Remote control

ScannedReality Studio supports remote control for taking calibration images and for controlling snapshot and video recording, making it more convenient to control your camera system.

The remote control function can be used from any device with a modern web browser, thus it works both on Android and iOS devices, as well as on laptops or other devices.

_images/remote_control_calibration_screen.png — Example screenshot of remote control for taking calibration images.

_images/remote_control_record_screen.png — Example screenshot of remote control for recording.

_images/remote_control_record_screen_active.png — Example screenshot of remote control while actively recording. Note that the accuracy of the displayed recording duration depends on both devices having an accurate system clock.

Configuring remote control

Remote control is disabled by default. To enable it, start ScannedReality Studio, go to the settings tab, and open the “Remote control” section. This will show the following settings:

Network port

The network port at which the remote control service will be offered can be configured here. This can only be changed while the remote control is disabled.

This setting defaults to 8080 and usually, there is no need to change this. Changing it is only necessary in case a different application on your PC is already using the port. In this case, the remote control will fail to start with the port that is already in use.

We generally recommend to stick with ports 8080 or 8008 unless there is a strong reason for using something else.

Note

Additional considerations for selecting a port, in case the default port is already in use on your PC:

Since the remote control service is offered over HTTP, you may want to use port numbers that are commonly used with HTTP such as 80, 8008, and 8080, although any free port should technically work. A list of commonly used port numbers can be found here (HTTP uses the TCP protocol).

Be aware that some port numbers may need special permission to be used. For example, on Linux, using port numbers below 1024 requires root rights or having the cap_net_bind_service capability set on the executable.

Testing remote control

After enabling remote control, we recommend to test it in two steps:

Test access from the same PC.
Test access from your external device.

The first test verifies that the remote control works in general. The second step then specifically tests the network connection between your PC and the external device.

Accessing remote control from the same PC

After enabling remote control, open a web browser on the same PC on which ScannedReality Studio is running and paste the following into the address bar of the browser, replacing PORT with the port number that you configured:

http://localhost:PORT

For example, with the default port 8080, use the following:

http://localhost:8080

Hit the Return key to navigate to this page. On success, this will show a page like this:

If you instead encounter a failure message, try the following for troubleshooting:

Make sure that you enabled remote control in ScannedReality Studio, and that the program is currently running.
Make sure that no error message was shown in ScannedReality Studio when enabling remote control, or when starting the program with remote control already enabled.
Make sure that you used the correct port number that you configured.
Make sure that no firewall on your PC prevents the connection between ScannedReality Studio and the web browser: Either configure your firewall to allow Internet and local connections for ScannedReality Studio in general, or specifically allow TCP connections on the port number that you configured.

Accessing remote control

Once a web browser on the same PC as ScannedReality Studio can successfully access the remote control, as tested in the previous section, all that remains is to ensure that your external device can connect to your PC as well.

The following describes how to do this with the PC and the external device being in the same local network. This will usually be the case if both devices are connected to the same router by Wifi or LAN. If you use a phone as external device, make sure that it is actually connected to the local Wifi and does not use mobile data instead.

Two possibilities for accessing the remote control are presented: Via the PC’s hostname, and via the PC’s IPv4 address.

Access via the PC’s hostname

For this method of access, your PC must be configured to be discoverable in your local network:

On Windows, ensure that the network is set to private in the network settings. See the instructions here.
On Linux, Avahi provides network discovery. It can be installed on Ubuntu by running sudo apt install avahi-daemon in a terminal.

Before connecting, make sure that your PC and the external device are connected to the same local network, allowing them to directly connect to each other.

Next, find the address to use for the remote control. It is displayed in the remote control settings, as marked here in red:

_images/settings_screen_remote_control_settings_address.png

Note that this address will most likely differ for your PC, since it includes your PC’s hostname. So, make sure to look up your specific address instead of using the one from the screenshot above.

Finally, open a web browser on your external device and enter the address that you looked up into the address bar of the browser. If everything works, you now have access to the remote control from your external device.

If no connection can be made:

Make sure that your PC is discoverable in the network as described above.
Android devices might not properly support accessing a .local address. In this case, it is worth trying to access the address with the .local removed, for example, using http://hostname:port instead of http://hostname.local:port. Alternatively, the PC’s IPv4 address can be used, as described in the next section below.
See the troubleshooting section below for more tips.

Hint

For easier access to the remote control, you can bookmark the entered address in your web browser.

Access via the PC’s local IPv4 address

This is an alternative method of access which does not require network discovery to be enabled, but is slightly more complex to use.

Before connecting, make sure that your PC and the external device are connected to the same local network, allowing them to directly connect to each other.

Determining the PC’s local IPv4 address

Next, determine the local IPv4 address of the PC running ScannedReality Studio in your local network. This can be done in different ways, for example:

For Windows, see this Microsoft support page.
For Linux, run ip addr in a terminal, find the interface that connects your PC to the local network (for example a term like eno1 for a wired connection or a term like wlp8s0 for a Wifi connection) and then the entry for your local IPv4 address (for example, inet 192.168.178.47/24 [...] for the address 192.168.178.47).
If you have access to the configuration interface of your router, it will have a list of devices that are connected to it. The PC’s IPv4 address can be read from this list.

Note

Please note that the local IPv4 address looked up in this way is not the same as the public IPv4 address that your PC uses on the Internet, since your router will use a different address for external connections to the Internet (via Network address translation, NAT). Using your public IPv4 address (which can for example be looked up on “what is my IP” websites) will most likely not work.

Local IPv4 addresses typically have one of the following schemes: 192.168.ccc.ddd, 172.[16-31].ccc.ddd, 10.bbb.ccc.ddd, 169.254.ccc.ddd, where the letters denote arbitrary digits.

Accessing remote control

Open a web browser on your external device and paste the following into the address bar of the browser, replacing IP_ADDRESS with your PC’s local IPv4 address, and PORT with the port number that you configured:

http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT

For example, if your PC’s IPv4 address is 192.168.178.47 and you use the default port 8080, then you would need to enter:

http://192.168.178.47:8080

If your external device can connect to your PC, you now have access to the remote control from your external device. If no connection can be made, make sure that you looked up the IP address correctly, and see the troubleshooting section below.

Be aware that depending on the settings in your router, your PC’s IPv4 address might not be static, thus you might have to look up the address again if it will change in the future. To ensure that the address remains static, your router (more precisely, its DHCP server) must be configured accordingly. The exact steps for this differ depending on your type of router.

Hint

For easier access to the remote control, you can bookmark the entered address in your web browser. Ideally, after ensuring that your PC’s IPv4 address remains static, as noted above.

Troubleshooting

Please notice that due to the myriad of possible network setups and devices, it is impossible to offer a complete troubleshooting guide for network connection issues. That being said, if the connection fails, these are some things to check:

Make sure that you enabled remote control in ScannedReality Studio, and that the program is currently running.
Make sure that no error message was shown in ScannedReality Studio when enabling remote control, or when starting the program with remote control already enabled.
Make sure that no firewall on your PC prevents the connection between ScannedReality Studio and the external device: Either configure your firewall to allow Internet and local connections for ScannedReality Studio in general, or specifically allow TCP connections on the port number that you configured. Also, allow incoming connections for the TCP port that you configured.
Make sure that your external device is in the same local network as the PC. In particular, if you use a phone, ensure that it is connected to Wifi rather than with mobile data.
Make sure that you entered the address in the web browser of the external device exactly as advised. For example, make sure that the http:// prefix is used, not https://, and you use the exact port number that you configured.
In your router’s configuration interface, look for a setting to toggle whether devices in the local Wifi network may talk to each other. Make sure that this is allowed.
Use the ping utility to test whether your devices may talk to each other in general (but be aware that some devices may be configured not to respond to pings).