[Beowulf] cluster for doing real time video panoramas?

[Jim Lux]

At 12:02 AM 12/22/2005, Eugen Leitl wrote:
>On Wed, Dec 21, 2005 at 08:11:21PM -0800, Jim Lux wrote:
>
> > Could be anything that works (preferably cheap!)... I had originally
> > contemplated using analog video cameras and some sort of frame grabber, 
> but
> > the firewirestuff folks have a nifty 1394 video camera that essentially
> > rolls the camera and digitizer into one widget.
> > http://industrialcomponent.com/unibrain/ubwebcam.html
>
>
>I can very much recommend the Apple iSight, which is IEEE 1394 and
>has nice optics (Zeiss, IIRC).
>
>http://www.apple.com/isight/

Same price as the Unibrain.

I haven't found the detailed datasheet for the iSight (i.e. does it work 
with Linux, and is it a DV camera (putting out compressed video) or not 
(putting out rectangular grids of pixels))

Autofocus can be a bit of a problem in this application (but perhaps it can 
be disabled?)
if the focus changes, it changes the optical transformation, which then 
requires recalibration.

Superficially, at least, it looks like it uses the same 1/4" CCD sensor as 
the Unibrain camera.

>
Jim, W6RMK