Can we get a sticky list of web-cams that can see IR without being hacked apart and modified.

The only one I had laying around was a Creative Web Cam N10225 Model No. PD1110

Lets make this an easy project to get into without the hazard of breaking things and putting them back together.

It was below $50 and I’m sure the clearance areas are littered with cheapo web cams that don’t work that well for video chatting but great for multi-touch projects :]

Most normal webcams do have an IR filter. Why? Because when used as a webcam, the person on the other side of your internet connection wants to see what he would see in real world. Notthings like transparent coca cola, reflecting lights, ... So it rather rare to find webcams without IR filter. There are some security cams that come without IR filter…

Yeah, just to reinforce what SoniX said, the list would be incredibly small if we made one; in fact I can’t think of any webcams that have absolutely no filters. Just about most Security cameras would fall into this range though, but many are more than $50. A lot of cameras though you can just unscrew the lens and replace it with a new one. That’s about as easy as it can get.

I’m backing up the posts above me. I have tested over 100 webcams (Not that a hundred says much because most of the cams were just clones of eachother...In China you can just enter a building and find a whole floor with shops selling countless webcams) Over half of the ones we tested all claimed they operate in total darkness and all shopkeepers claimed there was no IR filter present. Just by looking at the lens you sould see a reddish glare meaning it has an IR filter, it might still see IR light but not to the extend we want to achieve with our setups.

I suggest you find a lens without a filter and stroll through shops to see if your lens would fit on the cam. The lenses we bought were by the way about 10 yuan, which equalled 1 euro at the time.

yeah easiest would just be to buy the cam that you like, replace it with a lens that doesn’t have an IR filter and use whatever you want to use to block visible light

Can we get that incredibly small list then? I would be interesting to say the least just for informational purposes.

The other aspect I wanted to know about was web cameras that have an easily removable IR filter. Can we have a sticky of those instead?

In most cases for north america you can designate the cameras for the major chain retailers - I believe that would be the case for most other countries as well.

To have greater awareness and innovation for multi-touch you have to make a little more accessible :]

I appreciate the replies - would like to see a Wiimote detection method in the future so we don’t have to hack apart cameras and grab NL filters and find old pieces of exposed film :]

hm i found this old webcam.. creative labs go+ ct7510
the wdm driver seem to have very good response

if i can see the light then i got no IR Filter?!

webcam + remote controll

it is very dark and need strong light for good picture.. maybe thats positive for my needs

iclone, unfortunately you still have an IR filter. All cameras can see a little IR. When there’s no IR filter, the remote control (or IR LED) will completely whiteout the camera picture.

yep… as cerupcat said.. the ir filter is still on… the only cams i came across and used it too with the best ir removal option… sony handycams ... put em to night mode and the ir filter is mechanically removed from the lens… just add an ir band pass and done… tho it comes for a cost cause the cheapest sony handycam with night vision would be 14-16K INR (350-400 USD) (from the showroom seconds shops). but with firewire connectivity it give true 40-45 fps after processing… makes the cam latency almost unnoticeable .