The security cams project was designed to allow HOGL and GATC lab users to track where everyone is in the labs as well as get 24 hour surveillance. Using PHP, Mootools, Ajax, Mencoder and bash scripting the project was assembled and eventually put live on genolator and placed as a frame in August so that everyone can have access to it!

Hardware:

The hardware side to the security cam project is entirely made up of hardwired IP cameras. All of the cameras are placed on the machine subnet so that public access is prevented but also so that they can still be accessed internally.

Software:

The entire project is composed of mostly php and bash scripting. However there is also minor use of the Mootools Framework a javascript framework. Mootools comes into play on the main page of the project where still images from each camera are viewed. The ajax class from mootools made it possible to reload images and update them as new images are acquired from the cameras.

The second part of the software involves acquiring all the images from each cam and when each hour of images have been captured the bash script triggers mencoder to encode the folder to both a high quality archive video and a flash media video that can be searched and played on the search page.