Tool for screenshots of specific area

[Jeremias Brand]

Hello List Members,

Is there a tool that allows me to use ImageJ to take repeated
screenshots of a specified area using a shortcut?
I am recording video coming from a camera mounted on a microscope. The
output of the video is shown live on the screen and it would be
immensely useful if I could take a screenshot of the output video.
In this way it would be possible to take images of the most important
areas. There is plenty of software available that allows me to capture a
specific are of the screen but these always require to set the area to
be captured every time. For our purposes it would be necessary to be
able to define the area once and then take a screen shot via a shortcut.
Since ImageJ can do almost anything I was wondering if this is possible.
I already found this:
http://svg.dmi.unict.it/iplab/imagej/Plugins/Forensics/captureScreen/Capture_Screen.html
This seems to come close to what we need. Does anyone know of a plugin
that could do what I described? If not could you maybe give some hints
how I could write such a plugin?

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Jeremias Brand






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[vischer]

> Is there a tool that allows me to use ImageJ to take repeated screenshots of a specified area using a shortcut?


You could use the "GlassWindow" feature of plugin ObjectJ. The GlassWindow appears as resizable semi-transparent frame that can be moved to any position of the entire screen. You can perform a  capture command with a single keystroke, which stores whatever happens to be inside the GlassWindow (typically the content of a foreign camera acquisition or webcam). The screenshot is appended to a stack of same width and height.
(GlassWindow has additional features to immediately mark a live image and store the markers together with the screenshots, which I don't discuss here). I have now re-tested the steps explained below on OS X. (When running on Windows, you need Java 1.7, which I tested a few years ago).

- Download and install ObjectJ from:
        https://sils.fnwi.uva.nl/bcb/objectj/
- Download and unzip project file SimpleGlassDemo.ojj from:
        https://sils.fnwi.uva.nl/bcb/objectj/examples/glasswindow/

In ImageJ (with ObjectJ installed):
- Open SimpleGlassDemo.ojj
        (this adds the ObjectJ menu with embedded macro commands shown below)
- choose ObjectJ>Show GlassWindow [1]
- move and resize the GlassWindow as desired
- choose ObjectJ>Connect New Stack [2]
- repeatedly, choose ObjectJ>Append Snapshot[4]
- you can move the GlassWindow between the shots
- if you resize the GlassWindow, you have again to choose ObjectJ>Connect New Stack

Norbert Vischer
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