Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Let me start off by saying that I am a software developer by trade. Specifically, I develop in .NET and spend most of my efforts building web applications. ASP.NET, Html, Css and JQuery are my main flavors. I have a lot of experience in the aforementioned but absolutely no experience in any kind of electrical or mechanical devices and certainly not programming them.
I spent the last week learning a little bit and building my first prototype that I will be sharing in a moment. The purpose of this thread is to exchange knowledge. I know I can learn a lot from you and perhaps you can learn a little from me.
Some of the basic concepts we will initially be talking about are Web Cameras, Relay Devices and being able to program against these devices to do cool stuff.
My prototype is very crude but here is the setup:
Windows 2008 Server with a domain name so the series of web pages you are about to see can be accessed from a computer or a mobile device from anywhere in the world.
2 Logitech Webcams connected to the server
This first web page you will see is a simple web page I wrote that uses a Jquery plugin called ScriptCam. This web page cycles through every web cam that is connected to the server and cycles through them on a fixed interval. I'm currently cycling through each web cam every 5 seconds.
Here are 2 screenshots of what you would see on the server...keep in mind, this is just a plain old web browser:
Every 5 seconds, the image changes to the other web cam. Instead of trying to do full blown streaming, I am taking a snapshot JPG image of each camera and saving it to disk on the server. I am not keeping multiple images per wecam...everytime a new image is created it is saved and overwrites the previously saved image.
These next set of pictures are again just a simple web page but this web page is the one that is accessible from the outside...from a computer or mobile device.
This web page is showing the Images that are being taken by the server and this web page refreshes each image once every 5 seconds. So this is certainly not as elegant as a streaming feed but it's good enough.
Over on the left hand side of the web page, I have on/off buttons that correspond to the 4 outlet plugs you see.
The picture with the outlets is the prototype. It has a USB relay that is connected to each of the 4 outlets and plugs into the server via USB. When I toggle the On/Off switches, it uses a combination of Ajax calls and .NET code to open a connection to communicate with the USB relay and turn the specified circuit on or off.
Where I ultimately would like to take this project is to be able to automate as much as possible. Things like monitoring temps, relative humidity, opening and closing water valves, dispensing and mixing nutrients and watering. I invite anyone that is able to contribute as well as everyone that is interested in learning to join.
If you are a company trying to solicit commercial solutions, please go away. I am not interested in your solutions. However, if you are here to contribute knowledge and information about specific products that can used as a piece to the larger puzzle, then please pull up a seat, and welcome!
I spent the last week learning a little bit and building my first prototype that I will be sharing in a moment. The purpose of this thread is to exchange knowledge. I know I can learn a lot from you and perhaps you can learn a little from me.
Some of the basic concepts we will initially be talking about are Web Cameras, Relay Devices and being able to program against these devices to do cool stuff.
My prototype is very crude but here is the setup:
Windows 2008 Server with a domain name so the series of web pages you are about to see can be accessed from a computer or a mobile device from anywhere in the world.
2 Logitech Webcams connected to the server
This first web page you will see is a simple web page I wrote that uses a Jquery plugin called ScriptCam. This web page cycles through every web cam that is connected to the server and cycles through them on a fixed interval. I'm currently cycling through each web cam every 5 seconds.
Here are 2 screenshots of what you would see on the server...keep in mind, this is just a plain old web browser:
Every 5 seconds, the image changes to the other web cam. Instead of trying to do full blown streaming, I am taking a snapshot JPG image of each camera and saving it to disk on the server. I am not keeping multiple images per wecam...everytime a new image is created it is saved and overwrites the previously saved image.
These next set of pictures are again just a simple web page but this web page is the one that is accessible from the outside...from a computer or mobile device.
This web page is showing the Images that are being taken by the server and this web page refreshes each image once every 5 seconds. So this is certainly not as elegant as a streaming feed but it's good enough.
Over on the left hand side of the web page, I have on/off buttons that correspond to the 4 outlet plugs you see.
The picture with the outlets is the prototype. It has a USB relay that is connected to each of the 4 outlets and plugs into the server via USB. When I toggle the On/Off switches, it uses a combination of Ajax calls and .NET code to open a connection to communicate with the USB relay and turn the specified circuit on or off.
Where I ultimately would like to take this project is to be able to automate as much as possible. Things like monitoring temps, relative humidity, opening and closing water valves, dispensing and mixing nutrients and watering. I invite anyone that is able to contribute as well as everyone that is interested in learning to join.
If you are a company trying to solicit commercial solutions, please go away. I am not interested in your solutions. However, if you are here to contribute knowledge and information about specific products that can used as a piece to the larger puzzle, then please pull up a seat, and welcome!
