CamIO a software application to control various aspects of a DSLR camera.
These aspects include aperture, shutter speed, taking pictures, transmitting pictures to the controlling smartphone or tablet, and backing up images to the cloud.
Introduction
The idea for the project came from a popular project from David Hunt, one of our engineers, called Camera-Pi, a Raspberry Pi based proof of concept. It was later adapted for Intel Galileo, and used at its launch at the European Maker Faire in Rome
Here’s a demonstration video of CamIO at the Maker Faire.
Features
The camera is connected to the Intel Galileo via USB, which allows us to access all the settings and controls of the camera, including aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. The control software runs on a smartphone or tablet, which connects into the hotspot created by the Galileo.
The main features of the software are as follows:
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Trigger the camera to take a picture
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Control the settings of the camera – ISO, Shutter Speed, Aperture, etc.
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View the images on the smartphone as they are taken
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Download the full-size images to the smartphone
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Zoom into the images to check for focus, etc.
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Press the camera’s shutter button, and have thumbnails automatically pushed to the smartphone
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Allow the smartphone to then preview the images, and download interesting ones for inspection
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Browse through the images on the camera using the smartphone
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Set up time-lapse sequence using the smartphone, and monitor it’s progress
CamIO makes use of the Gphoto2 library, which is compatible with over 1400 cameras, many of which can be configured and controlled.
CamIO in Action
During the course of the 4 days at the Maker Faire in Rome, the CamIO system took many images, and they have been assembled into a time-lapse, which you can view in the following video.
Evolution
Emutex encourages its engineers to develop ideas outside of their normal day-to-day work, and if an idea is approved, it may be allocated some resources to develop that idea. Camera-Pi started out as one of these innovation forum ideas, and developed into something that was chosen by Intel as one of the Emutex demos that were used to help launch the Intel Galileo board.