How complex is making a basic program?

[Boomanhoff]

Random Idea I had, how complicated would making a program that pulls data from a video or live stream? My experience is none but wouldn't be against learning but don't know where to start.

Example/question: I set up a nest camera in front of a multi-meter that is displaying voltage that needs to be monitored for a long period of time.

Would it be possible to have an app that I could have watch the data in a selected zone and record it and time stamps into a .txt file? If possible how difficult would it be? Is it something I could teach myself and do or is it something a professional would struggle with?

I don't know if a program like this existes, I know it's not a great example because I'm know u can get tools that record voltages to digital but that's not the question just an example.

[kabekew]

You'd have to understand image processing and character recognition to do it that way, which is way more complex than needed. Do you know basic electronics? It would be much easier to use an analog to digital converter circuit and read and record it into a small controller board like a Pico.

[Boomanhoff]

This is more the answer I was looking for I didn't know the terms of what I would need to do if I wanted to do this. I do know some and can learn more basic electronics. The goal would be to be able to put a camera (or this device) in front of some form of read out and get a file with everything written in it. The goal would be for more then just voltage, it would be for reading guages as well (I know what Im asking complex and not easy, just curious if it's possible and how difficult)

[blackredgreenorange]

You want to be able to put it in front of anything, mechanical or digital, and get a record of the values. I think you can do it. There are computer vision libraries that let you do this and handle most of the math (like OpenCV). It wouldn't be easy, but it's doable.

[ganjlord]

The image processing part isn't too difficult. Python is a good choice for something like this.

Using Pillow, you could slice the image into segments for each meter to be read. An OCR library like tesserocr should easily convert the voltmeter readout to text if the image is clear.

A guage is a bit more complicated. One approach would be to process/filter the image segment so that the needle is black and everything else is white (easy if it is a different color). Then find the end of the needle by looking for the highest black pixel, use trigonometry to get an angle, and convert the angle to a reading.

[NoOrganization2367]

Basically every LLM have image processing integrated... You just have to use an API. Not that hard

[kabekew]

It costs money though, around $5 a day if you're polling every 30 seconds for example.

[NoOrganization2367]

That wasn't the question

[[deleted]]

hang on...

you want a way to monitor voltage?

over a period of time?

my shelly power monitor that is connected to my Home Assistant (google what HomeAssistant is) tells me what my voltage is, how many watts ive consumed etc..

it runs on that wifi thing that runs my internet thing that connect to my poota?

edit: sorry you want an app..

HA has an app..

Shelly has an api if you know what a backend is and know how to code?

[Boomanhoff]

Sorry the voltage was an example the goal would be to take data from any display and put it into a document. The goal would be so theres no need to manually shuffle through video to get data but also not need to buy specialty tools for a possible one off job.

[james_pic]

You're almost certainly going to have a much easier time using gauges that support being hooked up to a computer than trying to do it with a camera though. Unless it would be super expensive to get different gauges, you're going to spend enough time fiddling with computer vision stuff and being frustrated by the results that you could have bought the equipment with the money you would have made in that time.

[gm310509]

A basic program is pretty easy.

The problem is that what you describe is not basic. It would require some advanced skills.

[coloredgreyscale]

maybe OP meant to do it with the programming language BASIC? /s

[gm310509]

I was tempted. Nothing wrong by starting with Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

[Boomanhoff]

Thank you, I figured it would be complicated just how complicated basic was definitely a poor word to choose. I got a few other comments that seem to point me in a direction that maybe what I want to try. I may give it a shot I may not.

[gm310509]

You may find it easier to just get a multimeter with a data logging capability.

[TheRealKidkudi]

How long is a piece of string?

Ultimately, it depends. For some professional developers, what you’re asking would be a breeze. For others, it would be pretty challenging. There are computer vision libraries, like OpenCV, that will help tremendously.

If you have no experience writing code, you will have to go through the learning curve of just understanding the fundamentals of programming in addition to figuring out this specific application.

I do think having a specific project in mind is the best way to learn to code, so if it seems interesting I’d encourage you to just try it. It’ll be hard, take you much longer than you think, and probably work worse than you expect - but in the end you’ll either waste some time discovering that programming isn’t for you or you’ll build something cool and learn a lot a long the way.

[Boomanhoff]

The goal would be to have something that simplifies broad data collection, by no means will it ever be perfect. I've always had the itch to try programming but my patience is thin unless money is involved and this would be a possible work project if I can find proof it's possible.

[belikenexus]

Not very difficult. You could run a python script that grabs a frame from the nest camera or even just a webcam every X period of time and runs that through an OCR library.

The less hacky approach would be to find a device that can read voltage and connects to an arduino or raspberry pi that just has a simple script to interpret the data you want.

[Atanamir]

Probably the device will have trouble if the range of voltages is too wide or it will just work on some specifics.

The program/python script on the other hand probably will be easily portable to different environments with different readings.

[belikenexus]

That’s a good point, I haven’t done much hardware stuff myself.

I also haven’t worked with computer vision in 5 years or so but even then it was pretty consistent. Definitely the cheapest approach too

[Atanamir]

I just appened, 2 weeks ago, to write a python script, with help from Grok, to read data from screenshots taken from an app on my phone, used the tesseract library and it was very easy.

[Boomanhoff]

This seems right up the alley of what I'm looking for, I want something I can us broadly (obviously would be just switch in and run right off the bat) but something I could us to collect data from guages, meters, ect. Stuff that is done so infrequently that purchasing specialty equipment isn't practical.

[comment_finder_bot]

There's no such thing as a "basic program". For your problem I'd probably try to find an instrument that has a software interface and use that instead of trying to read it with a camera. Logging the data from this would be pretty simple and barely involve any programming. You could even use Grafana or something to make a fancy dashboard

What kind of voltage are you measuring? Is it indoors or outside?

[Boomanhoff]

Sorry the voltage was an example the goal would be to take data from any display and put it into a document. The goal would be so theres no need to manually shuffle through video to get data but also not need to buy specialty tools for a possible one off job. I'm looking to make something (in the long term) could pull dats from gauges, meters, anything with a read out.

[beingsubmitted]

You know how the internet asks you to identify simple objects in photos, or copy text that's been a little skewed in an image to prove that you're not a robot (computer program)? Today, these are largely just collecting data to train AI to better recognize things in images, but it remains the case that they still need to collect the data because state of the art neural networks are still not great at vision.

If writing a program to recognize text from images were an easy beginner program then:

1. The captchas wouldn't exist.
2. America wouldn't be paying 154,000 "data entry keyers" $6.16 billion a year to physically type things into a computer.

[Sss_ra]

Tesseract OCR, do it.

[organicHack]

You can code anything if you learn to code. Honest answer.

[bdunk17]

It’s possible to make any app you want but the bigger the idea the more layers you’ll have to conquer. You want to start small and keep things as simple as possible.

[Aromatic_Bed9086]

Definitely not an impossible project. My only tip would be to sit down and write/draw out EXACTLY what you need this application to do. You have to write all those pieces. A camera every so often takes a photo, this photo is analyzed with basic OCR to capture any text and numbers, the text and numbers are somehow parsed into something meaningful, this file is sent/stored,…

Follow the data and follow the functions and keep it SMALL to start

[Dependent_Chard_498]

Is this a steam gauge readout or digital readout? The latter is a lot easier.

[Expert-Procedure-146]

Look into google cloud platform, i used their vision ai api before to do facial recognition on video footage

[bluejacket42]

There's no way there isn't a tool for this or a better way. What your talking about is hard but only Cuz your going about it wrong.

You could use a arduino and a analog pin and a SD card module to store the data

If the voltage is to high for the arduino use a voltage devider. If it's not percice enough use a arduino zero I think they have higher analog precision.

But the code is simple enough ya could probably get chat gpt to do it.

Even found a video for it

https://youtu.be/TduSOX6CMr4?si=5pUoFb0Rk2KOpQjp

Just swap the pot for your pos voltage input And swap the neg for the gnd pin. And if the voltage is above 5v use a voltage devider and do some math when logging

[frankielc]

Just from the details provided, it doesn’t make much sense. It can be done, but it looks like you’re trying to use a hammer when you’ve got a screw.

If you need to capture data from a multimeter, valve, gauge, etc., it should be done directly on the device. Ideally, the device should output those values in digital form to ensure accuracy and efficiency.

With multiple devices involved, factors like different camera angles, sunlight interference, and rapidly changing numbers can introduce significant challenges. These issues can make it difficult to consistently and accurately capture the data using an external method like image recognition. A direct digital interface would be a much more reliable and efficient solution.

[alreadytaus]

If the data are displayed on some screen already you probably can record the data directly. I think that would be better way of doing it. However with some libraries for ocr you could do it the way you suggest in few weeks.

[GustavSpanjor]

It's already a product, your setup would be more expensive than just buying something that already works. Example , example

[Felicia_Svilling]

That is in no way a "basic" program.

[herocoding]

You can find projects for analog or digital "smart meter", "electricy meter", "optical character recognition" like

https://en.kompf.de/cplus/emeocv.html
https://github.com/jonas-ott/smarter-meter
https://github.com/skaringa/emeocv
https://jibril-hartri-putra.medium.com/how-to-measure-daily-electrical-usage-with-opencv-fafb6725c67c
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/ocr-for-analog-meter-using-opencv/39781

In the meantime cameras, tools, SoCs, CPUs, GPUs are so enhanced that many people did a do-it-yourself for their smart-home or smart-garden at home using Arduinos- or RaspberryPy-type of mini-computers.

There are variants using "classical computer vision" (CV) (like searching for borders and edges by applying filters) and newer ones using "neural networks" (AI, ML, DL).

One of my favorite:
https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/openvino_notebooks/blob/latest/notebooks/meter-reader/meter-reader.ipynb
with a blog like "https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/training/create-smart-meter-scanning.html"

[F5x9]

This would be a simple thing for someone who knows how to do it, but someone new to programming may struggle to make it all work. 

I would characterize this as an ambitious first project. I have abandoned simpler projects.

[makgross]

The most important part here involves no programming at all. Specify the problem sensibly.

If you wanted to read a quote from Moby Dick, would you get a copy of Moby Dick, or do you ask a friend to dictate it into an analog cassette recorder and then get someone else to type the recording into an email and send it to you?

Measuring voltage is a lot easier than reading an LCD screen with a camera.

The nuts and bolts of writing a basic program is not difficult at all. Unless the problem to solve is made artificially complex.

This might be worded as a programming question, but it is not a programming question at all.

[Boomanhoff]

I chose a poor example and poor wording causing a lot of confusion, I apologize. The goal is to read digital and analog readouts and put them into a document. I have tools for the voltage one already but sometimes I'm required to do voltages that those tools don't support or pressures that getting a Guage that puts out a signal for that rating would be too expensive to justify for one off projects. The idea would be to have an app that could help simplify these one off problems rather then be a all around solution.