Snapshot Target
Snapshot Target properties for Script Engine. Periodically saves a still image of the composed scene to disk as PNG or JPEG. Useful for monitoring an unattended stream from a web dashboard, building a thumbnail archive of a long broadcast, providing scrubable previews for editors, evidencing on-air content at fixed intervals, or generating social-media stills automatically during a live event. Files are written to the Snapshots folder next to the application, named <ProjectName>-snapshot-<timestamp>.<ext>. Only files matching the current project's prefix are eligible for automatic clean-up — snapshots from other projects in the same folder are left untouched.
| Property | Type | Access | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
AutoStart |
bool |
get/set |
When true, snapshot capture begins automatically as soon as the application starts. Useful for unattended installations where you want continuous capture without manual intervention. |
SnapshotInterval |
SnapshotInterval |
get/set |
How often a new snapshot is captured — every 10 seconds up to once a day. Pick the longest interval that still gives you the coverage you need, since each snapshot writes a file to disk and contributes to the on-disk archive size. |
SnapshotRetention |
SnapshotRetention |
get/set |
Maximum age of stored snapshots before they are deleted automatically. Only files whose name starts with the current project name are eligible for clean-up, so snapshots from other projects in the same folder are kept. Set this with disk capacity in mind — frequent intervals plus long retention can build up a large archive quickly. |
ImageFormat |
SnapshotImageFormat |
get/set |
File format for saved snapshots. JPEG produces small files at adjustable quality and is the usual choice for thumbnails and dashboards. PNG is lossless — pick it when image quality matters more than file size, such as when the snapshot will be used as artwork or analysed pixel-by-pixel. |
JpegQuality |
int |
get/set |
JPEG compression quality. [min=1, max=100, default=85]. Higher values give better-looking images and larger files; 80–90 is a good balance for thumbnails. Ignored when ImageFormat is PNG. |
StartCommand |
Command |
get |
Start the periodic snapshot capture using the current interval and image-format settings. |
StopCommand |
Command |
get |
Stop the periodic snapshot capture. Any image already queued is finished writing before the worker thread exits. |
OpenFolderCommand |
Command |
get |
Opens the Snapshots folder in Windows Explorer so you can review or move the captured images. |
SnapshotState |
SnapshotState |
get |
Current capture state: Stopped, Starting, Running or Stopping (read-only). Useful from scripts to confirm capture started successfully before issuing further commands. |
LastSnapshotSaved |
string |
get |
Date and time the most recent snapshot was written, formatted as yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss (read-only). Reads Never until the first snapshot is saved. |
LastSnapshotFilename |
string |
get |
File name of the most recent snapshot written to disk (read-only). Useful in scripts that want to push the latest snapshot to a thumbnail service or web dashboard. |
SnapshotsSaved |
int |
get |
Total number of snapshots saved since capture was last started (read-only). Resets to zero each time StartCommand is called. |
SaveQueueSize |
int |
get |
Number of snapshots currently waiting to be written to disk (read-only, debug). A value that keeps growing means the disk cannot keep up with the chosen interval and image size. |
NextSnapshotIn |
string |
get |
Countdown to the next snapshot capture, formatted as Xs, Xm Ys or Xh Ym (read-only). Useful for live dashboards that show when the next image will appear. |
Inherits from: AbstractTarget.
See also: Snapshot Target in Targets — user-facing introduction, screenshots, and section summaries.