Reader Alex Bratton over at Lextech let us know about a fun iPhone project they're working on. Most high-end surveillance systems use a joystick or mouse to control those cameras that we see all over the place. Lextech has done some work using the touchscreen of the iPhone to replace the old 70's UI tech.To pan the surveillance camera, you scroll the screen left or right using the traditional iPhone finger drag; tilt is done by dragging a finger up and down. Want to zoom in for details on the bad guys? Use the iPhone "reverse pinch" gesture to get the close-up. And if you want to zoom back out to get the big picture, it's a simple pinch on the iPhone display.
Videos demonstrating the control system are on the Lextech site and on YouTube.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-09-2008 @ 5:43PM
Adam said...
Could be refined, though I see it being practical at some point. Would be neat for remote access or even home application. Imagine your doorbell rings and you take out your iPhone and you see who is there.
Reply
5-09-2008 @ 7:26PM
Alex Bratton said...
Adam, you're right about refinement -- we're still working on the rough edges of the app and adding a bunch of other features. I personally love that we can take something as intuitive as the iPhone and use it to extend something in the real world. Can't wait to see all the other innovations the developer community rolls out in the next couple months.
5-09-2008 @ 10:54PM
Steven Sande said...
That was my thought exactly, Adam - my office is in my home, and I often ignore the doorbell when it rings during the day. There ARE ways of doing this with a very inexpensive WiFi webcam and a web browser, but they're just not as cool as this. It would be great to be able to pan the camera and zoom in on visitors just to scare the bejeezus out of them!
5-10-2008 @ 6:43AM
Matthew R said...
Reminds me of the James Bond's phone in The World Is Not Enough where he drives his car remotely. Hmm. We're getting closer.
5-09-2008 @ 7:24PM
mwinterholler said...
"Reverse Pinch" = Stretch?
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5-09-2008 @ 7:57PM
Gianni said...
Would be even cooler if you could pan with the accelerometers! Awesome concept non-the-less.
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5-09-2008 @ 8:26PM
Andrew Scott said...
I was thinking just the same thing. Now that *would* be cool
5-09-2008 @ 9:02PM
Alex Bratton said...
We tried that out (the accelerometers) and it wasn't as intuitive as the touch interface (didn't seem to work as you'd expect as a user). We're still playing with it and will post another video if we get it to a point we're happy with it.
5-09-2008 @ 10:24PM
Doug McIntosh said...
Alex, that is hands-down the coolest iPhone app I have seen!
After initially thinking that the Accelerometers would have made for cool pan/tilt, I came to the conclusion before reading these comments that it wouldn't work that well. I think there are 2 problems: 1) The transport delay. Even on a WiFi connection there is an annoying delay between "stimulus" and "response". Studies in the '60s showed that most people can never get used to even a 500ms. delay in a control system that depends on visual feedback. And if you were on an EDGE connection, forget it! 2) The accelerometer "scaling" would have to be too touchy, to avoid having to contort your body to still see the screen while tilting it like a crazy marble game. Add the visual-feedback-destroying transport delay, and ewww!
The "swipe" pan/tilt works a little better, because it is easier to "take another swipe", than it is to keep tilting. I guess the real problem is the massive "pan" range (even up to 360 deg. on some cameras).
I say, you're going to end up either keeping the swipe gestures, or coming up with some sort of "The farther off "flat", the faster you KEEP scrolling toward the "lower" side(s) of the iPhone/iPod Touch. But, those systems have to have a prodigious "deadband" (think of a virtual circular bubble-level), so that you aren't clogging the comm channel with endless streams of PTZ commands, like MIDI real-time controllers tend to do with that interface.
I have some additional capabilities for this excellent beginning that I'd love to discuss with you off-list, if you are interested.
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5-10-2008 @ 7:54AM
Alex Bratton said...
Doug,
From our speed testing with the touch side of things on wifi we can get
5-10-2008 @ 7:57AM
Alex Bratton said...
Whoops, don't use less than signs in a comment :-)
Doug,
From our speed testing with the touch side of things on wifi we can get less than 100ms response times typically. It will spike to 200+ ms as well (we're seeing the wifi latency itself as a bit inconsistent).
Definitely like to talk more offline. Please drop me a line at alex.bratton@lextech.com