Video Input to Dolphin?

I'd like to have access to all the standard graphic hardware in
Dolphin like a scanner, video line in, webcam, camcorder, and USB TV
as well as various movie file formats for the following purposes:
1) Input textbook images with graphics and text then OCR the text and
identify the graphic objects.
2) Capture a few frames in sequence, convert them to stereoscopic 3D,
then manipulate them according to my script and translate them to
G-codes for machining.

It appears a start might be WinXP's Movie Maker which brings up a
wizard display of all the video devices on your system. I suspect
there is some .dll involved that could be addressed by Dolphin to
bring in any video feed.

I'm willing to pay if needed for some tutoring or small projects like
Steve Waring's animation package or a larger project like ST3D, both
of which I have but do not yet thoroughly understand.  Of course you'd
be free to share the result with the rest of the Dolphin community.

Object Logic wrote:

> I'd like to have access to all the standard graphic hardware in
> Dolphin like a scanner, video line in, webcam, camcorder, and USB TV
> as well as various movie file formats for the following purposes:
> 1) Input textbook images with graphics and text then OCR the text and
> identify the graphic objects.
> 2) Capture a few frames in sequence, convert them to stereoscopic 3D,
> then manipulate them according to my script and translate them to
> G-codes for machining.

I think that the /big/ problem here would be finding the right documentation --
i.e. that it's not really a Dolphin problem as such, you'd have exactly the
same difficulties if you were using, say, MS C++.

E.g. scanners are usually accessed via TWAIN, and I think Ian Bartholomew has a
goodie that wraps some or all of the TWAIN API.  But if you want to get the
video stream from a webcam or whatever, then you are entirely dependent on the
manufacturer producing (or being willing to produce in exchange for $$) an API
you can use.  Similarly, you can certainly find public implementations of movie
file formats that you could adapt/wrap, but you are at the mercy of the vendor
of any OCR application.

    -- chris

If you want access to video devices, Microsoft DirectShow is a great place
to start.  I have been working on a machine vision app using Smalltalk MT,
and am able to get video easily from usb cams, frame grabbers, ip cameras,
fire wire etc.  You will find that DirectShow support is available from many
many camera vendors.  I am just wrapping the com interfaces of directshow.
I'm not familiar with Dolphin, but being Windows only, I imagine the support
for com should be good.  There are type libraries available for creating
your smalltalk com wrappers, and there is a very active newsgroup for
DirectShow development at microsoft.public.win32.programmer.directx.video.

Mike

"Object Logic" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...

Thanks lots for everyone's input.  It appears this one provides a direct
course toward a solution.  So I'm buying a book on DirectShow and will
proceed from there.

Kirk Fraser


"Mike Hales" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:covsn3$7h0$[hidden email]...

"Chris Uppal" <[hidden email]> wrote
I just installed Ian's latest for Dolphin 5 and then did a search on the
resulting subdirectory for TWAIN but nothing was found.  Any updated link?

Thank you

Kirk,

> I just installed Ian's latest for Dolphin 5 and then did a search on the
> resulting subdirectory for TWAIN but nothing was found.  Any updated link?

That goodie was "retired" after Dolphin 3.  I've got a copy of it that you
are welcome to but I've no idea how it will work in D5.  I haven't even got
a scanner or TWAIN drivers on my current machine so I can't check it out
either.

You should also be aware that the goodie was just a wrapper around a dll
(EZTWAIN) that was, and apparently still is, available at the following
address.

http://www.dosadi.com/download.htm

Again, I've no idea what changes have been made to the dll since 1999 and
how that will affect the goodie.

--
Ian

Use the Reply-To address to contact me.
Mail sent to the From address is ignored.

Ian, Kirk,
>
> > I just installed Ian's latest for Dolphin 5 and then did a search on the
> > resulting subdirectory for TWAIN but nothing was found.  Any updated
> > link?
>
> That goodie was "retired" after Dolphin 3.

My apologies, I hadn't realised it had passed away...

    -- chris

"Ian Bartholomew" <[hidden email]> wrote
> That goodie was "retired" after Dolphin 3.  I've got a copy of it that you
> are welcome to but I've no idea how it will work in D5.

Thanks Ian, I'll give it a try.  I have an obsolete (discontinued) ATI USB
TV tuner and an HP OfficeJet which has a scanner and a video line-in on my
AGP card.  I like using scanner attachments to email instead of FAX when
possible.

If anybody is interested, here's what I got from the ATI website

Using Microsoft's DirectShow you will be able to:

§         create your own video in a window application

§         create your own capture application

§         interface to other features of the cards such as close-captioning



Documentation and sample applications for DirectShowT are provided with
Microsoft's DirectX® 8 SDK. For more information on DirectShowT, WDM and the
sample applets provides please see the web sites below.



Microsoft® DirectX® 8 SDK - DirectShowT is included with the DirectX® 8 SDK.
Introduction to DirectShowT - What is DirectShowT?
Microsoft® DirectShowT Overview - What's new in DirectShowT for DirectX® 8?
WDM Video Capture Overview- Why WDM?
Navigating to WDM Video Capture- WDM infrastructure.
Writing Analog TV Applications - How to develop analog TV applications, with
ALL-IN-WONDER DirectX 8 focus.
Creating A Capture Application - The basics for developing a DirectShowT
capture application.
AMCap Sample - DirectShowT capture application with source code (included
with the DirectX® 8 SDK).
Simulating Graph Building with GraphEdit- Create and test filter graphs.
DirectShowT FAQ - General and Programming DirectShowT FAQ.
ALL-IN-WONDER WDM Drivers Set - provides information specific to
ALL-IN-WONDER WDM drivers.
Connecting Video Port and Capture Pins



Kirk

Woops!  I forgot embedded links don't post.  Here's the ATI page:

http://www.ati.com/developer/aiwviddev.html