Using a "Cloud Camera 1100" in the Dashboard

[piguy123]

Hello!
We're trying to use LabVIEW and RoboRealm to connect a D-Link Cloud Camera 1100 to our custom dashboard. Is there anyway to do so? We couldn't afford/find an axis camera, so this is all we have right now.

Apparently, we're supposed to connect it using the D-Link modem we already have, but we're not sure how exactly that's going to work. We don't want to do any image processing. All we want is a good view from our robot's perspective.

Thanks for your help.

[Greg McKaskle]

Sounds reasonable. You will need to manually assign the camera the IP address of 10.te.am.11. You normally do this via web page. The instructions say that the default IP is 192.168.0.20.

Anyway, once you have the IP, you type that into a browser window and the camera will log you in and allow you to change stuff. Since this isn't Axis, none of the tools that do this stuff for you will work, but this is how they work under the scenes.

I couldn't find details on the CGI commands needed to control the camera. If you can get it to send MJPGs or JPEGS, you may be able to get portions of WPILib camera stuff to work. Otherwise, your choices are to use a web page or dlink app to view the camera and place that window over the dashboard, or to reverse engineer the protocol using something like wireshark.

Greg McKaskle

[RoboRealm]

Assuming you know the IP address, you will have to login into the camera and switch it to the team's static IP address that Greg mentions. That's the tricky part if you are not familiar with DlInk browser interfaces (this is basically similar to the Axis but the interface is different.)

Once that is done, load in the DLink module within RR and select the 900 series, enter in the right IP address and any username/password if you set that. Once you press the start button it should start showing the image within RR.

Then access the Options button->Web server tab. Switch that on (its a checkbox) and change the port from 8080 to 80. Press ok to get back to the main RR interface.

Then jump into LabView/Dashboard/etc. and use the RR's IP address (maybe its 127.0.0.1 if you are running it on the same machine) as the camera's IP address. LabView will then access RR as if it were an Axis camera which will stream the image from the DLink.

Try it step by step, getting all the IP's correct and finding/resolving issues at each step is the way to do this.

STeven.

[Greg McKaskle]

Cool trick. How many cameras does RR have support for?

Greg McKaskle

[RoboRealm]

There are a couple IP cameras naively supported (typically ones that have pan/tilt and more capabilities than just video streaming) but there is also a HTTP_Read module which can be used to specify the url that is used to capture MJPEG images from any IP camera that you know the url too. Unfortunately, there is no standard in this regard so finding that url and its format is the tricky part. Typically if you have access to the browser interface you can find it.

Regardless, its a nice trick to use non-Axis cameras with the Dashboard/etc. without having to get into the details of what protocol the device uses. It does inccur a bit more delay since you are relaying it through another application but for viewing purposes its probably ok, esp. if you've upgraded your classmate to a regular laptop and are running things locally.

STeven.

[Doc Wu]

This looks like a nice camera and it sure would be nice to have options other than the Axis.

My only concern would be making sure that the wireless portion of it is disabled. We don't need any more stray RF around our field than necessary.

If there is a setting in the setup screen to turn off the 802.11 part, please be sure to use it. You may want to be able to demonstrate or document that it is off for inspection.

[RoboRealm]

Agreed! Be sure to use your onboard router and NOT the wifi built into the camera. Otherwise, they will hunt you down during the regionals! (At least they do in the Denver one...)

:-)

STeven.