TrafficCamNZ an iPhone application 2 December 2008
Posted by David Wilson in Uncategorized.Tags: Camera, iPhone, traffic, Web
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I’m almost set to submit my iPhone application to the Apple iTunes Application Store. I developed it for myself and thought that others would find it of use as well. Here’s an introduction.
What’s happening with the traffic? TrafficCamNZ allows you to monitor any Internet web address to display the current image.
Downloaded images are setup side by side so that you can swipe across the screen to view multiple images quickly.
You can setup monitoring URL’s for any internet images not just traffic cameras.
The application comes pre-configured with the New Zealand traffic cameras for Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch.
You can turn those off and turn on the other cameras or add your own specific cameras.
Application notes:
- Pictures are displayed in the order they are received so the image arrangement may be different every time you run the application or refresh
- You will be downloading pictures over your a WiFi or 3G connection – they may be large – you should monitor your network traffic usage
- Images are not cached, if you recieve an image that isn’t right (i.e. daylight when you know it is night time, it may be that the camera is not functioning)
- Sometimes the traffic camera pictures are not up-to-date on the internet. You may see night puictures when it is supposed to be daylight or perhaps pictures don’t change. TrafficCamNZ has no control over that.
Features:
- Flick through the loaded images with your finger
- Full screen image display for one image with pinch/zoom
- Load your own web images by specifying a World Wide Web URL, and test before saving
- Free version available, loads up to 3 images
- Full version available, loads up to 19 images
- Choose your own list of images to display up to the application limit
- Comes loaded with Traffic Cameras for New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch) with selected cameras displayed. Edit the preferences to turn on the display or turn off the display of the pre-loaded cameras. Remember you cannot display more than three at any one time with the free version.
What does it look like… Below is a sample of screen snapshots from both versions (I’m proposing to have two versions, one free, limited to a small number of images display, and a full version, the number of images will still be restricted for memory management reasons).
David's Opinions 
I live in the united states, and I will never be going abroad, so how can I get traffic maps here in the u.s.? I purchased your TRAFFICNZ and cannot see how to get us locations, can you help,also in the camera description bar not sure what to put, and url bar I dont dont what to write there either, please help
Firstly, thank you for buying TrafficCamNZ.
Can I first check that you have TrafficCamNZ as there are a couple of products in the AppStore with similar names.
My application does not have any restrictions as to what cameras you can view. You have to know the web address that you want to look at and you can provide any description for that address. The description (in the new version of the application released by Apple today) gets overlayed on the image to confirm what camera you are looking at.
The application comes supplied with a whole bunch of New Zealand traffic cameras, you can delete or disable those. And you can add your own images. You need to know the web address of the camera.
So, for example, I found this web site on Google: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/seattle/
And in the URL field, you can put entries like…
or
or
You will have to key those addresses. You can enter any description you like. Make sure the Camera is ON or it will not display on the main screen.
You can touch the test button to make sure that the image retrieval works.
You can also tough the displayed image and it will show full screen.
I hope that is helpful. You will need to find traffic cameras in your geographical area.
Hi,
I live in Colorado and bought your TrafficCamNZ app in the hopes that I could add my own traffic cams from my area. Your preinstalled cams happen to include many cams from Colorado Springs (just south of me), but I’ve tried to manually add my own cam URLs, but they won’t work. I don’t know XML and wouldn’t know how to merge them with what you already provided. When I test the cams I added manually, the test comes back as complete, with no errors, but no image shows up. I know the cams work, since I checked them on the regular website. Is it possible for me to send you a list of cams I wants added, so they can be put into your list? They’d basically just be the area from north Colorado Springs up to South Denver, including Castle Rock.
Thank