Re: Optura

[kyle forinash <kforinas@IUS.EDU>]

Does anyone know of a program like Optura or any of those mentioned
which will work over the web?

Here is what I want to do: I can only afford one video camera. I want
to point it out the window at the traffic (or something moving in the
lab that I set up and let run- cars on a toy race track, pendulum,
Brownian motion in a microscope, etc.). I want students at home or
elsewhere on the web to capture videos of cars pulling away from the
stoplight and analyze the motion. Obviously this won't be exactly
'real time' (I imagine a very poor quality, jerky, sample image
presented in real time so you can see what you will be working with
but when the student clicks 'sample' the program captures a higher
quality image which can then be downloaded to a browser at whatever
connection speed is available to be analyzed.)

I had a student try to program this in JAVA a few years ago
(http://149.160.29.57/) may still be up, I'm not sure) and we almost
succeeded. The problem we didn't solve at the time was allowing the
user to see what they were going to capture ahead of time but I think
a low quality real time sample image coupled with a higher quality
download image to analyze might work.

kyle


> --EEGDFDCTRGXeZadeUBVVBCAUOUeVbb
> Date:    Wed, 15 Nov 2000 13:32:47 -0500
> From:    Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>
> Subject: Re: Optura
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> > The premiere program is Videopoint http://www.lsw.com/videopoint/.
> > It has the distinct advantage of allowing students to see several
> > kinematic quantities at once on the screen.  Unfortunately World in
> > motion can not do this http://members.aol.com/raacc/wim.html.
> > However, World in Motion is cheaper. Another good alternative is Bob
> > Beicher's program VideoGraph available from Physics Academic
> > Software http://wasnet02ws.physics.ncsu.edu/pasnew/.  There was a
> > free program called VidShell available at one time from Doyle Davis.
> >
> > Both VideoGraph and VidePoint are similar.  Each has added features
> > of the other.  VideoGraph is for MacIntosh only, while VideoPoint is
> > Mac or PC.  World in Motion is PC only.  VideoGraph may be easier
> > for students to use, and World in Motion is very easy to use.
> >
> > John M. Clement
>
> For ease of use and quality of results, I think VideoGraph is better
> than VideoPoint, but VideoGraph is a bit older and has a serious
> limitation--it can handle only 128 data points. It isn't hard to
> visualize a situation in which more than 128 points are needed. I
> have talked to Bob Beichner about this and he agrees that the limit
> is a problem, but says that he has no plans to upgrade the
> application. Increasing the data capability would be quite
> labor-intensive and he has neither the time nor the funding to
> undertake that task.
>
> Hugh
> --
>
> Hugh Haskell
> <mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
> <mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>
>
> Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
> have to..
> ******************************************************
>
> --EEGDFDCTRGXeZadeUBVVBCAUOUeVbb--

-----------------------------------------------------
  kyle forinash   812-941-2390
  kforinas@ius.edu
  Natural Science Division
  Indiana University Southeast
  New Albany, IN    47150
  http://Physics.ius.edu/
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