• ObscuraLucida

OBSCURA LUCIDA

Remote video surveillance on the cheap

ObscuraLucida is the technical solution to answering several vexing questions:

1. How many kitties, racoons, and opossums are helping themselves to KittyPerdido's food?

   • A: The answer is 42. See KittyPerdidoMoocher

2. Who or what is continually ripping the lower branches of our apricot tree?
   • A: A giant robot disguised as the garbage truck!
3. What fiends stripped our apricot tree bare of fruit last summer?
   • A: The minions of evil known as "racoons."

After thinking about how to answer these questions for some time, I hit upon an exceedingly simple solution: why don't I harness the power of computing for my own nefarious ends? I could recycle that old PC in my garage. A bit of hardware, a bit of software, patch it all together with duct tape and presto: a networked video surveillance system! If the system were to support motion detection-based video capture, then I could easily capture video evidence. The more I looked at this solution, the more plausible it seemed. Cheap, too.

Requirements:

• The system must support one (preferably two) video inputs.
• The video sensors must operate outside (so they need protection from rain, etc).
• The system must run headless (no keyboard, no monitor).
• Implement some form of motion-based triggering.
  • Upon triggering, the system must capture video to the hard drive.
  • Upon triggering, the system must somehow notify me.
• Captured clips must be viewable from anywhere in my local network.
  • System will be located in the detached garage.
• System status must be accessable from anywhere in my local network.

Postscript: Duncan Grisby is a badass, and I hope my system works as well as his.

See also /SystemLog

What Does ObscuraLucida See?

/Monitor

Parts

updates:

• add daily reboot process
• Has external antenna on a cable--very important for connectivity.

Notes on the Camera

I bought the Swann Color Outdoor Day Night Camera] at Fry's. At the time, it looked like the perfect sensor solution: compact form factor, IR illuminators, color output, and weather-resistant. Unfortunately, this critical component is proving to be the weakest link in my system. The color quality and resolution are questionable (it doesn't really "switch" between B&W and color according to light level, but rather conveys a grainy netherworld), but the worst aspect is the automatic brightness control, which mysteriously fluctuates then latches onto the wrong setting. Under reasonable illumination, the image is often extremely dark or washed out. The problem clearly lies with the brightness control, because quickly covering, then uncovering, the camera yields a better picture (as does cycling power).

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