The Capture trio of applications
//TODO: Swap out all ""' with “ ” ’ We needed to take hundreds of photos quickly and efficiently, then sort them nicely into folders with appropriate information, and this trio was made to do exactly that.
CaptureClient is our camera app, and it's the app on both iPhones that actually takes pictures. But as good lazy people, we needed a way to command those iPhones instead of pecking a shutter button on each phone individually. That's where CaptureServer comes in. Running on the "Mother" remote control device (an iPod touch or an iPhone 5s, depending on what was most convenient), it connects to both CaptureClient instances wirelessly and is then able to tell them to snap whenever we press a button. Uploading works the same way. A button on the "Mother" tells both phones to upload to "Boss", which is CaptureBoss running on the MacBook Pro.
This is boring as shit.
These apps were developed between May and November 2013 whenever we felt like it, and took somewhere about 50-100 hours of work. I'd admit the code is really messy and right now doesn't even compile because of missing source files from random projects I had since moved. Sadly, we didn't have the foresight to take screenshots of the apps in action.
Software
With such beautiful hardware, we needed DIY software to match. Thanks to the school’s generous funding of S$128, we enrolled in the iOS Developer Program for a year, and programmed our own apps: CaptureClient, CaptureServer, and CaptureBoss. How they're used is explained in the next section.
We’d like to acknowledge the following open source projects that made our work much easier:
- CocoaPods
- Bill Dudney’s Server
- Matt Steven’s RoutingHTTPServer
- Robbie Hanson’s CocoaHTTPServer
- BlocksKit
- AFNetworking
Taking the photos //TODO: better title pls
The phones were stacked on top of each other (show photo) and the capturing of the photos was controlled by “The mother”. Press “capture” on “The mother” and both phones simultaneously take a picture.
Just imagine standing in your favorite spot of the school, swiveling two phones in a full revolution, constantly clicking “capture” on “The mother” for every 10° you turn the cameras. Repeat that 4-5 times, tilting the two phones gradually towards the ceiling or the floor for each revolution and tadah! You have successfully captured a panorama! In individual shots! So now, you have pictures of lights, lights, and more lights (for pictures of the ceiling that is)! Repeat the process around 400 spots in the school and you’re done!
Processing
Hehehehehehe
