Raspberry Pi Camera Training Mike Davis – Truman College 1/13/2015

Goals for Today Plug in and access your Raspberry Pi Connect the camera and see that it works Determine the IP address of the Raspberry Pi Write a command that will tell the Raspberry Pi to take pictures with the camera repeatedly. Get the pictures off the Raspberry Pi on to another computer. String the pictures into a time lapse movie.

The End Product

First things first – Plug in the Raspberry Pi Connect Monitor Keyboard Mouse Camera Power (in that order) Place for camera.

Helpful Video for Plugging in the Camera Lift up the small black guide by the Ethernet port. The small electrical contacts on the ribbon face the end with the power cord. Avoid any kind of static or sparks. Plug in, turn on the Rasberry Pi after it is connected.

Configure the Camera You may need to configure the camera. sudo raspi-config Select Enable Camera and then Finish. You will be asked to reboot. Go ahead. This only needs to be done once. Camera Specs 5 M Pixel Video Mode – 1080p30, 720p60, and 640x480p60/90 Full Frame SLR Lens Eq. – 35mm Fixed Focus – 1m to infinity F-Stop – 2.9 Focal length – 3.60mm Can do up to 90 frames/second Full Specs

Lets take a selfie. From the command line use this script raspistill –o picture.jpg This tells the computer to use a program called raspistill and output (o) a file called picture.jpg With the default settings this will be a 2.4MB file.

Raspistill has a lot of customizable commands EffectCommandDefault Preview-pTRUE No Preview-nFALSE Sharpness-sh0 Contrast-co0 Brightness-br0 Horizontal Flip-hfFALSE Vertical Flip-vfFALSE Shutter Speed-ssN/A Up to 6s Sample commands Flips the image raspistill –vf-hf –o picture.jpg Increase the contrast raspistill –co 50 –o picture.jpg Complete list

File management – Prepare to take pictures You may want to set up a folder to store the pictures you are taking. If the goal is to take a picture and put it in file, that goes in to the command. raspistill –o /home/pi/camera/picture.jpg CommandEffectExample pwdPresent working directory, where you currently are. mkdirMake a new foldermkdir camera cdChange directorycd camera cd..Return to previous directorycd.. cd /home/pi/cameraGo to a specific directorycd /home/pi/camera lsList contentsls

How to do time lapse photos 1.Make sure you have a folder you want to save everything to. 2.Type the command raspistill –o /home/pi/camera/picture%03.jpg –tl –t ProgramOutput destination and file name. 3 digit number to appear after camera (001, 002, 003, etc) Time lapse in milliseconds between pictures Total time in milliseconds for all pictures

Things to think about with time lapse projects What is something that will change slowly but dramatically? Seedlings Crystals Bacterial growth Decay How often will you need to take pictures? How much space will you need for those pictures? What can I control? Lights Power

Now lets get those pictures On your Raspberry Pi Determine the IP address sudo ifconfig On your preferred computer Make sure you are on the same network as the Raspberry Pi. Download WinSCP This is a program that will enable File Transfer Protocol between your computer and the Pi. Very user friendly interface.

Local computer on the left, remote computer (RPi) on the right.

Got a lot of photos, how do I make a time lapse movie? Download Cineform – GoPro StudioLight, free video editing Import all photos. Since they are ordered sequentially, they will be in time order. Go on to step 2, and step 3. Export as a AVI or MP4 or… Enjoy your movie!

Get clever Use other things as lensesDye them

Lots of ways to skin a cat. Can I use Dropbox? You can, and its pretty easy. Instructions Requirements Dropbox account Developer access Benefits You can automatically upload files to Dropbox. You can have a Python program take pictures and send them to Dropbox. Check on your photos from anywhere. Can I use a Python program You can, and build it to your needs. Instructions Requirements A little programming experience, but not much. Benefits You can tell your computer to take pictures in the way you want, when you want.

Potential Projects / Asks Make a Photobooth that will take a picture when a button is pushed, and it to the user. Example Take a picture of something at the same time everyday. Start taking time lapse photos at the same time everyday and upload them to Dropbox or a remote server at the end of the day. Take video with the Raspberry Pi Camera Example Control the Raspberry Pi Camera from another computer. Example Control the Raspberry Pi Camera from your phone. Example