SiteCam and Java

SiteCam.class is a small Java applet that can update a user's webcam images, at an interval that you specify. It works with all types of webcam situations--FTP users on a remote ISP, WebSTAR compatible servers, and with non-WebSTAR compatible servers.

SiteCam.class is a preferred way to send streaming video images to people using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, since Explorer on the PC does not support regular streaming video. The SiteCam.class applet will work on all browsers that have Java enabled.

Note: If you are upgrading from a previous version--SiteCam.class replaces the JavaSite.class. SiteCam.class improves the way files are accessed.

FTP Users

If you are saving files to your server's directory periodically (via FTP or directly to the server's file directory) you can configure SiteCam.class in your HTML to refresh the image.

Use SiteCam to save images to a server's directory. Find out which image is the latest image. When the number of destination images is greater than one, SiteCam will automatically place an index after the file name and reorder files so that image01 is the most recent.

The SiteCam interval will also determine how often a new image is sent to the server once the .

<APPLET CODE="SiteCam.class" WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=240 ALIGN=center>   <PARAM NAME=file VALUE="image01.jpg">   <PARAM NAME=minutes VALUE=1>   <PARAM NAME=seconds VALUE=30></APPLET>

The above code will add an image (320x240) to the web that updates every 5 minutes. Your SiteCam should be saving an image to the web every 2.5 minutes, so that when the image is refreshed, it is sure to have a new image.

The delay that you specify (using the minutes and/or seconds parameters) should be twice the rate that images are uploaded to the server. Any more than that may cause refreshes of the same image. There is no way to signal a browser image reload when a new file is uploaded.

SiteCam.class Periodic File Update Example

Streaming Video Users

If you are using SiteCam and a WebSTAR compatible server on the same machine, you can use the doc parameter to specify the document with which to access video. The doc parameter is a short cut for accessing the doc name followed by ".mwc?images=1". So if you have a document called highres, the java plug-in will access http://yourserver.com/directory/highres.mwc?images=1.

<APPLET CODE="SiteCam.class" WIDTH=320 HEIGHT=240 ALIGN=center>   <PARAM NAME=doc VALUE="mydoc">   <PARAM NAME=delay VALUE=300>   <PARAM NAME=images VALUE=100></APPLET>

The above example will access the WebSTAR plug-in for a single image from the SiteCam document named "mydoc". It will send 100 images, with a delay of 300 milliseconds (0.3 seconds) between each image. The delay value that you use depends on how much traffic you want to handle and how much time you want to give other browser tasks.

SiteCam.class Streaming Video Example

Parameters

file - Specifies the location of the file, relative to the HTML page requesting the image.

doc - Specifies the SiteCam document name for local WebSTAR access.

minutes - The number of minutes to wait between image updates.

seconds - The number of seconds to wait between image updates.

delay - The number of milliseconds to wait between image updates

images - The number of images to send.

Note: You must specify either the file or doc parameter, but not both. The doc parameter is used only when serving images via the SiteCam plug-in using WebSTAR. Otherwise, the file parameter should be used.

Java Programmers! Registered users who are interested in the source code for the applet can send a note to info@rearden.com.