Mosaic Issues

Posted on
Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:43 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Mosaic Issues

I know that developers hate it when folks request added features, but I've got a couple of issues with your "mosaic" as implemented...unless I am missing something:

First is that coming off of a camera saved as 1080x768, the 6 image mosaic will not load as a refreshing URL; it reports as being about 10% larger than the maximum allowed for a single jpg. But beyond that, it would be a lot more useful if there were more options than the last 6 images. My situation is this: I've got a camera looking up the 150 yard private drive at my house with a magnetic sensor buried in the roadway at the end of it. The camera is set to no motion detection because with any wind at all there's more pixel changes because of movement in the tree leaves bordering the drive than there is when a vehicle comes in or goes out. Since this is a private drive with no security gate, we occasionally get people looking for our neighbors driving in, turning around and leaving, and I kind of like to know when it happens... So, I get a push alert if no beacons are home and the sensor trips, allowing me to pull up a quick and dirty "Whats happening" indication. Prior to your plugin, I had a "ticktock" schedule that ran every 3 seconds which ran a script that saved the current image from that cam and pushed back the 8 prior images. When the sensor trips while no one is home, I copy all 9 images into a "last exiting" directory, wait 30 seconds and do it again into a "last entering" directory. I had (have) a control page which served up a 3x3 of 360x256 images linked to control pages of each of the 1080x768 if I needed to see a bigger image. I had hoped to replace the ticktock and copy scripts with your security cam plugin, but there is no way to

a) display the mosaic,
b) Set the delta time on the mosaic,
c) Make the mosaic a 3x3 rather than a 3x2,
d) Link the small images to the larger one that created them.

And the final problem that I found was that although you seem to be keeping 30 seconds worth of "img_mm.dd.yyyy.hh.mm.ss.jpg" files that are being continuously updated in the video/DrivewayCam directory, when I tried to copy the T-27, 24, 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3 files when the trip occured and 30 seconds afterward, about a third of the files that should be there get reported as nonexistant even though they appear in the finder window. And before you suggest using the video, the reason I need to use the jpgs is that our satellite internet has a pretty severe data cap and I need to minimize the size when I have to look at push alert remotely.

Is there a better way of doing this than going back to the ticktock schedule grabbing your current_image.jpg into my own directory every 3 seconds?

Posted on
Fri Apr 21, 2017 7:56 am
bkmar1192 offline
Posts: 274
Joined: Sep 12, 2015

Re: Mosaic Issues

I apologize for the delayed response - somehow I missed seeing this.

The recording function actually doesn't truly record - as in save to a video file. It does basically what your ticktock script does. It saves the last 30 seconds of files into a separate directory. By using the "Play" action you can loop through those images using the master images. You can play upto the last 10 recordings although more are saved. I recently posted instructions that go into the details of how to use the master images.

The mosaic image was not really intended for control pages (although you should be able to and I will look into your issue). I use them for sending me a text message when my motion sensor goes off.

Let me know if this helps and sorry again for the late response.

Posted on
Sat Jun 10, 2017 8:34 am
bkmar1192 offline
Posts: 274
Joined: Sep 12, 2015

Re: Mosaic Issues

I've just submitted an update that has some new features for low bandwidth connections. This might address some of your situation. No specific changes to the Mosaic image but that is on the roadmap.

Posted on
Mon Jun 12, 2017 5:47 am
johnpolasek offline
Posts: 911
Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Mosaic Issues

Thanks; I'll check them out... One thing that I didn't see in the manual; is there a way to specify only a subset of cameras in the carousel? Since you now say I can generate lo res images from my main camera devices and set up a carousel I can manually advance, I no longer need my lo res devices I use for my,DIY mosaic. But I was thinking of keeping them around just as a backup... only not if they are going to be appearing in the carousel...

Posted on
Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:34 pm
bkmar1192 offline
Posts: 274
Joined: Sep 12, 2015

Re: Mosaic Issues

Just released an update - if a camera is turned off (via an Action) it will not display in the carousel.

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