Elphel 353 series quick start guide

Notes

• The following guide was written for (K)Ubuntu OS
• The camera has a web-based interface and it should work in any OS (Firefox browser is recommended)

Lens Mount

Lens Adapter Ring
Check if you need the C/CS adapter ring to connect your own lenses.

Connection

When the camera is properly connected to a PC the leds on the back will go solid yellow and blinking green.

1. Standard PoE Injector

Fig.1 Camera connection using a standard PoE Injector

2. 12V Power Module (ONLY FOR 12V CAMERAS)

Fig.3 12V camera connection

power injector adapter

Network

The default camera IP address is 192.168.0.9* ("ping -b 192.168.0.255" if it accidentally has some other address)

• Ensure that your PC or router/switch, the camera is connected to, has an IP address from the same subnetwork – that is 192.168.0.xxx.

SSH/FTP connection

Default user is:

Login:     root
Password:  pass

Camera Index Page Menu

http://192.168.0.9 *

* It is recommended to use the Firefox browser.

• Main Applications menu items:
• Camera Control Interface
• Disk Recorder (only use this if you have an actual disk: HDD, SSD, compactflash card connected to your camera)
• Parameter Editor
• Terminal
• System Preferences
• File Browser / Text Editor

Help Tips

Open the Camera Control Interface (camvc).

Fig.4 Help

Getting the first images

camvc

In the Camera Control Interface (camvc): "Shift+Click" on the button to save.

Fig.5 Acquire an image from the Camera Control Interface

browser

http://192.168.0.9:8081/bimg

shell script

wget http://192.168.0.9:8081/bimg -O filename.jpeg

PHP

In PHP it will be just a system() or exec() call:

system("wget http://192.168.0.9:8081/bimg -O filename.jpeg");

Camera GUI(camvc) Controls

Fig.6 camvc controls

Watch/record video stream over the network

There are several ways to watch/record video streams from the camera:

1. watch: camvc

First click on an icon with a "screen" (the 3rd one from the left) and then change the display mode to "a guy on a bicycle".

Fig. 7 Turn on Live Video Stream

2. watch: player GUI / command line

To watch the video stream with MPlayer or VLC open the rtsp://192.168.0.9:554. You can use either a player GUI or a command line. Here is an example command from Linux terminal window:

Mplayer

mplayer  rtsp://192.168.0.9:554 -vo x11 -zoom

VLC

vlc rtsp://192.168.0.9:554 -V x11 --rtsp-caching=50 

The default setting for rtsp-caching is 5000 milliseconds which means the stream is delayed 5 seconds which is not very handy for real-time video preview so the above commands starts VLC with it set to 50 ms

3. record: command line

mencoder rtsp://192.168.0.9:554 -ovc copy -fps <fps> -o <file_name>.mov

where 
<fps>        - approximate value of the frame frequency (this parameter is mandatory); 
<file_name>.mov - the name of an output file

or

vlc rtsp://192.168.0.9:554 -V x11 --sout file/ogg:<file_name>.mov

FTP access

ftp://192.168.0.9

Command line access

a) SSH

In the terminal window: ssh root@192.168.0.9

b) Telnet

In the terminal window: telnet 192.168.0.9

c) Phpshell

Firefox address line: http://192.168.0.9/phpshell.php

Reboot

In a terminal/phpshell type reboot -f.

Serial port (10369 board required)

Speed: 115200 8N1

RTS/CTS: None

XON/XOFF : None

PHP samples

On the camera

PHP API Reference Documentation

List of PHP Constants

PHP Examples

On the PC

Accessing camera parameters

Camera GUI

http://192.168.0.9 -> "Parameter Editor"

Navigate through the 1st table links. They cover most if not all of the camera parameters.

On-camera script "parsedit.php" - through a browser or AJAX GET call

The response is in XML form:

Read:

http://192.168.0.9/parsedit.php?immediate&PAR1&PAR2

Change:

http://192.168.0.9/parsedit.php?immediate&PAR1=VAL1&PAR2=VAL2

Note 1: It's just if the parameter value is specified it will be applied. The call can have mixed specified and unspecified parameters.

Note 2: The new value is read on the next call.

Keeping settings after power off

http://192.168.0.9 -> "Parameter Editor"

Scroll to the 2nd table.

• "Save" button
• Optionally write some comment and press "Update" to the right of it. Next time the camera will boot with these settings.
• To set the parameter group used at boot time, select it and press "Update Default" button.

More Tutorials

See Tutorials