Displaying webcam images as slide show or animation

[geoffw]

Any updates on the issue of using uploaded webcam weather images in a cumulus html template to show as the last few hours animation?

I've long ago tired of doing it myself and uploading the .swf file.

[MickinMoulden]

I use Cumulus, Yawcam and Maani xml/swf slideshow which has now been replaced, but can still be obtained from here: http://www.maani.us/xml_slideshow/

Yawcam automatically embeds the weather details from Cumulus then uploads the latest image as webcam000.jpg and in the process increments the number in the old image filenames by one, of which I have 150.

xml/swf slideshow uses an xml script to create a slideshow from the images displaying each image for 0.15 seconds.

The advantage of this system is it's completely automatic and is now quite robust. With motion detection any new images will automatically be uploaded then included in the slideshow. Secondly this system will always terminate on the current image each time it is run.

<?php

echo "<slideshow>";

$path = "./webcam/";
$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open folder");
$i=0;
while (false !== ($file = readdir($dir_handle))) {

if($file == ".")
continue;
if($file == "..")
continue;

$narray[$i]=$file;
$i++;
}
rsort($narray);

for($i=0; $i<sizeof($narray)-1; $i++)
{
echo "<slide>";
echo "<image url='./webcam/$narray[$i]' duration='0.15' />";
echo "<transition type='none' />";
echo "</slide>";
}

{
echo "<slide>";
echo "<image url='./webcam/webcam000.jpg' duration='2' />";
echo "<transition type='none' />";
echo "</slide>";
}

echo " <control x='100' bar_visible='auto' />";
echo "</slideshow>";

?>

Hi Phil, looks like you know what your doing, so I'm hoping you can help.
I've downloaded XML/SWF slidshow (slideshow.swf), added the code from slideshow to my .htm and added the .xml file (sample.xml), all of which are under the same folder/directory. It doesn't work. I had used the code you supplied for the .xml but have reverted to just having

Code: Select all

<slideshow> </slideshow>

. As on the maani website it says "Preview the web page in a browser. Because the XML code in sample.xml doesn't describe a slideshow, this example generates a basic, default slideshow". But it still doesn't work. So it's not the .xml code. I will note that I'm not with a host any more (000.webhost.com), and am running it on my own computer with my own domain (free). Hope this isn't the problem.
What I do get when I open the webpage is a black rectangle (320x240) on my white background, the page just hangs and the loading bar never goes past half way. I have seen it go orange and print something like "can't open <source>". And in Yawcam it say's
"[13:05] GET: /slideshow.swf?xml_source=sample.xml
[13:05] Error 404".
Here is the code in my .html:

Code: Select all

<!--start of xml/swf -->
<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
        codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" 
        WIDTH="320" 
        HEIGHT="240" 
        id="slideshow">
<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="slideshow.swf?xml_source=sample.xml"/>
<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high" />
<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#000000" />
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />

<EMBED src="slideshow.swf?xml_source=sample.xml" 
	quality="high" 
	bgcolor="#000000" 
	WIDTH="320" 
	HEIGHT="240" 
	NAME="slideshow" 
	allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" 
	swLiveConnect="true" 
	TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"  
	PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>


<!-- end of xml/swf-->

Any clues? I'm stumped.

[Gina]

Hope you (or someone) manages to get this working I use YawCam too, though save the files with date/time in their file name rather than a number.

[MickinMoulden]

Yes Gina, that's what I do too. I'm wanting to make a movie file of the last x hours using photo's from the motion recording in Yawcam. So the video will just contain action. Every motion activation will contain x seconds of footage.