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• another way is to cover the lens with the magnetic disk from a 3.5 floppy disc (zip discs work too, but block out more light).

  its effective and you can still use the camera for other purposes when ir isn't needed.

  Posted by: drool on March 7, 2005 at 9:07 PM

• Ooooh... Nice.

  At some point I read about researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute who wanted to watch how often drivers were blinking as a measure of their drowsiness. The solution involved using two infrared cameras, each keyed to a different wavelength of infrared light--one color that would be absorbed by the fluid in a human eye and one that would be reflected. By subtracting the two images, you get two dots where the person's eyes are (or none at all if he or she is blinking).

  I'm wondering if you could do something similar--use a regular webcam and your IR-hacked webcam and maybe subtract the images, or XOR them or AND them or something. Can't think of any applications off the top of my head, but there could be something really neat hiding here. Maybe a nifty heads-up display? Could have some medical applications, if you can overlay IR video with visible spectrum video.

  Posted by: lelandt on March 7, 2005 at 11:11 PM

• Regading the IR visibility from a remote - I noticed on an old Sony 8mm camcorder that the TV remote ir was very visible when filmed. You could even make out a flash pattern for the different commands. "Night vision" mode was not available on this model but I've read that it was only a matter of removing the IR filter - providing for both IR and visilble light sensitivity. -phog

  Posted by: phoglite on March 9, 2005 at 4:12 PM

• A couple of layers of congo blue makes a great IR-pass filter. I use these on my own B&W CCD cameras to make low-cost IR converter scopes.

  Posted by: wbeaty on March 24, 2005 at 1:23 PM

• You may have noticed that page is now a 404. The new URL for the IR webcam site is
  http://www.hoagieshouse.com/IR

  By the way, magnetic disk does work but isn't nearly as efficient as film negatives.
  

  Posted by: hoagie572 on August 29, 2006 at 12:56 AM

• You can see a video showing the whole process here:
  http://www.metacafe.com/watch/385098/trasform_your_webcam_into_an_infrared_cam/

  (with nice examples of use at the end!)

  Posted by: HellBlow on January 26, 2007 at 2:36 PM

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