usb devices talking thru php to server

TGixer

how hard or is it possible to set up a usb device, to talk to and capture data to a server thru php

so lets say, i have a button on a php page, "take photo" i click it , i have a web camera on the client, i want it to take a picture , then take the picture and send it thru pHp to a server and store it in a database.

any thoughts??😕

coditoergosum

Well, you're going to have to have some 3rd party software to actually take the picture and get it from the camera... php can't do this, as this will take place on the client machine, not the server... or will it be the server that takes the picture? If the camera is located on the server machine, you could use the exec(), or passthru() functions to call the "take a picture" program, and then use some filesystem commands to move the picture to the right dir.

That would be a tough project for sure though. I think something like this would be better tackled by a regular programming language... say c++. If part of it is actually client side I highly doubt the entire thing could be done with PHP alone.

A combination of a java applet, and some creative PHP coding would probably do the trick as well. Java could take the picture, and then post it to your server via an http post... and then php can process it like your garden variety file upload.

TGixer

yea, the picture will be taken client side....there already is a VB program to do the picture. but they are looking to make it web based.

coditoergosum

Well, basically you've got to think about the nature of client side programming, and server side programming. PHP, being server side, is not going to be able to do anything on the client machine... however, once the client sends something to it, then you can do a million and one things with it.

Basically, the client machine that has the camera will have to function like a server. It will need to wait and monitor some port for a request to take a picture. You could send that request using PHP, but the magic would be getting the client machine to recognize and respond to the command. Then, once you've passed the command to the client machine, the VB program needs to be able to 1) take the picture, 2) connect to the server, and upload the image. Step 2 could be as easy as telling it to simply use http protocols to post the image to the script... or you could use ftp.

Either way, the whole thing isn't going to be done using PHP alone. I think the trickiest thing would be getting the client machine to respond to a request to take a picture and upload it. Everything else is pretty straight forward.