Webcam models that work with VFP

[dylim]

Hi All,

I would like to ask our community who has already worked with webcams using VFP for picture taking or capturing videos.

Kindly suggest webcam models that work seamlessly with VFP.

Thanks in advance.

Long live the Fox!

 

[Mike Lewis]

I have some experience of this - but not recently.

I used something called a Philips Toucam to programmatically capture mug shots. That product has long been discontinued, but there are plenty of others available. Basically, any camera that supports TWAIN should be OK for you.

I wrote an article on how to do this. See Controlling TWAIN devices from within Visual FoxPro. But note that that article is now 20 years old. The software I mentioned (EZTWAIN from Dosadi) still exists, but has no doubt changed considerably since then.

I hope this helps.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Chris Miller]

Twain is quite outdated, the Windows device layer used for Webcams is WIA since even XP, and that should be used. Any Webcam since about 2000 should support this OS layer and you have access through it through the Windows OS WIA layer (WIA=Windows Image Aquisition).

So it's a bit like you don't need to worry about addressing Printer drivers directly and can just choose a printer to print reports to, a webcam is used via this Windows OS layer and an example is here.

https://github.com/VFPX/Win32API/blob/master/samples/sample_437.md

For the webcam just assure it is WIA or simply Windows compatible. I suggest, Mike, you upgrade your example, because I'm not sure many webcams would still - perhaps in parallel - support Twain.

So regarding which webcam to choose one that has a Windows logo, is Windows cmpatible. Avoid things that are specifically for raspberry or arduino boards and not made with Windows in mind. Otherwise your choice must be with what you prefer, there's nothing to fear as WIA will do the details.

Chriss

 

[Mike Lewis]

Chris, I agree that TWAIN is outdated. I said that my article was 20 years old. But I note that most Logitech cameras, for example, still come with a TWAIN driver, and the Dosadi software is still available. But the Github article you referenced looks to be a better approach for the OP.

Mike

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Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[dylim]

Mike / Chriss,

Thanks to the both of you for your inputs.

For obvious reasons, I would like to delve deeper into Mike's.

Mike, is it safe to assume that any webcam I get to choose now at 2023 will have this WIA standard as long it says it is Windows compatible?

Thanks and Best Regards.

 

[Mike Lewis]

is it safe to assume that any webcam I get to choose now at 2023 will have this WIA standard as long it says it is Windows compatible?

I think Chris would be able to answer that better than I can. I've no experience of WIA.

That said, I see that there is a lot of technical information about WIA available, including code samples. The samples are inevitably in VBA or C# rather than VFP. But WIA is implemented as a COM DLL (at least, that's my understanding), so it should be possible to interface with it via VFP.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Chris Miller]

Don't forget, Mike, I already posted a WIA example, that's VFP.

That link is to the Win32API branch of the VFPX project, as can be seen from the link itself already. That will get you started, dylim.

Chriss