Easy Web Cam Library

[cptHotkeys]

I have attached a zip file which contains a solution with 1 form and a library called WebCamLibrary, for those of you who wish to do some video capture, this is a nice starting point.

Vampire, sorry I took so long, been busy with study etc...

I will post some more samples which will show how to encode the images to a format thats a bit more practical for transmission shortly.

Please post any comments and bugs ect...

Thanks

[cptHotkeys]

Here is a version with "Take Snap Shot" feature, it demonstrates how to set the quality, It is set to save as jpeg, which is the most practical for any situation like this. There is a quality setting which you may change, but I have found that the setting its at in code (25) is ok to use for transmision.

Here is the code:

Imports System.Drawing.Imaging
Public Class Form1
 
    Private WC As WebCamLibrary.WebCam
 
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
 
        Try
            'Initialize web cam
            WC = WebCamLibrary.WebCam.NewWebCam
        Catch ex As Exception
            'There is a problem, or the user doesnt have a web cam
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
            Application.Exit()
        End Try
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick
 
        'Set background image to a frame from the camera.
        Me.BackgroundImage = Image.FromStream(New IO.MemoryStream(WC.GrabFrame))
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub btnStart_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnStart.Click
 
        'Set the interval to 100, which is 10 frames per second
        Timer1.Interval = 1
        Timer1.Start()
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub btnStop_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnStop.Click
 
        'Stop the timer
        Timer1.Stop()
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub btnSnapShot_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSnapShot.Click
 
        Dim myBitmap As Bitmap
        Dim myImageCodecInfo As ImageCodecInfo
        Dim myEncoder As Encoder
        Dim myEncoderParameter As EncoderParameter
        Dim myEncoderParameters As EncoderParameters
 
        ' Create an image from the web cam.
        myBitmap = New Bitmap(Image.FromStream(New IO.MemoryStream(WC.GrabFrame)))
 
        ' Get an ImageCodecInfo object that represents the JPEG codec.
        myImageCodecInfo = GetEncoderInfo("image/jpeg")
 
        ' Create an Encoder object based on the GUID
        ' for the Quality parameter category.
        myEncoder = Encoder.Quality
 
        ' Create an EncoderParameters object.
        ' An EncoderParameters object has an array of EncoderParameter
        ' objects. In this case, there is only one
        ' EncoderParameter object in the array.
        myEncoderParameters = New EncoderParameters(1)
 
        ' Save the bitmap as a JPEG file with quality level 25. (you may set the quality between 0 - 100)
        myEncoderParameter = New EncoderParameter(myEncoder, 25)
        myEncoderParameters.Param(0) = myEncoderParameter
        myBitmap.Save("theJpeg.jpg", myImageCodecInfo, myEncoderParameters)
 
    End Sub
 
    Private Shared Function GetEncoderInfo(ByVal mimeType As String) As ImageCodecInfo
 
        Dim i As Integer
        Dim encoders() As ImageCodecInfo
        'Get all image encoders
        encoders = ImageCodecInfo.GetImageEncoders()
 
        'loop through encoders and return the matching encoder
        i = 0
        While i < encoders.Length
            If encoders(i).MimeType = mimeType Then
                Return encoders(i)
            End If
            i += 1
        End While
        Return Nothing
 
    End Function
 
End Class

Please post comments or bugs...

[^^vampire^^]

Thanks - will try it out soon!