The other JpegCam rewrite

[amw]

Hi @jhuckaby, I sent you an email in September 2013 to tell you about a rewrite of your library I made, but I think it went into a black hole as I never got a response. Now I see you made a rewrite yourself stating similar goals: modernized API, HTML5 support.

Maybe you're interested in taking a look: amw/jpeg_camera and documentation.

Some features:

• Object oriented design (JpegCamera returns Snapshot objects)
• Manage and upload multiple snapshots at once. No need to wait for the first upload to finish before capturing the next image so you can take a few shots in a short interval.
• You can get snapshots for display outside the camera container in browsers that support canvas element - even when using Flash fallback.
• Retries failed uploads.
• Read server response text and code after upload.
• Send CSRF tokens to secure your user's session from Cross-site request forgery
• Prevents users from messing with HTML5 VIDEO or Flash object elements by overlaying transparent DIV over them after initialization.
• Makes sure the camera is really ready by checking stream's color standard deviation. Safeguard from weird all-black or all-white snapshots.

I've used your original library for quite a while. Many thanks for your work and sharing it with the world!

[jhuckaby]

Hey Adam (@amw)!

First of all, I am SO sorry I missed your e-mail back in 2013. I honestly don't remember even seeing it, and I apologize for that. It may have been caught by Gmail's spam filter, or got lost via one of my own stupid e-mail filters. It was certainly not intentional, and I am sorry.

Your library looks awesome! Seriously, if I knew this existed, I probably wouldn't have even made WebcamJS. This does everything, and includes MANY more features. It's also much cleaner as far as code and design (object-oriented, etc.), and you seem to have solved a lot of the problems I'm having (i.e. waiting for Flash to really be ready, etc.). That's a very clever idea using the stream's color standard deviation!

Thanks for letting me know about JpegCamera! Do you mind if I link to your library from the WebcamJS docs? More people need to know about it!

- Joe

[amw]

Thank you for your kind words. True, it's a shame we couldn't connect in 2013 – could have joined forces instead of duplicating efforts.

No, I won't mind at all if you link to my project. I'd appreciate that.

Just for the kicks I've forwarded you that old email. If you didn't get it again, check you junk box today.

[jhuckaby]

Ah, thanks Adam. I see exactly how I missed your original e-mail now. I used to have an auto-filter setup that moved everything with “JPEGCam” in the subject line into a special folder, along with bugs, etc., and it got lost there. My mistake!

Excellent, I'll add a blurb about your library on the main page. I think many people will benefit from its advanced features.

Have a great weekend!

- Joe

[amw]

Thanks, you too!

[jhuckaby]

Commit: https://github.com/jhuckaby/webcamjs/commit/2eeae368657852b4bc6cc079fd6740258d54c646

Looking for a good alternative to WebcamJS? Please check out JpegCamera by Adam Wróbel. It has many advanced features that WebcamJS is lacking (for example, upload multiple photos at once, retry failed uploads, CSRF tokens, make sure camera is ready), and has a very clean and object-oriented design.

;)

[amw]

Thanks, that's really great.