Enable Viacam

About this project

Enable Viacam (aka eViacam) is a mouse replacement software that moves the pointer as you move your head. It works on standard PCs equipped with a web camera. No additional hardware is required. Based on the award winning Facial Mouse software.

Reviews and videos

More videos

Supported platforms

GNU/Linux
Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7

Downloading and installing

For Windows platform the easy way is downloading the installer and going with it.

For Linux we provide a binary pre-compiled .deb and .rpm for some distributions.

You can check this article (in Portuguese Brasilian or the Spanish translation), for comments on compiling, installing and using under Linux.

Using it

First install and configure your web camera before using eViacam. It's very important to configure your camera in manual exposure mode and adjust this parameter to get about 25 fps or more. Most modern cameras can deliver 30fps. Please check your web camera manual when necessary.

NOTE FOR LINUX: if you are using a camera supported by the pwc driver (e.g. these based on Phillips chipset like Logitech Quickcam PRO 4000, Creative Webcam 5 and other) you may want to do:

setpwc -f 30

before running eViacam to set the frame rate. Also ensure the your user has permissions to access the camera

Once installed run evicam (evicam.exe for Windows). The application should open, automatically detect your camera and begin streaming the live video.

Place the camera to get a frontal view of your face. The width of your face in the image should be a third of the width of the frame. Centre the tracking box around your face either moving the camera or displacing the on-screen blue box with the mouse (clicking at the corner).

Enable the tracking function from the File menu. Try moving your head and see the result. You should adjust the sensitivity (X and Y axis speed) from the options dialog. You should be able to reach all the screen area with the mouse pointer.

For clicking simply stop the pointer over the desired position. In few moments a click will be generated automatically (you can adjust the dwell time in the options dialog). You can use the docked window at the top of the screen for selecting the different kinds of clicks.

License

eViacam is realeased under GNU/GPL license.

Contribute

Help us testing, developing and improving eViacam. More details.

Thanks

eViacam is being developed with the support of:

Julian Aloofi (Bug reports)
AluminiuM (Asturianu translation)
Christian Bieder (Deutsch translation)
Miguel Bouzada (Galego translation)
Antonio Capone (website Italiano translation)
Karl L. Gechlik (makeuseof.com review)
Giuseppe Masciopinto (Italiano translation) Site.
Alessandro de Oliveira Faria (Tutorial and demo video)
Anıl Özbek (Türkçe [Turkish] translation)
Samuel Thibault (Bug reports)
Aldo Maria Vizcaino (Linux desktop entry)
Theodore Watson (videoInput code)
... and many other! Thanks all!

Author

eViacam is (C) Copyright 2008-2009 by Cesar Mauri Loba
You can reach me at: cesar at crea-si dot com
eViacam official site: http://viacam.org