Enclosure v2

Post date: Apr 24, 2012 6:9:3 PM

So after skimming through a series of close ups on Timothy's fur I realized I needed to move the camera back a bit. Did some playing around with the camera and it seemed like I needed about 7 inches of clearance. So yesterday I tore apart the enclosure, built a 6" x 6" x 7" box, cut a hole in the side of the enclosure and attached the two.

I also mounted the phone in landscape instead of portrait. While I was going through the collected images and rotating them all 90 degrees thinking I should figure out how to do that when I saved them I realized that perhaps I should just take them in landscape. Duh! It also gives me an extra inch of width (Which Is lost due to the mounting box but oh well.) to catch 'the subject' as he speeds through.

Rotating the camera also made me realize I was targeting the 'center' of the camera image incorrectly since my image was 90 degrees counter clockwise from what I thought it was my X and Y axis were backwards. This is part of the trouble I've been having detecting when he's in the frame. I'm looking for a brightness threshold and apparently have been looking at a dark spot of the image not the white thing in the middle. I swapped my Axis and got more centered. Then played a bit so I'm not actually looking at the dead center slightly down and right where the brightest part of the image is. I have the phone mounted on the outside of the enclosure now so I can see what it sees when it's mounted. Previously I've tested it in my hand but once it was mounted couldn't see the screen anymore and thus couldn't tell if it was capturing when it should or not.

So later today I will grab the phone and see what sort of data I'm getting. I pretty much have the day off so I'll hopefully get a chance to put together part of the door mechanism today.

V2 in all it's *ehem* glory.

The reason the camera image is partially covered is because my current enclosure is an empty box of post-it labels. It was pretty much the perfect size. I will need a better one for long term use which I can then weather proof properly. One plus side of this one is it's a bit squishy so I can sort of interact with the phone while it's in place. Not great but it works in a pinch.

As I write this Timothy just went out through the door and I wonder if I got a good shot of him.