/** * @example camera.c * Question: I need to display a live camera image via VNC. Until now I just * grab an image, set the rect to modified and do a 0.1 s sleep to give the * system time to transfer the data. * This is obviously a solution which doesn't scale very well to different * connection speeds/cpu horsepowers, so I wonder if there is a way for the * server application to determine if the updates have been sent. This would * cause the live image update rate to always be the maximum the connection * supports while avoiding excessive loads. * * Thanks in advance, * * * Christian Daschill * * * Answer: Originally, I thought about using seperate threads and using a * mutex to determine when the frame buffer was being accessed by any client * so we could determine a safe time to take a picture. The probem is, we * are lock-stepping everything with framebuffer access. Why not be a * single-thread application and in-between rfbProcessEvents perform a * camera snapshot. And this is what I do here. It guarantees that the * clients have been serviced before taking another picture. * * The downside to this approach is that the more clients you have, there is * less time available for you to service the camera equating to reduced * frame rate. (or, your clients are on really slow links). Increasing your * systems ethernet transmit queues may help improve the overall performance * as the libvncserver should not stall on transmitting to any single * client. * * Another solution would be to provide a seperate framebuffer for each * client and use mutexes to determine if any particular client is ready for * a snapshot. This way, your not updating a framebuffer for a slow client * while it is being transferred. */ #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #include <rfb/rfb.h> #define WIDTH 640 #define HEIGHT 480 #define BPP 4 /* 15 frames per second (if we can) */ #define PICTURE_TIMEOUT (1.0/15.0) /* * throttle camera updates */ int TimeToTakePicture() { static struct timeval now={0,0}, then={0,0}; double elapsed, dnow, dthen; gettimeofday(&now,NULL); dnow = now.tv_sec + (now.tv_usec /1000000.0); dthen = then.tv_sec + (then.tv_usec/1000000.0); elapsed = dnow - dthen; if (elapsed > PICTURE_TIMEOUT) memcpy((char *)&then, (char *)&now, sizeof(struct timeval)); return elapsed > PICTURE_TIMEOUT; } /* * simulate grabbing a picture from some device */ int TakePicture(unsigned char *buffer) { static int last_line=0, fps=0, fcount=0; int line=0; int i,j; struct timeval now; /* * simulate grabbing data from a device by updating the entire framebuffer */ for(j=0;j<HEIGHT;++j) { for(i=0;i<WIDTH;++i) { buffer[(j*WIDTH+i)*BPP+0]=(i+j)*128/(WIDTH+HEIGHT); /* red */ buffer[(j*WIDTH+i)*BPP+1]=i*128/WIDTH; /* green */ buffer[(j*WIDTH+i)*BPP+2]=j*256/HEIGHT; /* blue */ } buffer[j*WIDTH*BPP+0]=0xff; buffer[j*WIDTH*BPP+1]=0xff; buffer[j*WIDTH*BPP+2]=0xff; } /* * simulate the passage of time * * draw a simple black line that moves down the screen. The faster the * client, the more updates it will get, the smoother it will look! */ gettimeofday(&now,NULL); line = now.tv_usec / (1000000/HEIGHT); if (line>HEIGHT) line=HEIGHT-1; memset(&buffer[(WIDTH * BPP) * line], 0, (WIDTH * BPP)); /* frames per second (informational only) */ fcount++; if (last_line > line) { fps = fcount; fcount = 0; } last_line = line; fprintf(stderr,"%03d/%03d Picture (%03d fps)\r", line, HEIGHT, fps); /* success! We have a new picture! */ return (1==1); } /* * Single-threaded application that interleaves client servicing with taking * pictures from the camera. This way, we do not update the framebuffer * while an encoding is working on it too (banding, and image artifacts). */ int main(int argc,char** argv) { long usec; rfbScreenInfoPtr server=rfbGetScreen(&argc,argv,WIDTH,HEIGHT,8,3,BPP); if(!server) return 0; server->desktopName = "Live Video Feed Example"; server->frameBuffer=(char*)malloc(WIDTH*HEIGHT*BPP); server->alwaysShared=(1==1); /* Initialize the server */ rfbInitServer(server); /* Loop, processing clients and taking pictures */ while (rfbIsActive(server)) { if (TimeToTakePicture()) if (TakePicture((unsigned char *)server->frameBuffer)) rfbMarkRectAsModified(server,0,0,WIDTH,HEIGHT); usec = server->deferUpdateTime*1000; rfbProcessEvents(server,usec); } return(0); }