Project Description

Using HQ cameras from Waveshare and RPi hardware, write configurable scripts to create different timelapse scenes (clouds, traffic, ...). The software should capture a frame every X seconds for the desired period of time and build a video out of all the images.

Goal for this Hackweek

  • Play around with cameras and understanding better the different lenses
  • Understand the different tools on RPi software to capture photos and build videos
  • Have a nice demo video at the end

PLUS: If there is time, it would be nice to see if it's possible to achieve the same using Suse software (e.g. JeOS for RPi, MicroOS, ...)

Looking for hackers with the skills:

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This project is part of:

Hack Week 20

Activity

  • almost 3 years ago: pdostal liked this project.
  • almost 3 years ago: jlausuch started this project.
  • about 3 years ago: ph03nix liked this project.
  • about 3 years ago: jlausuch originated this project.

  • Comments

    • jlausuch
      almost 3 years ago by jlausuch | Reply

      This is a summary video of the results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7SNqW5lXU And some Cloud time lapses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iZtiejt5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfRiLwt0hSQ

      This project is basically about how to control an RPi camera and understanding how lenses work. It's not a regular USB-camera, but one with the FPC Ribbon to the RPi Camera connector. The sensor I used is 12.3MP IMX477 Sensor and I tried 2 lenses, a wide range 6mm one and a 8-50mm with zoom.

      These lenses come without any autofocus support or anything, you have to focus manually turning the wheels and watching the preview on a device connected to the HDMI port (which is not portable) or better over SSH with a tiny delay.

      Setup * Connect the Camera to the Pi and make sure it's detected. vcgencmd get_camera should return supported=1, detected=1 * Connect a Laptop to the Pi with a LAN cable and configure IP addresses. * Since I didn't have a wall outlet for electricity where I was taking photos, I used a portable battery. Luckily, the Pi consumes very little power. * Connect via ssh -X to the Pi and run ffplay /dev/video0 to preview what the sensor captures. * Adjust the lens to focus what you want to capture and close the ffplay to be able to take a picture (/dev/video0 must be unused) * Take a picture using raspistill command, examples: raspistill -o test.jpg raspistill -n -w 1280 -h 960 -o test.jpg raspistill -n -drc high -ex backligh -o test.jpg There are many options you can give to that command, like the size of the image (by default 4056x3040), exposure, contrast, brightness, etc...

      You can do cool things like timelapse videos. Just to run a bash loop and isse that command and storing the image with the sequence number on the filename. Then you can use ffmpeg to construct a video out of all the images. I built 2 examples of time-lapse videos of Clouds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iZtiejt5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfRiLwt0hSQ

      Also, with the 6mm lens you can also take nice Macro photos.

      The good: * Inexpensive way to have a "decent" camera and lenses (12MP is not that much, but quality is good)

      The bad: * Not portable... you need to carry your laptop with you or buy a LCD to preview the image. * Manually adjust focus... not very convenient if you want to have a versatile camera to move around...

      So, basically, it's a cheap way to have a good quality image/video and completely tweakable software for static applications like Video surveillance or even a WebCam using RPi Zero. But it's not very handy if you want to have it as your personal camera to take photos outside...

    • jlausuch
      almost 3 years ago by jlausuch | Reply

      (I messed up with the formatting, so please ignore previous comment...)

      This is a summary video of the results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7SNqW5lXU

      And some Cloud time lapses:

      This project is basically about how to control an RPi camera and understanding how lenses work. It's not a regular USB-camera, but one with the FPC Ribbon to the RPi Camera connector. The sensor I used is 12.3MP IMX477 Sensor and I tried 2 lenses, a wide range 6mm one and a 8-50mm with zoom.

      These lenses come without any autofocus support or anything, you have to focus manually turning the wheels and watching the preview on a device connected to the HDMI port (which is not portable) or better over SSH with a tiny delay.

      Setup

      • Connect the Camera to the Pi and make sure it's detected. vcgencmd get_camera should return supported=1, detected=1
      • Connect a Laptop to the Pi with a LAN cable and configure IP addresses.
      • Since I didn't have a wall outlet for electricity where I was taking photos, I used a portable battery. Luckily, the Pi consumes very little power.
      • Connect via ssh -X to the Pi and run ffplay /dev/video0 to preview what the sensor captures.
      • Adjust the lens to focus what you want to capture and close the ffplay to be able to take a picture (/dev/video0 must be unused)
      • Take a picture using raspistill command raspistill -o test.jpg

      There are many options you can give to that command, like the size of the image (by default 4056x3040), exposure, contrast, brightness, etc...

      You can do cool things like timelapse videos. Just to run a bash loop and issue that command and storing the image with the sequence number on the filename. Then you can use ffmpeg to construct a video out of all the images. I built 2 examples of time-lapse videos of Clouds:

      Also, with the 6mm lens you can also take nice Macro photos.

      The good:

      • Inexpensive way to have a "decent" camera and lenses (12MP is not that much, but quality is good)

      The bad:

      • Not portable... you need to carry your laptop with you or buy a LCD to preview the image.
      • Manually adjust focus... not very convenient if you want to have a versatile camera to move around...

      So, basically, it's a cheap way to have a good quality image/video and completely tweakable software for static applications like Video surveillance or even a WebCam using RPi Zero. But it's not very handy if you want to have it as your personal camera to take photos outside...

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