, even just for
fuel costs. Check the spec carefully, have a google back in here to
see which particular Toucam camera is recomended, fairly sure it was
the pro. Then check that what PC World is selling is the same...

Things move fast these days just because something was available for 3
months 6 months ago doesn't mean it still is or hasn't been
"superceeded".

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Nick wrote:

Might be worth a wander into a PC World saw the Phillips Toucam Pro in
there the other day at £39.99 (maybe even £29.99!) against their
normal price fo £59.99. This is a USB device but does produce good
images, a couple are in use by people here.

Thanks for that Dave, I see they're £36 with £4 P&P...
I think that's cheaper than using the fuel/time/wear on car to go get !

I use a Philips ToUcam Pro II. Highly recommended, even though I'm
currently looking around for a better quality camera.

--
Jonathan Stott
Canterbury Weather: http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/
Reverse my e-mail address to reply by e-mail

On Thu, 17 Nov 2005 23:01:09 +0000, Nick
wrote:

Thanks for that Dave, I see they're £36 with £4 P&P...
I think that's cheaper than using the fuel/time/wear on car to go get !

The one to get is the ToUcam Pro II 840K (see our webcam web site).

--
Alan White
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Loch Goil and Loch Long in Argyll, Scotland.
Web cam and weather:- http://www.windycroft.gt-britain.co....her/kabcam.htm
Some walks and treks:- http://www.windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/walks/