USB Webcam support

Hi all,

I am new to all the WiiBrew but I wonder if somebody ever looked into drivers for a webcam on the wii. I know there are apps for linux running on the wii and people who have support for USB drivers. I wonder if somebody ever mapped the Phillips webcam drivers to the Wii through linux or something similar.

To start it would be good to have just a simple application that displays the image from the USB webcam. Is that possible, is that hard?

This has millions of applications (video chat, skype-like apps, image processing used as tool for games eyetoy-like) etc.


Let me know if there is some work towards that direction. I never coded for the wii but have some experience with C/C++ and camera drivers on linux.


Thanks


CAGELL

Sounds interesting... You could send video messages to other users. If it's possible, we could possibly incorporate it into WiiConnect.

And incorperate it into homebrew apps, or homebrew online apps.
Verbal chat would be nice to have for the wii as well...

Yes, i can think of a lots of applications of the USB webcam

a) Video chat
b) Eye-toy-like games
c) Imagine an App that creates a Mii based on a picture of you..... that would rock
d) Build a face detector/ recognizer and load parameters based on the user
e) Remote video streaming of your home with your wii
.............

You name it!!!

So who is in for that? Anyone with USB experience willing to help?


cagell

I definitely would... but I can't code.

i could test the apps but i cant code

I want to help and I can code!

I had the same Idea and found your topic. Do you have done any advances?
I have no usb webcam yet but that's good because I can choose one suitable for the project.

PM me your e-mail so we can talk about that.

Hey,

Sorry for the delay in replying but I have been very busy with my 'other life' (non-wii). So I cannot recommend you any particular USB camera but I have some experience with linux and webcams. I would recommend one of the webcams supported by the phillips webcam driver (see http://www.saillard.org/linux/pwc/).

I assume that as some people have already been able to get Linux running on the wii, getting the webcam drivers to run on linux on the wii should not be that complicated.

Besides OpenCV can be utilized for image processing (I have some experience on that).

I will not be able to work a lot on the coding but if we can set a framework to share advancements it would be nice.

So items that need to be solved here are

a) Find out what version of linux that can run on the wii would accept the PWC (phillips webcam driver)
b) Try it out (install driver and see if the driver detects the camera)..
c) Build a simple application that stores the image from the webcam in the SD card
d) Build a more complex app that displays live images.

That is kind of the general path I would follow. I do not have much time but I will try to stick to that and post results on this forum. If anyone (Snahrck ) wants to help, please log your advances in this forum.



cagell

Quote
cagell
Hi all,

I am new to all the WiiBrew but I wonder if somebody ever looked into drivers for a webcam on the wii.

Is anyone still working on this. I just got a new webcam that I would love to use in HBC, or via Opera, or whatever.

Eye-Toy thing application for Naruto Games would be more than great even if we would have to create games as well because probably implementing it into commercial ones would be nearly impossible...but nobody chases us anyway
It would put a lot of work but who knows maybe we would be able to sell it later :D
OK enough of hard-to-do dreams ^_^"

The problem here is that each camera would have it's own driver. It would take a developer a while to do this and even then your specific webcam may not be supported. I don't believe there's any standard for communications between webcams, they all communicate via I2C using there own register maps.

If I'm not mistaken didn't nintendo allready do this??? And call it wii speak???

Any way what I was thinking is that you could make a similar social networking community thing to the one on the wii but without the friendcode stuff!

Uhhh..... What? We were talking about cameras not microphones....

Quote
TopGun96
Uhhh..... What? We were talking about cameras not microphones....

LOL :D

Just though I'd mention it. any way I think one thing we all agree on is that this would be a great thing and greatly benifit all homebrew users.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2009 04:09PM by aidanharris.

Would the chat be a sort of MSN like app that lets you chat via usb keyboard or web cam???



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2009 02:57PM by aidanharris.

Quote
cagell
e) Remote video streaming of your home with your wii

that would fail if they steal your wii

Quote
SteelSLasher

Quote
cagell
e) Remote video streaming of your home with your wii

that would fail if they steal your wii

LOL :D

RESURRECT!!

Any progress or interest on this currently? There's even a game now that comes with a USB Camera so there should be a new IOS revision with support.

I have played with homebrew and can make rudimentary apps including network support but I do not have much USB knowledge and I do not see any predefined functions for utilizing the USB bus generically or with USB cameras.