service or demon for grabbing images from webcam?

[Qualidat]

Hello!
Is there an application-friendly (invisible backgrounded) service or demon for grabbing single images from a local USB webcam for a application, e.g. by reading local ip socket or executing a simple shell command?

I'am using RealBasic and must do porting an existing Application to Linux. This was made originally for Mac and provide QuickTime API access only, and for Windows exists a compatible API ("WinVDIG"), but nothing for Linux ... ? I must a simple replacement for this find. Thanks.

Frank

I'am not familar with API calls or embedding strange libraries ...

[curaga]

Are you looking for a library or an app? For an API you would use v4l2, but in a script you can use any of the many v4l clients to grab a pic, even mplayer can do that.