I have a cheap webcam connected (soldered don't ask why) to an Intel Edison. The problem is I am doing experiments with video capture and wanted a B&W or grayscale image from the camera (saves overheads/delays/bandwidth involved in programmatically converting a image into grayscale). As I can only have command line and no desktop I cannot use applications such as guc view neither can I unplug the camera and connect it to a linux pc. V4l-ctl lists the following webcam options.
brightness (int) : min=-10 max=10 step=1 default=-1 value=-1
contrast (int) : min=0 max=20 step=1 default=10 value=10
saturation (int) : min=0 max=10 step=1 default=4 value=4
hue (int) : min=-5 max=5 step=1 default=0 value=0
white_balance_temperature_auto (bool) : default=1 value=0
gamma (int) : min=100 max=200 step=1 default=150 value=150
gain (int) : min=32 max=48 step=1 default=34 value=34
power_line_frequency (menu) : min=0 max=2 default=2 value=1
white_balance_temperature (int) : min=2800 max=6500 step=1 default=6500 value=6492
sharpness (int) : min=0 max=10 step=1 default=3 value=3
backlight_compensation (int) : min=0 max=1 step=1 default=0 value=0
exposure_auto (menu) : min=0 max=3 default=3 value=3
exposure_absolute (int) : min=8 max=16384 step=1 default=512 value=625 flags=inactive
Can anyone with experience in Image acquisition help me set the V4l-Ctl parameters to obtain as image direct from the webcam that is as close as a B&W or Grayscale image gets using these parameters? I am in an endless loop of trial and error your help will be appreciated.
Never mind the close vote. I made the color saturation control to zero and the picture is now near grayscale.