Case Study - Photo Booth

A user operated photo booth where slow motion videos can be captured, individual frames can be extracted, and the results can be shared via social media.

Background

Events and festivals often have a photo booth where participants can grab some costuming, grab a friend, and grab some fun making a slow motion video or getting just the right picture. The photo booth often includes an overlay the of sponsor funding the fun. So what does an edgertronic high speed camera have to do with a photo booth? The ability to replace the web user interface, along with the features to select the region to save, select frames to save as pictures, and ability to add your own code to the camera, along with the best image quality for the price point make the edgertronic a great match for use in advanced photo booth applications.

User Experience

The photobooth typically includes outfits and accessories. Special accessories can be selected for use with a high speed camera, such as balloons. Anything that startles the participants will create surprising results.

The participants enter the photobooth and verify their field of view so they are centered and not clipping the top or bottom of their costumes. A simple tablet device can be used for live preview.

There are several options for triggering the video recording. The one most familiar to users is they first trigger to start recording and then do something fun within the next 5 to 10 seconds. With an edgertronic camera, it is also possible to have the user first do something fun, then trigger the camera once they have created the desired effect. This is possible because an edgertronic camera can be configure to always capture video frames and then the trigger indicates the already captured frames will be used. Another trigger option is to use a trigger accessory that triggers on sound. A popping balloon could then cause the trigger event.

Once the camera has captured the video frame, the participants select the starting and end frames, again using a simple tablet device that supports a touch screen. The participants can also select individual frames they want shared as still pictures.[1]

After the starting and ending frames have been selected, the user enters their social media account info and the video can be saved and uploaded.[2] The camera saves around 40 frames/second so the user experience will need to take into account the camera can not be capturing another video while it is saving the current video.

[1]The web user interface that comes with the camera support selective save capability, but for a photo booth a much simpler user experience might be needed. The camera supports the ability to save individual frames while the camera is in review mode, but the web user interface does not support save frame to picture file.

[2]The camera supports saving a captured video but not uploading it to social media sites.

edgertronic Work Flow

When used in a photo booth, the high speed camera workflow is very similar to the camera's generic workflow, namely: live preview -> trigger -> review -> save.

A photo booth deployment can have the tablet in charge in which case the tablet would use the edgertronic software developer's kit to control the camera. Another option is to replace the web user interface code in the camera, and have the tablet just run a stock Chrome browser. Additional code would need to be added to the camera to handle transferring the saved pictures and videos to a social media site.

edgertronic Unique Capabilities

The edgertronic camera has many capabilities that are useful when deploying a photo booth.

• The camera does not have a built-in display. Instead use a tablet, which you can position facing the participants. This makes it easy to properly orient a live preview display.

• Use the external trigger interface to provide a trigger switch to the users. There are many existing trigger devices, such as sound activated, or wireless, that work with an edgertronic camera. You can also use the tablet touch screen to trigger the camera.

• Replace the HTML/CSS/JS web pages in the camera to give a customized user experience without having to create an app for the tablet.[3]

• Use the tablet to control the camera using edgertronic's software developer's kit.

• Use selective save so only the interesting portion of the captured video is saved.

• Use save frame to capture any individual frame as a photo and save it to a file.[4]

• Add your own code to upload videos to social media sites.[5]

[3]Replacing the camera web pages is a feature scheduled for release.
[4]Saving individual frames can be done with the current software release. A CAMAPI method is schedule to be added in a feature scheduled for release to make creating photo files even easier.
[5]We are not social media experts, we focus on high speed camera technologies instead. You can add code to the camera and that code can move packets over the network interface, but other capabilities may be required by specific social media sites for log in and security.