Cameras

Rpi Camera

The raspberry pi camera is recommended for quality and performance reasons. It is not necessary to use an expensive camera with high resolution. When running on a Pi Zero 2W (the recommended minimum spec) the higher camera resolutions will consume too much memory.

USB Camera

A USB Camera can be used, but will likely not perform as well. If you want to use a USB Webcam on Windows, then opencv is a dependency, but it is not required otherwise.

The key constraint with cameras is lag. Proxymow Server uses Picamera2 in stills mode to make sure that the image being analysed is current. This cannot be guaranteed in the windows environment, and extreme lag may be noticeable.

Camera Mounting

The github repository contains design and print files for a suitable camera/rpi mount.

Note that the transparent lids of some ABS project boxes may not provide a clear undistorted view of the scene, so it may be necessary to replace a section of the lid with clear acrylic.

Pi Zero/Camera Mount Viewed from below