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Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:32 pm
by godzilla
something else resolved now ;

id forgotten to consider how im to preview the shot the cameras are getting during setup. so I did a little investigating to see what is possible.

I arrived at a solution with a bit of fiddling around, which works out pretty nice.



there is a package called "motion" available to install ;

sudo apt-get install motion

This is quite a clever application and can be set up to do a lot of stuff to do with camera's, timelapse, motion detection, tracking etc etc. looks like it would be a good thing for some kind of advanced security stuff. anyway we only need it for one of its features, ability to serve webcam video over the network. There is some setup needed, modifying of configuration files for the number and name of the cameras you are using. Rather than copy'n'paste all bits of code here I'll find a way later to make the config files available (you'd be able to pull them directly on the pi and put them in the right places).

So motion was setup for the two web-cams , and when I got it right, I could visit a page in firefox from another machine ipaddress:8081 for the first cam , ipaddress:8082 for the second cam.

Took a while longer to figure out how to get the pi camera working in the same way. there is a specific build of motion called motion-mmalcam , it works with the pi-cam. I tried to utilise this vers and get both the webcams running under it (that how it ought to work normally) , but no luck.

Still, this did not matter much, I now start the motion-mmal server to give the pi cam video on port 8081 , and the standard motion server to provide the webcam streams on ports 8082 and 8083.

Now I don't want these streams available all the time, plus they chew up some of the pi's resources. so I enable these servers only when the system has been put in PAUSE MODE. This mode is used when you need to get in there and do something and don't want to be in the timelapse !

It will also work as a setup mode now, so when you enter pause mode, the camera streaming is enabled, and when you return to RUN MODE, the streaming is disabled and stopped.

Took some more tinkering with the monitor script and this now seems to work really well.

I think that's most of the key functions sorted now, few nice to have as well. capture script will take a few days to get right I imagine, almost there. then there was that old idea of getting this thing to pan out by itself. kind of threw out the idea a week back but Its been consuming my thoughts again in the last day or two.

linear slide of some kind... maybe the pi pulls itself up the rail with a little winch driven off a geared stepper?

or thinking a bit laterally .... the undercarriage assembly off a "for parts" RC tank , suitable adjusted drive to allow a very sloooow and accurate movement. (we talking about receding smoothly away from the plant by about 6 foot over about 3 MONTHS !!!!
hmmm...

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:56 am
by teetee
Another effortlessly technical post from you mate. You come across a problem, you spit it out and shit on it then move on. I would still be trying to put the raspberry pi enclosure together!

This project is shaping up to be absolutely awesome. You are thinking of every tiny detail. Are you still going to put O2 and CO2 sensors in?
Security is a good point, it would be great to see who's nosing round your plot on a smartphone (is it the Missus or the Pigs?), so you can decide if it's safe to go home or not.
:grin:::::

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Fri Oct 18, 2013 11:30 pm
by godzilla
cheers teetee.

gonna leave the DWC stuff for a little while yet also the co2/o2 plot, still be working on the project in the background though but gonna have me an airpot adventure for the next grow. gotto get some smoke on the way :)
that'll buy me some time to move along with that project till im ready to built some sort of a chamber to rig up, to the hilt. who knows lets see how the airpots goes, if its looking good I might start wondering about getting some more co2 to it.

yeah things starting to work out nice, can get a stream from all three cameras now;

motion2.jpg
Camera preview of all three cams over the network!


moved on to fiddling with the capture script now. and thinking about how its going to store all this stuff.
im going to have quite a few folders since its going to collect several versions of the video along the way even per cam. then there are several cams.
heres what im trying to prepare to capture in parallel ;

timelapse running under grow lighting (GL) during the day, low level night lighting (NL) at night
timelapse running under GL during the day only
timelapse running under white lighting (WL) during the day, low level night lighting (NL) at night
timelapse running under white lighting (WL) during the day only

each of those for CAM0 , CAM1 and CAM2....

And possibly at different "speeds". ie reviewing a days or weeks growth id like the movie to run for a fair time with lots of detail, so I need to capture more frames, more regular timelapse as I need 24frames at least for a seconds footage. well that's not strictly true I could use 5 frames and cover a second but, we can do better than that.
On the other hand, when it comes to review a whole grow start to finish, we don't want to have a feature length movie, so less frames required per day.

I reckon it will give lots of options when all is done and im wondering how to assemble together these various scenes into one movie.

hmm. got a bit to figure through there. best start with a good smoke and settle down getting deep in there :grin:::::

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 2:01 pm
by Autoberry
That is superb.........and state of the art !!..........i will see if me mate tony, is interested in what is a much better way of recording 100 day time lines. Importantly from different view point consecutively. In effect giving 2 vids at the end ??.............

The pull back in the time line will be a great feature of the vid to....................it will be a hundred day wait from the go, which is wen Gods ??....................one of the best threads ive seen on a Pc on the subject......may all your THCV convert 100% to THC D9 !!...AB........well done mate..............

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:34 am
by godzilla
cheers autoberry! Ill be kicking off the grow within the next couple weeks now, almost done with my tinkerings and I think the system is almost ready to run! Now I have a plan to put aside a little bit more space than my cabinet, and see what I can do. ive been out of the country all week on business, still am, but even then I couldnt help but bring a little board of electronics out with me hoping to find some time to solve a couple more things.... I have a couple servos to set up the main cam to pan & tilt , and Im planning to get this thing in next week .... i will rig it up to back away from the plant very very slowly over the course of the grow ;

dagu.jpg
dagu.jpg (20.06 KiB) Viewed 62626 times


:)

struggling for time at the moment but it wont be long now!!!

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 12:46 am
by godzilla
also, we wont have to wait so long to start seeing some funky timelapse- the system will create nightly movies giving the last days grow in timelapse, the last weeks grow etc. we can see what is happening day by day, no longer going mad trying to work out if its grown more or if I just looked too often and loosing the plot :)
at the end Ill be able to put it all together, from various angles, the whole picture from the main cam and in sync the closeups etc from the webcams. as raw, they will be independant captures but they will be all in sync and timestamped, so they could be assembled into a vid with closeups picture in picture style over the main cam. honestly I have not seen anything like it anywhere else, but thats the beauty of deciding what it is I really want and do it my way! i reckon it should be able to give us some eye-popping results.
bring on the end of the week. just want to get home, roll one up and bang on buffalo soldier. need me some of that good shit!!

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 3:47 pm
by teetee
I am loving this thread, the little buggy thing is brilliant!
:grin:::::

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 5:02 pm
by ledbud
wooooow really crazy. liking it mate.
you are very creative and knowledgeable.
:geek: :ugeek: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 12:24 am
by godzilla
sorry folks been real busy last week or two, hardly been around to do much :(
Have got a few things moving though in the last couple days, now I have the basis of the robot platform for the main cam. this tank-bot is set up to nudge itself backwards by small amounts, so over the grow it will basically back away from the plant to keep it all in shot.
next I will mount another platform on the top where the raspberry pi and its camera will be mounted ( with a couple of servos so it can pan and tilt the camera).

what we have here is the Dagu Rover 5 tank base, and the Dagu 4 channel motor controller connected up to an arduino to control it. the pi will sit above and give some high level commands "move a bit please" every day or other day and the arduino will deal with executing the movement for the bot and its pan/tilt servos.
22.JPG

Re: DIY Timelapse project

PostPosted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 8:18 am
by teetee
Brilliant stuff Godzilla. Looking forward to seeing this in action!
:grin:::::