Access Multiple Webcam with USB programming

Question

i want to built a 3D view of my scene with inputs from at least 3 webcams...presently i am using OpenCV (with C/C++) on Windows 7 32 bit platform and it gives me a maximum of 2 webcam views parallely...i have generated a 3D view with 2 webcams but that is not up to the mark...so i have the following questions...

1. if i use 3 webcams (2.0) in a USB hub is it possible to access the USB video frames without OpenCV?if yes then how?to keep it simple i can skip the USB hub because my laptop has 3 USB ports...is it then possible?
2. i have read about LIBUSB library...yet not used it...is it possible to access webcam video frames with this kind of usb library?
3. how safe is the LIBUSB library?i have read in some forums that if not configured and used correctly the blue screen pops up very frequently...it also runs a chance to damage the usb driver...? is there any other usb library i can use safely?

anyone who have worked on similar usb multiple webcam access stuff or has any idea on this please guide me...any suggestion is welcome...

Answer 1

1. You can run as many webcams as USB bandwidth allows
2. If USB bandwidth limit is hit, you are unlikely to resolve this by using certain software library
3. It might be helpful to lower resolution or start using on-camera compression if such option exists since both reduce USB traffic

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