Topic: 360 degree fisheye camera - any experience??

[tosealer]

Anyone out there using a 360 degree fisheye camera for their weather cam?  I've been looking at the Vivotek FE8171V as a possible camera (to replace a foscam PT unit I've put in an all-weather enclosure).  Would be nice to get all angles from one camera.  Would be interested to hear from others who may use or have used such a camera.

[nincehelser]

Did you find any image samples?

Here's a camera that's popular for astronomical use.

http://www.telescope.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=101918&gclid=CJ_o_460yLgCFSgS7AodwygAgg

[miraculon]

I have pondered this one: http://www.moonglowtech.com/products/AllSkyCam/
I sort of wish that it was an IP cam, though. I don't want yet another computer running to manage it.

Greg H.

[Bushman]

IP based:  http://eko-eu.com/products/solar-radiation-and-photonic-sensors/sky-scanner/srf-02-all-sky-camera  I can't even guess how much it would cost though.

[nincehelser]

All these solutions seem awfully expensive.

Today I got a set of 3 add-on lenses for a cell phone camera for $7 from Amazon.  One of the lenses is a 180 degree fish-eye.

My intent is to use one of these lenses on a Raspberry Pi camera project, but I thought I'd stick one on my iPhone and see what would come out.

While this image isn't perfect, it seems to suggest one could throw together some cheap components and come up with a decent sky cam for under $100 or so.

[tosealer]

I had considered that Moonglow camera too.  I asked the company whether they were planning on an IP version in the future.  They indicated they had not plans for that, and said it would make the camera way too expensive.

I have also tried replacing the lens on one of my PT foscams with a fisheye lens picked up from dx.com (you can see it here http://www.theseals.ca/webcamimage.jpg).  Limited success with that as it's not a true fisheye (180/360 degree coverage) and it still leaves me with my indoor camera placed in a custom made box outdoors (which admittedly has worked through our Toronto winter and so far in our Toronto summer - last week temp inside box got to 50 celsius)

[Bushman]

No webcam image for me.

[nincehelser]

I had considered that Moonglow camera too.  I asked the company whether they were planning on an IP version in the future.  They indicated they had not plans for that, and said it would make the camera way too expensive.

I have also tried replacing the lens on one of my PT foscams with a fisheye lens picked up from dx.com (you can see it here http://www.theseals.ca/webcamimage.jpg).  Limited success with that as it's not a true fisheye (180/360 degree coverage) and it still leaves me with my indoor camera placed in a custom made box outdoors (which admittedly has worked through our Toronto winter and so far in our Toronto summer - last week temp inside box got to 50 celsius)

I'd be interesting in hearing about your custom box.  I'm looking to do the same for a Raspberry Pi.

[tosealer]

I'd be interesting in hearing about your custom box.  I'm looking to do the same for a Raspberry Pi.

It was rather a bit of a kludge (or "proof of concept" as I was calling it to myself) it seems to have worked ok through the winter and now halfway into the summer.

The box is an 6X6X6 inch plastic weatherproof junction box picked up from the local home depot (http://www.homedepot.ca/product/thermoplastic-junction-box-150-6x6x6-in/954509).  Picked up an acrylic dome from SurplusShed (http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2090p.html), cut a hole in the lid of the box and silicone caulked the dome to the lid.  Inside the box I have my Foscam FI8608 PT IP cam with the retrofitted fisheye lense, a small reptile heating mat (like this one http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6016+11148+20114+22806&pcatid=22806) which I have powered on 24/7 in the winter, and a wireless outdoor thermometer (so that I can keep track of the temperatures inside the box - it got below 0 Celsius during the winter, and above 50 Celsius last week during our first summer heat wave, and camera has been generally been operating throughout.  I did notice during the heat that the image sometimes went wonky - green and blue horizontal lines - but after the heat subsided it went back to working fine).  It's a tight fit in the box, but there is enough room for everything, and the camera has room to do its panning and tilting.  I'll try and take a picture of it this weekend if you're interested.

[nincehelser]

I'd be interesting in hearing about your custom box.  I'm looking to do the same for a Raspberry Pi.

It was rather a bit of a kludge (or "proof of concept" as I was calling it to myself) it seems to have worked ok through the winter and now halfway into the summer.

The box is an 6X6X6 inch plastic weatherproof junction box picked up from the local home depot (http://www.homedepot.ca/product/thermoplastic-junction-box-150-6x6x6-in/954509).  Picked up an acrylic dome from SurplusShed (http://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m2090p.html), cut a hole in the lid of the box and silicone caulked the dome to the lid.  Inside the box I have my Foscam FI8608 PT IP cam with the retrofitted fisheye lense, a small reptile heating mat (like this one http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6016+11148+20114+22806&pcatid=22806) which I have powered on 24/7 in the winter, and a wireless outdoor thermometer (so that I can keep track of the temperatures inside the box - it got below 0 Celsius during the winter, and above 50 Celsius last week during our first summer heat wave, and camera has been generally been operating throughout.  I did notice during the heat that the image sometimes went wonky - green and blue horizontal lines - but after the heat subsided it went back to working fine).  It's a tight fit in the box, but there is enough room for everything, and the camera has room to do its panning and tilting.  I'll try and take a picture of it this weekend if you're interested.

Thanks!  That's very helpful, especially the supplier tips.  The cheapest domes I've found thus far were twice the price and you had to order at least 2!

[tosealer]

I ended up getting a used Vivotek FE8171V (local sale through Kijiji) for a reasonable price.  After playing around with it a while, I finally got around to installing it on my rooftop a few weeks ago.

Image quality seems pretty decent, and I get a nice true 360 degree view.  Software that comes on the camera works only with IE (limited Firefox/Chrome support), which seems pretty standard with these IP cams (why don't any manufacturers make their software play nicely with other browsers???).  One downside to this cam is that the image stream is only available for the full 360 view to other third-party software (such as VLC or BlueIris).  However, I managed to find software which I can use to convert a snapshot (won't work with streaming) of the 360 view into a rectilinear panorama format.  It works quite nicely.

Results can be seen here (along with my other weather cams).  http://www.theseals.ca/wxlocal4.html.

Now I'm working on generating daily timelapses from my cameras (using a Raspberry Pi to capture and process the images).

[cospringswx]

Looks nice.