Photo Import

[tsiebert]

Hi,

I am trying to set up a system that will allow automated import of images into my database. The database is a real time catalog of inventory for what is essentially a high volume architectural consignment store. I would like the user to be able to place a product in a photo booth and then hit a button in FM to "suck" a picture of the object into the current record in database. The pictures need to be jpegs of sufficient quality to publish to web.

I think with combination of troi file and applescript I can handle images once they are on the HD but my current problem is trying to find a good way of getting the images on in the first place.

The troi grabber looks interesting , but I have only heard of it working with web cams (too fuzzy and distorted for the products we sell) . Has anyone had experience with this plugin using it with a higher quality input device? There are many high quality "industrial" video cameras out there that provide the resolution, but I do not know how (or if) they could synch with grabber. Would quality DV cameras work?

Alternately , does anyone know of a "still" digital camera which could be hard wired to mac and somehow controlled from within FM? We currently use a 1mp kodak camera and the quality is sufficient.

We are mac based and running mix of os9 /osx.

Thanks,

Ted

[jfmcel]

I have tried it. I got great results with an old 7600 AV Mac and a high quality analog video source. Produced a nice 640x 480 image. Tried to reproduce my results using an old wintel machine and a snappy image capture. While I could capture images normally, I could not succeed in importing directly into FileMaker. The plug-in should work with any camera with some degree of Quicktime support (Mac) or a twain compliant source (Windows). I've alway wanted to experiment with a firewire mac and a digital video camera. Let us know your results.

[tsiebert]

Thanks for the response. Ill let you know if I get it working with a DV camera.