Auto documentation station

The Auto Documentation Station is a low cost, one-button, open source, high definition video and audio live streaming and/or recording system that anyone can build. There are three versions  The microscope version: 100x magnification and up (needs a microscope)  The milliscope version: 5x to 75x magnification (uses and old-school photo enlarger)  The lab table mountable version: 0.5x to 1x wide angle to no zoom  These devices will have the following abilities:  Real-time display on monitor or projector for sharing with those physically present </li> One-button online video streaming in 1080p </li> One-button private recording (for keeping an experiment log or for later editing and sharing) </li> One-button photography </li></ul> They are all based on the raspberry pi and raspberry pi camera. The reason for that is that it is the only really low cost system that can both run a real linux distribution and do real-time high definition encoding. Status The millidoc is close to ready. It is running a read-only version of raspbian (so pulling the plug won't break it). It needs a bit more software work for recording and streaming to work and the one-click button needs to be wired up. The other systems are based on the millidoc, so very little needs to change. The microscope version needs a mount to attach the raspberry pi camera to the microscope. A 3D printable prototype of this mount is being tested and tweaked. The lab table mountable version uses a wide angle lens and is attached to a slightly modified <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20370383/">Ikea Tertial</a> architect's lamp with the lamp-part replaced with the raspberry pi and camera. The lab table mountable version has a built-in 6" LCD so it isn't too obtrusive on the table but still lets the user see what is being recorded/streamed. This version will likely need a different type of microphone to pick up a speaker who might be somewhat far away from the camera. For this one we'll probably use a Blue Snowball iCE Condenser Cardiod Microphone. They're around $50 but skimping on sound is never a good idea and good microphones are hard to find cheap.