Dreambooker

Examples

Set up Raspberry Pi

Install system

I used rufus to write the official Raspberry Pi OS to SD card.

If you bought the SD card with Raspberry Pi, they may have installed one system.

It’s better to format it first and install the official one.

Initialize SSH

You need to create an empty file named ssh under the boot dir.

Then, you can connect your Raspberry Pi using some softwares, like MobaXterm and putty.

Connect to your Pi

Because I’m using the school Internet, the simple method (Edit wpa_supplicant.conf) mentioned in many guides don’t work.

I figured out that a laptop (connected to the school WIFI) and an Ethernet cable are enough.

1. Connect the Pi to the laptop using cable

2. Share the network to the Ethernet

   

3. Check the IP by comparing the results of arp -a

   

Install Python

Since I wanna do lots of things on the Pi, I prefer installing my own Python through Miniconda.

Please check this tutorial.

Set up camera

Enable camera

1. sudo raspi-config
2. Set a new password
3. Set a hostname (mine is maxdoas)
4. Interfacing Options –> Camera –> Yes

Install camera on the instrument

I fixed two USB cameras with screws on a board which is on the top of my instrument called MAX-DOAS.

Time-lapse script

1. We can get the ports of cameras by checking the results of ls /dev/video* with cameras plugged in and not.

   pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls /dev/video*
   /dev/video0  /dev/video10  /dev/video12  /dev/video3
   /dev/video1  /dev/video11  /dev/video2
   

2. I will use /dev/video0 and /dev/video2.

3. Because I don’t wanna install too much libraries on Pi, I chose fswebcam (sudo apt-get install fswebcam) to let the cameras capture images every 2 minutes:

4. The content of tlapse.py:

   import os
   import time
   import subprocess
   from datetime import datetime
   
   while True:
       # set ouput dir and filename
       lapse_dir = datetime.strftime(datetime.now(),"/home/pi/timelapse/%Y/%m/%Y%m%d/")
       os.makedirs(lapse_dir, exist_ok=True)
       prefix = datetime.strftime(datetime.now(),"%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M")
       filename = lapse_dir+"/"+prefix
   
       # take photos and save
       subprocess.call(['fswebcam', '-d', '/dev/video0',
                        '-r','1920x1080',
                        '-S', '20',
                        '--rotate', '180',
                        '--no-banner',
                        filename+'_1.jpg'])
       #print('Saving photo to %s'%(filename))
       time.sleep(0.5)
   
       subprocess.call(['fswebcam', '-d', '/dev/video2',
                        '-r','1920x1080',
                        '-S', '20',
                        '--rotate', '180',
                        '--no-banner',
                        filename+'_2.jpg'])
       #print('Saving photo to %s'%(filename))
   
       time.sleep(120)
   

   -r: resolution

   -S: skipping frames for auto focus

   --rotate: rotation

   --no-banner: without banner

5. Let us set it to take photos automatically when the Pi is started, especially for the power failure case.

   Just add the Python path to the beginning of Python script tlapse.py and the script name to /etc/rc.local:

   1. tlapse.py

   You can check the path of Python by which python

   #!/home/pi/miniconda3/bin/python
   import os
   ........
   

   2. /etc/rc.local

   /home/pi/tlapse.py &
   

6. Reboot and check the process bypgrep tlapse*.

   If you wanna kill it, you can type sudo pkill tlapse*.

Sync images to server

As the SD card just has 64 G, I decide to sync the local images to the server by rsync.

This tutorial shows the detailed steps.

References

1. Raspberry Pi Zero W as a headless time-lapse camera
2. Working with a Webcam and Pi Camera
3. Raspberry Pi Time-lapse Videos with USB Webcam
4. Using rsync to synchronize a local and remote directory

Version control