The CMU Robotics Club together with the W3VC Carnegie Tech Radio Club have a long tradition of building infrastructure that benefits students and staff across our Pittsburgh, PA campus. One of our services, Weathertron, has hosted a view of our fast-changing campus weather for users in basement or inside facing labs for the last 10 years. The stream is available right now at http://w3vc.org/weather for anyone in the general public. While the stream is currently 480p @ 2fps, we hope to update the experience soon with the help of club sponsors and dedicated students.

Fig 1. Existing webcam view.

Fig 2. Existing webcam location.

We hope to update the raw images in our stream to 1080p @ 30fps by using some of these 1080 IP security cameras which offer a great mix of features we need in the system like dual H.264 and MJPEG output streams, 2MP sensors, IP66 weatherproofing, and single data/power cabling with PoE. Rather than just 1 view of campus, we hope to provide a full 360 degree experience to capture the all of the events happening every day from the highest point on campus.

Existing outdoor 360 degree cameras like this latest 4K resolution 360 dome or multiple GoPro rigs require mounting on top of a point or rely on battery operation and WiFi to remain waterproof. Our mounting location on the outer walkway of the Hamerschlag Hall turret gives us a 360 degree view, but the turret does not have a single top point to mount the camera. However, the 88-degree view of each outdoor security camera means we can cover an all-around view with only 5 cameras.

Fig 3. Extended field of view from new cameras.

Fig 4. 2 Megapixel 1080p IP Camera

Initial public access uses a per-camera video stream much like the Spring Carnival webcams. Adding Youtube syndication means we can have many users without adding additional load to the on webcam streaming hardware. The integrated hardware allows us to add club and sponsor watermarks without additional processing hardware.

Fig 5, 6. New 1080p Spring Carnival camera streams syndicated on Youtube.

With the help of processing on an external server, we would like to stitch together 4 distinct views into a continuous 4k 360 degree video.

Development