Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Remote Shooting Camera

We have an inexpensive IP Webcam that we've started using as a spotting scope when shooting > 100 yards.  Basically, the remote camera shows us where we are hitting on the target, without having to walk back-n-forth to the target.

Pretty simple - with a jumpstarter to power the camera we put it out at the target.  We also have a wireless router we needed when doing some >500 yard shooting - the router gave us more range on the camera, and we didn't have to switch to an ad-hoc network.  The older droid phone we were using is only running Android 2.2 and doesn't have the ad-hoc capability.



We've been using the wireless cam to watch rats in the chicken coop.  It is actually quite useful, especially with a smartphone.

 Here's the basic setup.  We are now working on batteries to use with the camera and router, so we don't need the jumpstarter.  The router uses 12V and the camera 5V inputs.
 The ad-hoc works great with an Android 4.0 tablet.  No router needed, except when you get about 300 yards out, then the signal seems too week for reliable images.
 Of course, we have created an Android App for the camera.  There are lots of them out there for use with Webcams, however we've added some image processing to ours to automatically show us where the new strike is located.  And, we have the phone listening for a gunshot, and when we shoot, it automatically takes a new picture, saves the image to the SDcard, and processes it.  Easy peasy!
 Here is the image showing where the new bullet strike is (below in red).  Each file is saved, so we don't have  to do anything but keep shooting.
 We will upload it to Google Play after we finish with our demo video.
More to come.  This was a fun one.

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