What you need

• Pendragon Forms 5.0 (download evaluation) or Pendragon Forms 4.0 with Service Pack 4

• A Palm Zire 71 or Zire 72, or Sony CLIE TH, UX or NX series PDA with camera.  If you are not using one of these devices, see the Importing Stored Photos Tutorial 

• A writable SD card  or MMC card (Zire handhelds) or MemoryStick card (Clie handhelds) in the handheld expansion slot

• On the handheld, you will need to install these items:

The custom controls  and required files are included with Pendragon Forms 4.0 (or Service Pack 4B).  They are typically located in the C:/ProgramFiles/Forms3 folder on your PC.

To install one of the controls on your handheld, double click FormsZireCamera.prc, FormsZireCamerajpg.prc or SonyCamCtrl.prc.   The Palm Install Tool will appear.  Select your handheld name from the list and synchronize your handheld.

The JPEGLib.PRC file can be found in the file JpegLibPalm030912.zip.  This file and the SonyCapLib2.prc are typically located in the C:\Program Files\Forms3 folder.

Open the zip file and double click JpegLib.prc.  Use the Palm Install tool and then synchronize your handheld.  

How it works

Pendragon Forms Version 4.0 and higher support Custom Controls.  Custom Controls are separate program modules that can be installed on the handheld to extend Pendragon Forms' capabilities. 

For photo capture, a Custom Controls creates an interface between Pendragon Forms and the camera built-in to your device.  Using a Camera Custom Control with Pendragon Forms requires that you add a special field to your form design and install the control on your handheld

The Zire Camera, Zire Camera JPEG, and Sony Camera Custom Controls are included with Pendragon Forms 4.0 and 5.0.  These controls allow Pendragon Forms to capture images using the cameras built-in to the Palm Zire and Sony Clie handhelds. The Control is activated from a special field in a form design. 

When the Custom Control field in your form is visible on the handheld screen and the camera is activated, the control acts as a viewfinder for the camera. 

When the camera shutter button is pressed, a 640x480 pixel jpeg image is created and stored on the storage card. Depending on the PDA that you are using, other image sizes may be available.  Zire 72 users can capture and store images at the maximum resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels. Sony Clie users may choose a 320 x 240 pixel photo size.  The Zire Custom Control can also store images as 320 x 240 pixel bitmaps. 

The photo is stored in the file "/Forms4/PFTEMP.JPG" on the storage card.  A simple script in the form design attaches the photo to an Image field on the form.  The photo is synchronized along with other Pendragon Forms data and stored in the data table as a long binary object.

Next:

Creating a form for photo data collection

Taking pictures

Synchronization & data review

Creating an Access report (for bitmap images only)

Creating an Access Report with a Photo Control (for jpeg images)

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For more information

Documentation for the Zire71 Camera Custom Control (81KB PDF)

Documentation for the Zire71JPEG Camera Custom Control (83KB PDF)

Documentation for the Sony Camera Custom Control (94KB PDF)

Using JPEG images with Pendragon Forms

PDA cameras, pictures and  Pendragon Forms

Tutorial: Importing Stored Photos (for devices including the Treo 650 and iPAQ rx3715)

Pendragon Forms Reference Guide, Chapter 17: Working with Images  (6.6MB PDF)

(To download PDF documents, right-click on the link above and choose Save Target As...)

The Camera Control field looks like a text field when the camera is off.

The control acts as a camera viewfinder when the camera is activated.