Document Camera Software
Integrating Document Cameras with Computers
Since many presenters now use their document cameras with a computer, and due to advances in document camera software technology, most types of document cameras are now capable of being integrated with laptops, PCs and Macintosh computers. The manufacturers of document cameras now also develop and supply software with their document cameras to increase productivity when using their document camera products. Drivers for the document camera software are also provided which means that images can be transferred flawlessly between the computer and document camera. This means that the images produced by the document camera can now be used with the document camera's software package which will be capable of working with one or more imaging formats such as .gif files and .jpg adaptable files.
What can you do with document camera software?
The software packages provided with digital presenters or document cameras are capable of performing a variety of powerful functions which are only made possible by the digital nature of document camera technology. These functions include:
- Capturing images displayed by the document camera
- Storage images captured from the document camera
- Recording and storing movies (in .avi format), both in real time and time lapse
- Manipulating images captured from the document camera
- Retrieval and archiving
- Undo and redo functions
- Magnification of images captured from the document camera
- Measurement and logging functions
- Exporting data captured from the document camera to a Microsoft spreadsheet
- Inserting text into images captured from the document camera
- Using computer drawing functions including constructing lines, arrows, shapes such as circles and ellipses, and using free form drawing tools
- Adjusting images captured from the document camera including changing the brightness, contrast and negative/positive balances of the image
Advantages of document camera software for collaborators
Using document camera software, presenters and collaborators can share live video material across a computer network, and document camera images are able to be displayed in full screen mode or within a graphical user interface. The images captured by the document camera can be emailed and screens can be customized.
Examples of software available with document cameras
Most document camera manufacturers provide some sort of software package with their document cameras. Some examples of these software packages are:
- Image Mate from Elmo
- Firmware update software from Wolfvision
Document cameras and interactive whiteboards
Interactive whiteboards are also supplied with software that can be just as powerful, if not more powerful than many document camera software packages. This interactive whiteboard software can be used to incorporate the images captured by document cameras into a variety of different content software packages used for presentations on interactive whiteboards. Some example of popular interactive software packages which can be used with document camera images are:
- SMART Boardâ„¢ software
- Promethean's Activprimary software
- Activstudio and PX software
- RM's Easiteach software
As well as providing software which can integrate with document cameras, Smart Technologies has now launched its own document camera that can integrate directly with Smart interactive whiteboards. For those presenters that require ease of document camera integration with Smart interactive whiteboards, this is a great model of document camera to choose.