Interesting links, thanks. Looks like the gphoto site lists the Olympus SP500 among the many supported cameras. The drawback for gphoto is that it doesn't run on a Windows platform. We'd have to completely redo our host computers.
In the discussion, they lament that most cameras will no longer support remote control -- the ability to take a picture and upload it to a computer automatically.
That is why I was fantasizing about using robotics: Mechanical robotic controls, driven by the computer, to take the picture. Then a control to switch over to connect to the camera via USB, and transfer the picture off the camera's memory card into the computer, and erase the memory card file.
...I'll look at your links more.
