   Using Camera as Input
  Hi guys, using c++ how can i get images directly off a camera into a computer and into a buffer for processing in real time?is there a free library i can use? are there windows api commands i should be using?I'm planning on using a camera like Lumix DMZ TZ5, or do i have to use a specialised/webcam like camera?Any help would be great.Cheers guys!James   
  C'mon, i can't believe that some one here hasn't used a camera as an input, google searches still aren't giving me any joy.Please help.JamesCobras   ;  doing a quick google search for "windows camera api"yielded "windows image acquisition" as the first result.It seems to be written as a COM componentso it should be accessible from C++.cheers   ;  try this video"Webcam Face Tracking to Navigate 3D Terrain";  You can always use OpenCV. Depending on exactly what it is you're trying to process, it might even do some of it for you. You can find it here: http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/.[EDIT]Just Googled the camera you mentioned. As far as I'm aware, unless they supply some drivers for that camera that would let you use it as a webcam, I'm not sure you could even do it in real time...   ;  Bladelock found a nice example there. You can find a whole load more on YouTube doing a search for OpenCV (or click here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=opencv).   ;  Cheers, guys, ,i can't believe i couldn't find that, turns out i was searching for a slightly different thing in google. I'll check the stuff out that you pointed me towards and let you know how my project progresses.CheersJamesCobras   ;  Hey,   I know this may be somewhat unrelated, but I remember in Mac OS X Tiger there was a game that came with it that used the camera built-in to the mac.  I think it was a flying game where you would stretch your arms and tilt them like the wings of a plane.  As you moved your arms the plane would bank to the left or right.I'm sorry, I do not remember the name of this game, but if you found it maybe you could learn abit about how it was done and apply that to some windows api and go from there.Good luck....  I think this kind of input would be pretty cool...One thing I do remember about this was before you started playing you would have to leave the site of the camera for a minute and it recorded the background in a still setting... then once you were in front of the camera playing it would probably compare each frame to the still image and deduce the input from that.Just my 2 cents....Michael   ;In this article taken from Game Developer magazine's September 2010 issue, Google game developer advocate Chris Pruett describes how he quickly and cheaply implemented useful metrics into his Android game, Replica Island.  View the full article