User:Zimbatm

Hello,

I'm working for a small Swiss company called STVS. We're actually the official European resellers for the Elphel cameras :)

I've been giving some thoughts about Elphel lately and wanted a place to note them down and share. And here it is :

Why is the VAPIX API bad for Elphel ?

As we know, Axis is the leader in the IP cameras market. This is why they play the game and that every network recorder wants to support their API. I think that Elphel should NOT follow that path, and here are my reasons :

Elphel cameras are not designed for security : Elphel doesn't produce IP cameras for security purposes. Even if it would, it's not ready yet. It misses a lot of vital features and doesn't have the production infrastructure to sustain it. There is then no big reason to support the AxisAPI.

The VAPIX API is not free : Even if Axis says nothing, their lawyers seems pretty itchy about the "intellectual property" of the VAPIX API. I say that based on previous contact during the ProVision development. I don't know if they have any patent associated to it but I think this can be a problem if Elphel becomes successful in that market.

The design is not open : The API was designed internally by the AXIS developpers. Even if it is not too bad and that it's documented, the development process is not open. It means that at every release, Elphel must "follow" it's development. It doesn't have much choice of providing an half-baked API.

The design is not adapted : The current Elphel implementation shows it. Some features of Elphel cameras are not available to the Axis cameras and reversely. By following the Axis design, it only means that we must break the API.

To summarize, I think that Elphel has restricted resources and should not loose it's time following an API that is not even beneficial to it.

What is missing for Elphel to enter the security market ?

More to come... in short :

• User access control
• Simplified web interface
• Software-controlled optical zoom
• Pan-Tilt-Zoom(PTZ)
• Better production factors
• Better documentation

Why isn't Elphel a "reconfigurable" camera ?

Ok.. I'm joking :) But I still think that there could be made use of some enhancements, notably :

• A packaging system : so that we can provide a large range of software and without reflashing