1.24.08

iSight Camera Release 1.0

I just purchased a new Intel iMac a few weeks ago. Awesome machine and it screams running the Rb IDE. These new computers come with the iSight camera built in to them - very spiffy. So, I was curious to see if I could create a simple class to use in Rb. A few declares here, a few crashes here, add a little salt and presto. This is for Mac’s only.

I frankly can’t imagine why you might want to have a live picture in your Rb application, but if you do, this will do it simply. The demo project shows how to use the class, called iSightCameraClass. It is associated with a support module called, iSightCamera. In addition, there is a support class called, iSightCameraTimer. These are available for free, but they are encrypted. Use them at your own risk. Tested on OS X 10.5.1.

Features:

1. *A message box will be displayed if you try and create an instance of the class and it fails. This can happen if you don’t have a camera or if the one you have is already in use.
   

2. *The video image can be displayed in a Rb Window or in a Canvas.
   

3. *You can adjust the size of the video image.
   

4. *You can adjust the ‘shutter speed’. By default, the live image runs as fast as your machine will allow. But if for some reason you want to use less cycles, you can slow how often the live image is captured.
   

5. *Errors in the class are logged to the Console.
   

Wish List:

1. *Saves the current image to a file or a Rb picture object.
   

2. *Saves the video as a movie file.