Sentry Capture

Sentry Capture is a lightweight Windows 11 desktop app that continuously downloads still JPEG images from up to 10 UK motorway traffic camera feeds and saves them into a tidy, dated folder structure for later analysis.

It is a native desktop application (WPF / .NET 8) — its own window, not a browser tab — and runs entirely locally: no cloud, no telemetry, no external services other than fetching the camera images you configure.

Sentry Capture only collects and stores images. It does not analyse them. Incident detection is a separate tool that will read the folders this app produces.

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Quick start (for end users)

1. Download / clone this repository to a folder on your PC.
2. Double-click setup.bat.
   • Installs the .NET 8 SDK automatically (via winget) if it isn't already present.
   • Builds the app into a single self-contained .exe (under publish\).
   • Creates a "Sentry Capture" desktop shortcut.
3. Launch the app with launch.bat or the desktop shortcut.

First-time setup needs an internet connection (to fetch the SDK and build). After that the app runs fully offline apart from fetching your camera images.

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Using the app

Adding cameras

1. On the Dashboard tab, click ➕ Add Camera.
2. Enter:
   • Camera name — e.g. M6 J19 Northbound. This is used to name the folders and files.
   • Image URL — the direct JPEG URL for that camera. You obtain this manually by inspecting the network requests on a public camera-viewing website (look for the .jpg request).
   • Custom headers (optional) — only needed if a feed rejects plain requests. One per line, e.g. Referer: https://example-camera-site.co.uk. A browser-like User-Agent is sent by default.
3. Click Save. Repeat for up to 10 cameras.

Cameras can be added, edited, or removed at any time — including while collection is running. Changes affect only that camera; the others keep running.

Collecting

• ▶ Start All begins polling every configured camera every 30 seconds, independently.
• ■ Stop All stops all polling.
• Each camera card shows a status light (🟢 healthy / 🔴 error / 🟡 starting / ⚪ stopped), the image count this session, and the uptime.

Where images go

Images are saved next to the app under SentryCapture_Data\:

SentryCapture_Data/
  M6_J19_Northbound/
    2026-06-30/
      M6_J19_Northbound_2026-06-30_14-32-05.jpg
      M6_J19_Northbound_2026-06-30_14-32-35.jpg
    2026-07-01/
      ...

• One folder per camera (name sanitised for Windows).
• A new sub-folder per calendar day, created automatically at midnight.
• Files named Name_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm-ss.jpg so they sort chronologically.

Use 📂 Open Data Folder to jump straight there in Explorer.

Debug log

The Debug Log tab shows a timestamped, detailed log of every download attempt. Failures include the full error detail (exception type, HTTP status, stack trace) — exactly what you'd paste into an AI assistant to diagnose a problem.

• 📋 Copy Log copies the visible log to the clipboard.
• The full history is also written to logs\sentry-capture_YYYY-MM-DD.log and survives restarts/crashes.
• 📂 Open Log Folder opens that folder.

Feedback

✉ Send Feedback opens your default email client with a pre-filled message to purplepenguin.apps@gmail.com.

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Files & folders (portable layout)

Everything lives next to the executable, so the whole thing is portable:

Path	Purpose
publish\SentryCapture.exe	The built application
publish\config.json	Your camera configuration (auto-saved)
publish\SentryCapture_Data\	Captured images
publish\logs\	Daily log files

The runtime files above are created next to the .exe. The repo's own config.json / data / logs are git-ignored.

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For developers

# Run from source
dotnet run --project src/SentryCapture/SentryCapture.csproj

# Produce the distributable single-file exe
dotnet publish src/SentryCapture/SentryCapture.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o publish

• Stack: .NET 8, WPF (C#), MVVM, no third-party runtime dependencies.
• Structure:
  • Models/ — CameraConfig, AppConfig
  • Services/ — ConfigStore, CaptureManager, CameraWorker, ImageWriter, Logger, AppPaths
  • ViewModels/ — MainViewModel, CameraViewModel
  • Views/ — CameraEditDialog
  • MainWindow.xaml, Themes/Styles.xaml

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Scope

In scope: reliable, observable, long-running still-image collection.

Out of scope (handled by a separate, later tool): AI/vision inference, incident detection/classification/alerting, live video, and analysis of existing image folders.