maxenceplebrun / webcam-acquisition

A program designed to acquire webcam images synchronised with a widefield imaging system.

Webcam Acquisition

A Python GUI designed to acquire webcam images synchronised with a widefield imaging system.

Explore the Documentation

Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
2. Getting Started
   • Prerequisites
   • Installation
3. Usage
4. Roadmap
5. License
6. Contact

About The Project

For many scientific applications, it is useful to have a camera feed synchronised with another acquisition system. If both systems have the same acquisition rate, a common trigger can be used: if their sampling rate is different, a different approach must be used.

This programs solves this problem by monitoring the trigger signal of the acquisition system with an Arduino Board. For each Falling Edge in the incoming signal, the Arduino increases its Frames Acquired index by one, thus tracking the number of frames acquired by the imaging system.

This variable is then read by the Webcam software, which is running a indenpendent image acquisition using a USB webcam. For each webcam frame acquired, the program will save the Frames Acquired index in a separate NPY array. For each webcam image, it is therefore possible to know the corresponding Imaging System image.

You can download the program by following the instructions below. Some indications are also given on how to adapt the program to your current setup.

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Built With

• Python
• PyQt5
• OpenCV
• Numpy

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9 must be installed

Installation

1. Download the latest release in the Releases section of the repository.
2. Unzip the downloaded file and move to desired location.
3. Install the required modules using one of the following methods:

Using Pip

1. Open a terminal window
2. Go to the directory where the program is saved using the cd command.
3. Run the following command: pip install -r requirements.txt

Using Anaconda

1. Open a terminal window
2. Run the following two commands:

conda create -n py3.9 python=3.9.12
conda activate py3.9

3. In a terminal window, go to the directory where the program is saved using the cd command.
4. Run the following command: pip install -r requirements.txt

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Usage

Running the program

1. Launch the webcam.pyw module found in the gui subfolder.

Modifying the Arduino COM port

1. Open the config.json file using any text editor.
2. Replace the string at te arduino_port key with the desired port.

Modifying the Arduino input PIN

1. Open the arduino.ino file using any text editor.
2. On the first line, replace the inPin variable with the desired PIN port number.
3. Transfer the arduino.ino file to the board using the Arduino Software.

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Roadmap

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Created by Maxence Pelletier-Lebrun - [email protected]

For a research internship at Michèle Desjardins' Laboratory

Research Page: https://www.crchudequebec.ulaval.ca/recherche/chercheurs/michele-desjardins/

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webcam-acquisition's Issues

two cams at same time

add option for brightness