This project consists of a README file that explains how to set up a Raspberry Pi 3 with a V2 Camera to take timelapse photos from 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset, and a camera python3 script and some shell scripts.
The photos are taken once every 6 seconds, and stiched together into a H264 encoded movie of about 100-200 MB in size. It takes the Pi about 1.5 hours to compress the images into videos using ffmpeg starting about 9:40 pm at the end of the day.
This is hardly complete, but it is basic info to get a Raspberry Pi up and running as headless server on a home WIFI network.
- Download Raspbian
- Use Apple Pi Baker to get Raspbian onto an SD Card
- Boot up the Pi and update everything
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade - Set the hostname
sudo nano /etc/hostname - Configure the pi from the command line
sudo raspi-config- you can set the root user, etc. - Install git
sudo apt-get install git - How to Setup Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the Raspberry Pi 3
- “Americanizing” the Raspberry Pi
mkdir ~/.ssh
cd ~/.ssh
chmod 700 ~/.ssh
wget https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/somenumber/authorized_keys <- stick your key up on Dropbox!
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo raspi-config <— turn on the ssh
The camera can be controlled by running python3 scripts.
sudo apt-get install python3-picamera
Turn the camera on from rasp-config
sudo raspi-config
see Raspberry Pi Basic Camera Recipes for details on how to write python code for the camera.
ffmpeg converts the individual timelapse photos into a compressed, high definition video.
build and install x264
git clone --depth 1 git://git.videolan.org/x264
cd x264
./configure --host=arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi --enable-static --disable-opencl
make -j 4
sudo make install
build and make ffmpeg
git clone --depth=1 git://source.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git
cd ffmpeg
Note - set architecture to armhf for Pi3 (hardware float) vs. armel for Pi2 (software float).
./configure --arch=armhf --target-os=linux --enable-gpl --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree
make -j 4
sudo make install
see ffmpeg on raspbian / Raspberry Pi for more details on ffmpeg.
To execute ffmpeg, use the makemovie.sh script.
# Takes files from the timelapse/done folder and stiches them into a movie in the movies folder.
ROOT=/home/pi
FILENAME=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
rm "$ROOT/camera/movies/$FILENAME.mov"
/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -r 25 -pattern_type glob -i "$ROOT/pi-timelapse-camera/timelapse/done/*.jpg" -c:v libx264 "$ROOT/pi-timelapse-camera/movies/$FILENAME.mov"
git clone https://github.com/geocolumbus/pi-timelapse-camera.git
cd pi-timelapse-camera
Create these folders:
pi-timelapse-camera
|-timelapse
| |-done
|-movies
Run the script python3 cam.py and images will start accumulating in the timelapse folder.
The first time you run the python camera script you will get errors about missing dependencies. That's expected - you need to install the dependencies as specified in the error messages, or from this dependencies list in the camera script. See INSTALLING PYTHON PACKAGES for details on how to use apt-get or pip to install Python dependencies.
from time import sleep
from picamera import PiCamera
from time import localtime, strftime
import ephem
from datetime import datetime
from dateutil import tz
import os
A sample crontab is supplied to tie the system together. The python script adds a new image to the timelapse folder every 6 seconds. Every so often, those images are moved to the timelapse/done folder. At 9:40pm, a makemovie.sh script converts the images in the timelapse/done folder into a H264 encoded move in the movies folder.