Python opencv not receiving camera feed

Question

I've been trying to use the SimpleCV (www.simplecv.org) module to run image recognition and manipulation. Unfortunately, my incoming video feed has been quite finicky, and I'm not sure what I did wrong. Just using some basic sample code:

import cvwindow = cv.NamedWindow("camera", 1)
capture = cv.CreateCameraCapture(0)
width = int(cv.GetCaptureProperty(capture, cv.CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH)) 
height = int(cv.GetCaptureProperty(capture, cv.CV_CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT))

while 1:
    img = cv.QueryFrame(capture)
    cv.ShowImage("camera", img)
    k = cv.WaitKey(1)
    if(k == 102):
        cv.destroyWindow("camera")
        break

Which works perfectly when I plug in my Logitech Webcam 500. However, when I attempt to use my Vimicro Altair camera, I get a grey screen, and when saving to file, the file is empty.

I also attempted to use SimpleCV code, based off their cookbook along the lines of:

mycam = Camera()
img = mycam.getImage()

which was equally unsuccessful, however instead of returning no data, simply returned an image that was completely black.

I'm at quite a loss of what is causing this, I tried the exact same system on my laptop, which failed to even get an image from the Logitech cam. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit with Python 2.7 and SimpleCV 1.1.

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm one of the SimpleCV developers. It appears you are trying to use the standard python openCV wrapper.

What I recommend doing is just run the example here: https://github.com/sightmachine/SimpleCV/blob/develop/SimpleCV/examples/display/simplecam.py

Or here is the code as well:

import time, webbrowser
from SimpleCV import *

#create JPEG streamers
js = JpegStreamer(8080)
cam = Camera()

cam.getImage().save(js)
webbrowser.open("http://localhost:8080", 2)

while (1):
  i = cam.getImage()
  i.save(js)
  time.sleep(0.01) #yield to the webserver