Satoru Yamada recently wrote a blog post describing how to access the RICOH THETA S with node.js.

Since I’ve been trying to test the THETA API with JavaScript, I spent a few minutes to translate his main points into English.

I’ll start off Satoru’s code snippet. The rest of the text is also from him, including the summary, which includes an interesting idea about NFC tags to help with automation.

var fs = require('fs');
var OscClientClass = require('osc-client').OscClient;

var domain = '192.168.1.1';
var port = '80';
var client = new OscClientClass(domain, port);
var sessionId;
var filename;

client.startSession().then(function(res){
  sessionId = res.body.results.sessionId;
  return client.takePicture(sessionId);
  })

.then(function (res) {
  var pictureUri = res.body.results.fileUri;
  console.log('pictureUri :%s',pictureUri);

  var path = pictureUri.split('/');
  filename = path.pop();
  return client.getImage(pictureUri);
})
.then(function(res){
  var imgData = res.body;
  fs.writeFile(filename,imgData);
  return client.closeSession(sessionId);
});

By running the node theta.js, you can view the fileUri of the picture that you previously took.

node theta.js
pictureUri :100RICOH/R0010009.JPG

The file will be created in the directory where you executed the command.

Directory with file

The IP address and port are described in the API reference. With a P2P connection, only one client can connect.

An overview of the process is shown below:

  1. set up a new session with startSession()
  2. takePicture using the sessionId you just got from the new session
  3. use the fileUri you got from takePicture to download the image with getImage()
  4. close the session with closeSession()

Summary

Since the new THETA S supports Open Spherical Camera API, it’s now possible to easily build applications. As sales and thus the popularity of the camera appear to be going quite well, it seems likely that we’ll see many interesting uses in the future.

Personally, I’ve been thinking that since it may be difficult to turn the WiFi on and off, start THETA applications, and perform repetitive tasks, using a NFC tag might help with the automation. If I finish that, I’ll write another post.

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