Twittering Laser Tripwire With Webcam Capture

by action_owl

104K35962

Intro: Twittering Laser Tripwire With Webcam Capture


This instructable will show you how to construct a laser tripwire that can twitter and grab an image from a webcam, as well as execute any command you can put in a bash script.
This instructable is actually quite simple and is even suitable as a beginner arduino project. It requires a GNU/linux (or possibly Mac) operating system with the arduino IDE and Processing IDE working properly. This project could also be implemented in Windows if you created a more complex processing application.



Hardware Requirements
Arduino Board
Laser pointer/pen
Light Dependant Resistor
100Kohm Resistor

Optional:
  Webcam
  Breadboard


Software Requirements
 Arduino IDE
Processing IDE
Linux OS (I'm using Arch Linux for this project)
Curl
Webcam (part of xawtv)


Other Stuff:
Mirror
Solder and Soldering Iron
Wire
Hot Glue Gun
Hacksaw/Knife
Straw or Ballpoint Pen

STEP 1: Connecting the LDR


I needed the LDR and the laser to be in a position where they would not move around so I connected my LDR and resistor directly to the Arduino without a breadboard, but you can do it however you like, below are the photos for soldering and bending them into shape I also included a simple diagram.

I cut the end off of a ballpoint pen so that I could slip it over the LDR to prevent ambient light from affecting the reading, you could also use a straw.

STEP 2: Connecting the Laser Pointer


You can find these really cheap at some retail stores, I know that mine was under $3.

Unscrew the end and remove the batteries.

Use a hacksaw or sharp seraded knife to cut off 1 to 1/2 inch of the laser pointer, so that you can access the spring. You may not need to do this depending of what kind of laser pointer you found.

Connect and solder a wire to the spring ( I bent mine out to make it easier ) then rough up a small part of the outside of the laserpointer with a knife/sandpaper/pliers ect so that you can solder it to the outer casing. Then tape the button that activates the laser.

On my laser pointer the spring is + and the casing is - yours might be reversed. The best way to check is to take note of what position the batteries go in, the coin cells will have + marked on one side, if that side touches the spring then the spring is +.

Connect your + wire (Casing) to digital pin 13 on your arduino and you - wire (spring) to GND. 

Now upload the arduino sketch and ensure that you are getting readings from the LDR and that the laser is on.

To accomplish this you must uncomment this line:
//Serial.println(ldrVal);

and comment out this one:
Serial.print("1");

If all is well you can position your Laser and LDR in a  fixed position, bounce the laser to the LDR with a mirror to see that its registering. When the laser is detected it should print a "1".  You may need to adjust the threshold values depending on your LDR.

STEP 3: Everything in Place


Now you are going to need to make sure that your LDR and laser are not going to be moving around while you're testing the rest of the software.

I used a hot glue gun and used a small amount of hot glue on each edge of my arduino board to secure it to a plastic cassette case, (a piece of wood and some screws would be ideal but I didn't have any) The hot glue should be removed easy and if it doesn't it's in an unimportant location.

I then hot glued my laserpointer onto the platic cassette case and rested it against the arduino's digital headers. The LDR doesn't move around so I didn't have to worry about it moving. Your set up may vary but you get the idea.

You'll then want to make sure the whole thing won't move around, I used sticky tack on the bottom of the cassette case and put a jar of change on top of the USB cable so that it would not move around while testing.

You'll also want to affix your mirror to something, it's up to you to figure this one out I used sticky tack to adhere the mirror to an old and heavy Kodak brownie camera and set it on a stool with a few books on top while testing everything out. Later I just affixed the mirror to my camera tripod.

STEP 4: Processing


Load the Processing sketch and leave this line commented out:
//open("/home/your_usename/twitter.trip");

Make sure that your laser is pointed at the LDR and run the sketch. The screen area should be green and when you block the laser it should turn red, then after 10 seconds it should turn back to green.

The 10 second hold is to ensure that you're not twittering the same message multiple times, you can change this value by modifying the "int threshold=10000" variable.

Now that everything is working it's time to get your scripts in place

put twitter.trip into:
/home/your_username/

Change these to your twitter username and password
user="name"
pass="password"

open up a terminal and type:
chmod a+x /home/your_username/twitter.trip

then run it
./twitter.trip

go to your twitter page and you should see "laser tripped on..." as your last tweet.

Now time to get the webcam working, you can skip this step if you don't want to use a webcam or if you know how to grab a frame from a webcam in linux via script.

First you want to make sure that the program called "webcam" is installed, it's a part of xawtv.

Arch Linux: pacman -S xawtv
Fedora: yum install xawtv
Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install xawtv

Then configure .webcamrc however you need, mine is below.
The best part about webcam is that it has ftp support so that the image can be uploaded to a webserver, if you don;t want FTP comment that part out.

.webcamrc in /home/your_username/

[grab]
device = /dev/video0
text="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
#infofile = filename
fg_red = 0
fg_green = 0
fg_blue = 0
fg_red = 255
fg_green = 255
fg_blue = 255
width = 320
height = 240
delay = 0
wait = 0
input = pac207
#norm = pal
rotate = 0
top = 0
left = 0
bottom = -1
right = -1
quality = 75
trigger = 0
once = 1
archive = /home/action-owl/webcam/%Y-%m-%d--%H:%M:%S.jpg

[ftp]
host = ftp.yourwebsite.com
user = username
pass = password
dir  = public_html/img/webcam
file = webcam.jpg
tmp  = uploading.jpg
passive = 1
debug = 1
auto = 0
local = 0
ssh = 0

STEP 5: Using Open() in Processing


The "open()" function works a little differently depending on your environment so you may need to find out what works for you, the method below should work.

Uncomment:
//open("/home/your_username/twitter.trip");

If you are using Nautilus or Thunar File Managers(XFCE and Gnome):
Navigate to twitter.trip and right-click it.
Select "Open with other application"
select "Use a custom command"
and type in "bash"

Processing is supposed to send executables to the shell to be run but after trying many methods this was the one that worked. This is also why the sketch has a .trip extension.

STEP 6: Now Run It.


Now everything should be ready to go!

Run the processing sketch and check your twitter and webcam archive location for the result.


Something is up with the file downloads.
So here's the code, again.

#------------------------
# twitter.trip
#------------------------
#!/bin/bash
user="username"
pass="password"
trip=$( date +'%A %b %d, %l:%M%p' )
stat="laser tripped: "$trip
url=http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
result=`curl -u $user:$pass -d status="$stat" $url`
#save webcam pic
webcam
date +'%A %b %d, %l:%M%p' > /home/username/someplace


//------------------------
// processing code
//------------------------
import processing.serial.*;
Serial myPort;
char inBuffer;
int wait, now, timeout = 10000;
boolean hold = false;

void setup() {
  size(200,200);
  println(Serial.list());
  myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);
  fill(#36ff00);
}

void draw() {

  while (myPort.available() > 0)
  {
    inBuffer = myPort.readChar();  

    if(inBuffer=='1')
    {     
      if ( !hold )
      {
        fill(#ff0000);
        println("Tripped");
        open("/home/username/someplace/twitter.trip");
        wait = millis();
        hold = true;
      }
    }
  }

  now = millis();

  if (now > (wait + timeout))
  {
    hold = false;
    fill(#36ff00);
  }

  rect(0,0,200,200);
}


//------------------------
// arduino code
//------------------------

int ledPin =  13;
int analogPin = 0;
int ldrVal = 0;
int threshold = 500;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
}

void loop()                    
{
  ldrVal = analogRead(analogPin);

  if ( ldrVal > threshold )
  {
     Serial.print("1");
     delay(200); 
  }

}

62 Comments

dreamingforward 8 years ago

I haven't made any projects for the Arduino. How does Processing cross-compile for the Arduino CPU?

Shashwat 56 9 years ago

Hey dude Mdob. Cam u plz tell me your codes?

Lotek5000 10 years ago

Nice project - I am setting one up to take a picture of whichever culprit keeps messing with the lab at work and post there image up on the board of shame.

I had to mod the code a little to get it to work on MAC (OSX) 10.6.8 so thought I should upload my code for others to use. Many thanks and here it is.


int ledPin = 13; // digital pin to which led is connected
int analogPin = 0; // analog pin to which ldr is connected
int ldrVal = 0; //variable to store ldr value
int threshold = 1000; //variable to store threshold in memory

void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600); //set baud rate
}

void loop()
{
ldrVal = analogRead(analogPin);

if ( ldrVal > threshold )
{
Serial.print("1");
delay(200);
}

}

DidyDoddie 11 years ago

Will this code still work today? I heard that twitter had made it harder to tweet from an arduino.

P.s. Im am a complete new person to arduinos and programming so i have no idea!

Mdob 12 years ago

Here is what I did. I modified some of it a bit. I used the processing code but made it open up a .bat file which used snapz to take a picture and then used a .vbs file to attach that picture and send and email to my gmail account. This was all using windows.This has been a fun project. Now, all I need to do is make it all self-contained. I could possibly use the "$25 Computer" (http://www.raspberrypi.org/) with a camera and put it all in a project box with a laser module. That would be fun. If anybody wants the code that I used just ask me and I will host it.

Mdob 12 years ago

I do have an instructable up if you look at my account. (Link) I didn't want to go through all of the laser stuff again so I made it activate on login. To adapt it to make it so that it will open up the Send.bat file (Which will start the process to take the picture and send the email) simply replace

open("/home/username/someplace/twitter.trip")

in the processing code with the location of your files. eg.

open("C:\Users\EngineeringChannel\Send.bat")

That is all that you have to modify from my instructable. Also, don't follow the instructions where it says that you have to hide it or make it run on startup. I hope that helps, Good Luck!

wallBme 11 years ago

Hey, I've tried doing what you did and I made twitter.trip into a .bat file. It runs just fine when I double-click it and/or run it from the command prompt, but open() doesn't seem to be running it. Do you have any ideas as to why it wouldn't be working? Thanks

Mdob 11 years ago

I have very little experience with Processing so I really don't know. When I tried it (this was quite a while ago) it worked just fine. Maybe somebody who knows a little bit more about Processing could help you out.

jparfoot 12 years ago

Hi mate great idea would love it if i could get a copy of your source code. cheers Jordan

cpoplawski 12 years ago

Can someone please modify this to not use processing? I am new to arduino and have been bashing my head in to make this completely stand alone (no pc needed). I am trying to make it so that it just tweets "laser has been tripped" after the alarm sounds. I have an Arduino Uno with Ethernet shield.

riddik001 12 years ago

"put twitter.trip into:
/home/your_username/" where do i find the /home/my-username? folder ? and which software i will use the arduino or processing to load the script thanks.

dudesurge 12 years ago

you answered your own question, you find it in the HOME folder, as for the other question you can get the software from arduino.cc under downloads

Catch_22_ 12 years ago

Basic auth is now unsupported by twitter. So you wont be able to use the code from twitter.trip.

User SuperTweet.net instead. Youre still using curl but supertweet.net acts as a proxy between you and twitter, allowing you to use basic auth. Twitter now uses oAuth which is a pain. For the code below, use your SuperTweet username and password, it is separate from your twitter login.

#!/bin/bash
trip=$(date +'%A %n %d, %l:%M%p' )
stat="["$trip"] Door has been opened"
curl -u USERNAME:PASSWORD -d "status=$stat" http://api.supertweet.net/1/statuses/update.xml --insecure

tranoxx 12 years ago

when I use the Arduino code it does the opposite of what you said it would instead of making a 1 it stops making 1's, is this important?
More Comments