WebCam another FIRST for the Tulsa Gluedobbers

[Bob Reeves]

Tulsa now has a WebCam at the new flying field. I may be mistaken but believe this will be the first CL flying site with a webcam. Imagine pulling up the Tulsa webcam page and seeing what's happening on any given weekend.. And what about contest weekend, anyone from anywhere in the world will be able to see what's happening in Tulsa. The local guys will be able to see if anyone is flying before they get in the car.. Kinda neat having the club field in my front yard as it makes things like this possible without worrying about the resources to make it happen or vandalism.
 
It isn't real time streaming video due to bandwidth expense but still images updated every 60 seconds or so. Bandwidth is a primary concern and why the images are being uploaded at 320 X 240, once we have an idea of what the bandwidth usage will actually be we might be able to use the cameras full resolution and upload 640 X 480 images.
 
Right now it's kinda boring because no one is flying but don't let that stop you from visiting our webcam. In fact we would like everyone that sees this to follow the links so we can get an idea of what the hit rate on a contest weekend might be.
 
To access the WebCam page go the Tulsa Gluedobbers site and click on the Webcam button.
 
http://www.tulsacl.com
 
What you are seeing....
 
We tried to point the camera at what we believe is the center of activity. The lens doesn't allow us to get all 3 circles, maybe in the future we can swing another camera or two and provide full coverage of the field.
 
The building on the left is our club house, we have a 3rd circle to the left of it but it is out of the cameras field of view. The small shinny roof at the trees is our shelter set between the two main circles. The center of our existing circle is just to the right of the club house and the bare dirt behind it will be the 2nd circle once the grass starts growing again.
 
A few technical details.... (in case anyone is interested)
 
The camera is a D-Link DCS-900, this was the least expensive camera we could find with a built in web server. I wrote the software that is running on a local computer that automatically takes care of capturing the image and updating the web site via FTP. I can set it's start time, stop time and to only update on certain days of the week. The web page uses JAVA scripts I found on the internet and modified to do what I felt was needed.
 
As above bandwidth is our primary concern as we simply can't afford to be paying for on-going unlimited downloads from our web site. This is the reason the web page quits updating after 10 minutes, this catches anyone that may fall asleep or forget they are on-line and the computer sitting there downloading a new image every 60 seconds for days. 
 
Please feel free to ask questions or make suggestions..
 
Bob Reeves
Tulsa Gluedobbers CL club.

[Roger Vizioli]

Bob,
Very nice!
You keep raising the bar!!!!
Roger

[john e. holliday]

Bob, glad to hear the field is ready for use.  You have done something I have always dreamed about.  At least with the web cam you can watch for vandels when you suspect something.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

PS:Plans for Cardinette are on their way for the little four stroke.  Thanks for the info on getting it to work.  jeh

[Bob Reeves]

Thanks Roger and Hi Doc..

The two new circles are not quite ready for prime time but will be by the time the grass starts growing next spring.. I am hoping we can swing enough bandwidth to be able to go to a larger image.. This is what you would be seeing if we are able to go to 640 X 480..

[Bob Reeves]

Elwin just put a plane on the circle...

[Elwyn Aud]

I just checked the wind for Saturday morning and it looks flyable if it doesn't get any higher. Maybe we can get out around 9 or 10 and give it another shot. If we make it out will somebody please save a pic or two so those of us flying can have a look later.

[Warren Leadbeatter]

Hey guys

That's great.  Although all I can see at the moment is a black screen because it's night. 

I recently installed a Webcam at my house which looks at the sky to show the weather conditions.  I have it setup to update every 10 mins between 6am and 8pm So if anyone looks at the Cam at night time, they see the last pic of the day at 8pm just before dark.  Makes more sense to me to show the last thing you could see rather than a black screen.  Anyway it's just a suggestion. My Skycam is at http://users.tpg.com.au/adslfk4u/skycam.html if you want to take a peek.

The Cam I use is an AXIS 216FD Network Camera. It has a built in FTP server which I have configured to send a 26k 640x480 jpeg to my website every 10mins, which means it doesnt rely on any of my PC's, only the ADSL modem.  The price isnt cheap but the extra features and quality are worth it.  It also can email pics, has a web server for live viewing and can do things based on time or movement detection.  The cam I have is at http://www.axis.com/products/cam_216/index.htm if anyone is interested.

So for example, to keep bandwidth usage down, at a flying field, I could have it set to update the website once every 15mins with the latest pic, between say 8am and 6pm but if movement is detected in the field of view, I could then have it update every 1min for a given time or until movement is no longer detected.

It is also a good idea to show the current date/time and have something in the field of view close to the camera that can give an indication of wind direction and perhaps speed.  Eg a flag or a milar strip on a pole.   You might already have that but I cant see anything on yours at the moment.

P.S. I really like your Glue Dobbers Website.  It's great to be able to see what all you blokes look like and the pics are tops.

Cheers

[Bob Reeves]

Hi Warren, thanks for the suggestions, a $700+.00 camera is a little out of our price range. Didn't use the cameras built in FTP capabilities simply because I wanted more control over when and how the pictures are sent to the web site. Good suggestion on showing something that indicates the wind. We have a wind sock but it is out of the cameras field of view. I think the real answer is adding another camera and maybe alternating the pictures at 30 second intervals or having two web pages. As we get more data from our bandwidth usage we will have a better idea of what we will be able to accomplish.

Anyway, yesterdays unscheduled test (didn't expect anyone to fly in 35 deg weather) showed me the errors in my thinking when I developed the system.  This morning I revamped the web page and changed the software so we are only displaying a single 640 X 480 image.  Once it gets light the software will start uploading and we will see how it works..

I would like to thank everyone that visited the site yesterday you really helped us in more ways that you probably thought. This is an on-going project and being the first of it's kind we are learning. Sometimes it's neat being first but it also means spending the time to develop it to it's full potential.

[Warren Leadbeatter]

Hey Bob

I've been checking your webcam over the past few days to see what it's like there and hopefully catch somone flying but it seems to be stuck on the same frame???  There's a white van in the foreground.

P.S. I guess this could be because of the lack of power due to the Ice STORM?

Cheers

[Bob Reeves]

Hey Bob

I've been checking your webcam over the past few days to see what it's like there and hopefully catch somone flying but it seems to be stuck on the same frame???  There's a white van in the foreground.

P.S. I guess this could be because of the lack of power due to the Ice STORM?

Cheers

Yep, the ice storm put us out of business for a while, I'm slowly bringing everything back up. Snow is expected this weekend and it's too cold for a normal human. I don't expect the webcam to get real interesting till it starts warming up in the spring..

[Steve Moore]

Saw a white van parked this morning, cool...