Of Webcams and Weather
Nov. 3rd, 2003 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikPart of what we did this weekend was get the weather system working again. It's been up on our house now for 2 years and has attended 2 BurningMans prior to that; it's a proper little trooper. The external humidity sensor needs a bit of help, though, and should be replaced soon.
The software we got for it is Weatherview32. It allows me to make drag-and-drop weather pages with nice brass dials, strip-charts and all that kinda stuff. If I pay a little more it'll also allow live weather-streaming via a Java client; I'll fuss with that one later. The interesting thing is how it lets me composite the pages. You start with any background gif/jpg/png you wish and then drag/drop/resize the live meters, dials and gauges over them. The end result can be anything from the starkly-blank like we have online right now, to a nicely detailed art-piece with weather instruments. It also lets you build up to 25 of these screens and 'brand' them as you wish on different target servers... letting Revar have a "Belfry Weather" page while I put up a "Weather at FM's site" one, etc.
I'm hoping to find an artist with time to take a good weather-related commision set and make seasonal pages that theme well with FM. Weathervanes, foxes playing in fall leaves, those kind of things. Maybe a horse stomping around in rainpuddles. I can even have the system rotate backdrops and layouts depending on weather conditions -- things like putting up a 'blustery day' layout when the average windspeed is above 18mph. Any suggestions, or artists who're reading this that want to give it a try? I'd be glad to send sample meters and layouts to show you what can be worked with.
The other interesting thing picked up this weekend was a Veo Observer remote pan/tilt webcam. The idea was that we wanted a Weather Webcam to take a picture of the sky above the house. The Weather software can nab and upload images from it to include in the page designs. The Veo was a standalone device that required no host computer -- just an ethernet link! This was too cool.
The bad news: the camera is incapable of doing a periodic upload of static images to a server. It's useless for the intended purpose of a weather-cam. Dratski.
The good news: the camera is waaaay too much fun. It can pan and tilt remotely and does live streaming with nothing but a web browser. Sure, it only works with IE (ActiveX, feh) but if you have it, it works very well indeed. Currently it's in my living room while I test it out. I don't know where it'll end up but there's a good chance I'll sell it to my office for use as a server-room camera. For now, and until we get annoyed at it and move it elsewhere, it's online. If any of my friends want to have a peek through and try steering it around just get ahold of me in email or preferably realtime (FM, phone, etc). I'll give you a temporary password to it and you can try it out.
The roomies and I value our privacy, though, and will most likely turn it off once we're home -- or point it helpfully out a window where you can see the neighborhood instead of us. :)
The software we got for it is Weatherview32. It allows me to make drag-and-drop weather pages with nice brass dials, strip-charts and all that kinda stuff. If I pay a little more it'll also allow live weather-streaming via a Java client; I'll fuss with that one later. The interesting thing is how it lets me composite the pages. You start with any background gif/jpg/png you wish and then drag/drop/resize the live meters, dials and gauges over them. The end result can be anything from the starkly-blank like we have online right now, to a nicely detailed art-piece with weather instruments. It also lets you build up to 25 of these screens and 'brand' them as you wish on different target servers... letting Revar have a "Belfry Weather" page while I put up a "Weather at FM's site" one, etc.
I'm hoping to find an artist with time to take a good weather-related commision set and make seasonal pages that theme well with FM. Weathervanes, foxes playing in fall leaves, those kind of things. Maybe a horse stomping around in rainpuddles. I can even have the system rotate backdrops and layouts depending on weather conditions -- things like putting up a 'blustery day' layout when the average windspeed is above 18mph. Any suggestions, or artists who're reading this that want to give it a try? I'd be glad to send sample meters and layouts to show you what can be worked with.
The other interesting thing picked up this weekend was a Veo Observer remote pan/tilt webcam. The idea was that we wanted a Weather Webcam to take a picture of the sky above the house. The Weather software can nab and upload images from it to include in the page designs. The Veo was a standalone device that required no host computer -- just an ethernet link! This was too cool.
The bad news: the camera is incapable of doing a periodic upload of static images to a server. It's useless for the intended purpose of a weather-cam. Dratski.
The good news: the camera is waaaay too much fun. It can pan and tilt remotely and does live streaming with nothing but a web browser. Sure, it only works with IE (ActiveX, feh) but if you have it, it works very well indeed. Currently it's in my living room while I test it out. I don't know where it'll end up but there's a good chance I'll sell it to my office for use as a server-room camera. For now, and until we get annoyed at it and move it elsewhere, it's online. If any of my friends want to have a peek through and try steering it around just get ahold of me in email or preferably realtime (FM, phone, etc). I'll give you a temporary password to it and you can try it out.
The roomies and I value our privacy, though, and will most likely turn it off once we're home -- or point it helpfully out a window where you can see the neighborhood instead of us. :)
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-03 11:51 pm (UTC)<img src="http://www.belfry.com/weather/weather-sample.png">
Those are the the 'big dial', 'little dial', 'thermometer' and 'graph' items. Dials are used for realtime info, like windspeeds, pressures and temperatures. Thermometers are only good for temp-related stuff, obviously: temp, windchill, heat index. The scrolling graphs can be real time or historical data (such as a pressure graph over 24 hours).
The dials and thermometer cannot be resized. What you see there is what you get. The graphs, however, can be made any size, with any color text or lines, and tons of options on the fonts, font colors/gradients, drop shadows, etc. Any other desired weather data can be sent as text fields as well, in about any font/size/color you wish.
A completed weather page, then, would be a list of data items needed (which I will put together soon and add to this thread) and a preference of what types of indicators to use. The artist would then take the pre-cut ones here and work them into an image, pixel for pixel. Be sure to specify just what sizes to make the graph-style ones.
Sensemakes? Or what else would you want to know? :)
Weather and day/night
Date: 2003-11-04 11:48 am (UTC)Re: Weather and day/night
Date: 2003-11-04 02:02 pm (UTC)I don't know how detailed I want (or to be honest, can afford) to go. The original thought was to do four seasons (for daytime use) and one night scene that'd be used all year. Five comissions could get pricey, though. :) At first I'm hoping for just one to see how well it works.
I'm hoping to get multiple artists to do the various ones if it works out and I go that way, to help vary the style.