Raspberry Pi Camera Training

Mike Davis – Truman College1/13/2015

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 commandsEffect Command Default

Preview -p TRUE

No Preview -n FALSE

Sharpness -sh 0

Contrast -co 0

Brightness -br 0

Horizontal Flip -hf FALSE

Vertical Flip -vf FALSE

Shutter Speed -ss N/AUp 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

Command Effect Example

pwd Present working directory, where you currently are.

mkdir Make a new folder mkdir camera

cd Change directory cd camera

cd .. Return to previous directory cd ..

cd /home/pi/camera Go to a specific directory cd /home/pi/camera

ls List contents ls

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 10000 –t 120000

Program Output 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 addresssudo 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 Studio Light, 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 lenses Dye 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 email 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