Project Overview
This software was developed to control exposure compensation for modern Foscam IP cameras. If you use Foscam security cameras in environments with dynamic lighting (including outdoors) and experience washout, then maybe this software is for you.
General Usage
This software is written in Java and is designed to be run via command line. To describe its operation at a high level, this software takes frequent snapshots from the cameras you configure it to monitor and evaluates their exposure by examining a subset of pixels in the image. If the software determines that the camera exposure is out of range, it sends a command to it, adjusting the necessary parameters.
From time to time, Foscam cameras appear to run out of exposure compensation and, no matter how much you adjust the camera brightness, the image is not affected. The sofware detects this and will perform a "mode bounce", which means it will switch the camera mode from OUTDOOR to 50Hz, and then back to OUTDOOR for instance. This usually fixes the "stuck" exposure problem.
Going Forward
I have had requests to convert this project to a win32 executable with a more user-friendly interface. I plan to dedicate time to the project based on the volume of interest in the current, fully functional version which is platform-independant. Please feel free to contact me with suggestions or gripes as I am happy to address both.
-James