EvoCam works by capturing
video from any QuickTime-compatible video digitizer, and periodically compressing
the image into JPEG format and placing it on your web server. EvoCam can upload
images to remote FTP servers, and it can also save images locally for use
with Web Sharing or similar web server software.
Using
FTP
Using
Personal Web Sharing
Displaying
your webcam image using HTML
Displaying
your webcam image using Java
Using
FTP
To use EvoCam with a remote FTP server, you will need to know the uniform
resource locator (URL) of the destination image, along with the username and
password for your account. The URL tells EvoCam what protocol to use, what
server to connect to, what directory to put the image into, and what filename
to use for the image. A typical URL might look like this:
ftp://ftp.yoursite.com/directory1/directory2/webcam.jpg |
This URL tells EvoCam
to contact the FTP server called 'ftp.yoursite.com', set the destination directory
to 'directory1/directory2/', upload the image file into this directory and
name it 'webcam.jpg'.
Note: Some FTP servers
automatically put you in a 'home directory' when you log in, so you might
only need to specify any subsequent directories in the URL, leaving out the
path to your home directory. For example, if your home directory was 'directory1',
the above URL would become:
ftp://ftp.yoursite.com/directory2/webcam.jpg |
You should also remember
that your FTP server may require a significantly different URL from the one
you use to access the same files through a web browser using HTTP. For example,
some servers only allow public web access to those files that are in a directory
called 'public_html'. In this case, visitors to your website may view your
webcam at this address:
http://www.yoursite.com/directory1/webcam.jpg |
but in order to publish
the image on your website at this address you might need to use this URL in
EvoCam:
ftp://ftp.yoursite.com/public_html/directory1/webcam.jpg |
Unfortunately,
figuring out the correct URL to use can be quite tricky, as it oftens depends
on the way your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has configured their FTP servers.
If you have trouble, experiment with different paths in your URL as shown
above, as this is the most common reason for EvoCam not being able to upload
successfully. You can examine the "EvoCam Transcript" file (which is automatically
created in your Documents folder) for more details on why the upload is failing.
It might also help to use an FTP application (such as Fetch or Transmit) to
log in to your account, and then view the path to your webcam image's intended
directory. You could also try asking your network administrator or ISP. If
all else fails, send an email to support@evological.com and we'll try to help.
Using
Personal Web Sharing
To use EvoCam with Personal
Web Sharing or similar web server software, all you need to know is the location
of the folder in which the image is to be saved, along with the filename of
the image.
If you are using Web Sharing on Mac OS 9, you would save the image as "webcam.jpg"
into the "Web Pages" folder on your hard disk. Use the Web Sharing control
panel to choose your web folder, to start and stop sharing, and to control
user access to your web pages.
If you are using Personal Web Sharing on Mac OS X, you would save the image
as "webcam.jpg" into your "Sites" folder. Use the Sharing
section of the System Preferences to start and stop sharing.
Displaying
your webcam image using HTML
Once the image is on your server, you can include it in your web page by simply
referencing it in an HTML image tag. For example, if you set up EvoCam to
upload/save the image as "webcam.jpg" as in the above examples, your web page's
HTML file can display the image using the following tag:
<IMG SRC="webcam.jpg"> |
In the 'HTML' folder included
with EvoCam, there's an example HTML file called "webcam.html" which shows
how to display your webcam image and make it periodically refresh. You should
upload this file to your remote FTP server, or place it in your shared folder
if using Web Sharing or similar web server software. Your webcam image should
be called "webcam.jpg" and it must reside in the same directory.
Displaying your webcam image using
Java
EvoCam includes a Java webcam applet, which can be used on your web page in
conjunction with EvoCam to display your webcam image. Supporting a variety
of refresh effects, the applet reloads only the webcam image rather than the
whole page. For example, if you set up EvoCam to upload/save the image as
"webcam.jpg" as in the above examples, your web page's HTML file can embed
the applet using the following tags:
<APPLET ARCHIVE="evocam.jar"
CODE="com.evological.evocam.class" WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=240> <param name="image" value="webcam.jpg"> <param name="refresh" value="1"> <param name="type" value="simple"> </APPLET> |
In the 'Java' folder included
with EvoCam, there's an example HTML file called "webcam.html" which shows
how to embed the Java applet on your web page, and a Java archive called "evocam.jar"
which contains the applet itself. You should upload both these files to your
remote FTP server, or place them in your shared folder if using Web Sharing
or similar web server software. Your webcam image should be called "webcam.jpg"
and it must reside in the same directory.
The Java applet requires three parameters, "image", "refresh" and "type".
The "image" parameter should contain the name of your webcam image, for example
"webcam.jpg". The "refresh" parameter specifies the number of seconds between
each refresh, and should be the same value as you are using in EvoCam itself.
The "type" parameter can be any one of the following refresh types:
"simple" - simple
refresh
"dissolve" - performs cross-dissolve transition from one image to the next
"fadetoblack" - fades current image to black, then reverse fades from black
to next image
"slideleft" - slides next image from right to left over the top of the current
image
"barndoors" - opens current image from the center outward to reveal new image