Can't start pi-timolo

[Distortionist]

I went through all the settings, and when I run ./pi-timolo start it tries and quit after a bit.

If I try to run ./pi-timolo.py I get this error :

2020-10-23 20:45:46 INFO Start pi-timolo per /home/pi/pi-timoloonfig.py Settings Traceback (most recent call last): File "./pi-timolo.py", line 2425, in timolo() File "./pi-timolo.py", line 1818, in timolo TIMELAPSE_DIR, TIMELAPSE_PREFIX) File "./pi-timolo.py", line 898, in subDirChecks if subDirCheckMaxHrs(subDirPath, maxHours, prefix): File "./pi-timolo.py", line 872, in subDirCheckMaxHrs dirDate = datetime.datetime.strptime(dirStr, "%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M") File "/usr/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 332, in _strptime (data_string, format)) ValueError: time data '2020-1023-2028' does not match format '%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M'

[pageauc]

Please upgrade to ver 12.02. This was a fatal bug that did not arise during testing. My Fault. I have a note on the subDirChkMaxHrs about doing some error trapping. I will revisit. In the meantime can you test the change and let me know if it resolves your problem. Basically the function tries to find the most recent active subfolder using the datetime name of the subfolder. The check did not match the directory folder naming minus the prefix. YYYY-MMDD-HHMM. I believe the error is fixed and you should be OK

There is no Bug Bounty but I appreciate you notifying me. Please confirm if the issue is resolved Thanks Claude ...

On Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 7:50 PM Distortionist notifications@github.com wrote:

I went through all the settings, and when I run ./pi-timolo start it tries and quit after a bit.

If I try to run ./pi-timolo.py I get this error :

2020-10-23 20:45:46 INFO Start pi-timolo per /home/pi/pi-timoloonfig.py Settings Traceback (most recent call last): File "./pi-timolo.py", line 2425, in timolo() File "./pi-timolo.py", line 1818, in timolo TIMELAPSE_DIR, TIMELAPSE_PREFIX) File "./pi-timolo.py", line 898, in subDirChecks if subDirCheckMaxHrs(subDirPath, maxHours, prefix): File "./pi-timolo.py", line 872, in subDirCheckMaxHrs dirDate = datetime.datetime.strptime(dirStr, "%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M") File "/usr/lib/python2.7/_strptime.py", line 332, in _strptime (data_string, format)) ValueError: time data '2020-1023-2028' does not match format '%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M'

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[pageauc]

Release 12.03 fixes trigger for creating new subdirectory when the max hours is exceeded. Had to convert to float to get fraction of hours. tested and works. Please upgrade to new release using menubox.sh UPGRADE menu pick Will leave this issue open. Let me know results of your testing. Claude ....

[Distortionist]

Thank you, it seems to work now when I run the pi-timolo.py, I don't think it started them menubox.sh unless it quits it when i exit menubox.sh, I have not really spent time with it yet. I noticed I have really messed up the configuration. I did not realise the paths are relative to the folder set way later in the configuration. I know I screwed up when I reached it but I tried it anyway. It ended up making a folder named ~ in there because I used absolute paths for all the paths like ~pi/timelapse.

Silly me.

Ill reconfigure and I will let you know.

Thank you very much.

[Distortionist]

This is missing, just gives a warning. I added this line to get rid of it. It is just missing from the settings for some reason. PANO_DAYONLY_ON = 'False' # Only take panoramic image during daytime

Other than than, a quick test everything works perfectly. I started and stopped everything from menubox, the webserver seems to work fine, when I go to recents then timelapse I get a page error but directly from timelapse it works. maybe it just needs time. I will update later if it doesn't work once I put it to work for a while.

Thanks again.

[Distortionist]

Yes there is something not working with the recent folder in the webserver, if I browse to motion, it works, if i try to browse to timelapse, it gives an error.

[pageauc]

Recent Folder can sometimes get screwed up if symlink points to a non existent file, Recent entries are symbolic links to the actual images. Once the recent max is reached oldest entry is removed and new symbolic link created for the latest entry.

I suggest you delete all files in the recent folder (they are only sym links so the original image files will remain. Example below assumes default location of recent folders.

eg

  cd ~/pi-timolo/media/recent/timelapse
  rm *  

Recent will then start to fill until max is reached. Default is 40 but you can make this any reasonable value. I don't recommend anything over 400 or 500 since it slows directory refresh.

PANO_DAYONLY_ON is just a new setting I was working on but not implemented. It is in the pi-timolo.py code but not in the config.py since it is not implemented yet. Just ignore for now.

Messed up settings. There is a config.py.prev so you could copy it over config.py

eg

cp config.py config.py.bak
cp config.py.new config.py

or

cp config.py.prev config.py

[Distortionist]

Ok thank you for your quick response. I tested it out today and everything worked well. I left PANO_DAYONLY_ON in there set to False, it does not seem to cause me issues so far. I will remove it if it does, I did notice some little things, I will verify tomorrow if they happen again, but I noticed makevideo.sh is not smart enough to figure out the files are in a folder inside of timelapse, I manually moved them to timelapse, one folder below where they were, and cleared the recent links manually. After that the video is created. I am not sure if this is intentional and we need to edit the video.conf with the folder containing the files we want to make a video off each time. It is not a big deal at all, but it would be nice if it figures out there is a folder in there and does it itself, and if there are multiple, maybe list them and you select 1 2 3 or 4, whatever.

I have some requests other ideas, I am not sure how complex they are, and I feel like I am asking a lot from you but they are just features that would be extremely useful in your really cool software, you can think about adding in your free time.

1) let us choose any destination for the video created, outside of the media main folder, I would like it to go to a smb mount in mnt. It seems to me tied to media folder. 2) let us choose custom exposure settings like ISO, Shutter, awb, etc... I find the white balance all over the place it is what annoyed me the most, but I would like control of all those if I can. 3) It would be nice if there were an option to lock ISO, shutter, awb, etc based on the automatic settings that are computed at the first shot, and maybe optionally to recalculate and lock every X shots.

I am not sure how hard all that is, but they would be extremely useful.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 1:36 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

Recent Folder can sometimes get screwed up if symlink points to a non existent file, Recent entries are symbolic links to the actual images. Once the recent max is reached oldest entry is removed and new symbolic link created for the latest entry.

I suggest you delete all files in the recent folder (they are only sym links so the original image files will remain. Example below assumes default location of recent folders.

eg cd ~/pi-timolo/media/recent/timelapse rm *

Recent will then start to fill until max is reached. Default is 40 but you can make this any reasonable value. I don't recommend anything over 400 or 500 since it slows directory refresh.

PANO_DAYONLY_ON is just a new setting I was working on but not implemented. It is in the pi-timolo.py code but not in the config.py since it is not implemented yet. Just ignore for now.

Messed up settings. There is a config.py.prev so you could copy it over config.py

eg

cp config.py config.py.bak cp config.py.prev config.py

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/issues/109#issuecomment-715980378, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARJFPENISMCOU5SVDDC4VW3SML7CVANCNFSM4S5FBZEA .

[pageauc]

All Video settings are in the video.conf file. You can change the folder destinations Etc.for convid.sh and/or makevideo.sh

https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/blob/master/source/video.conf

Disregard the avconf references since ffmpeg is auto detected. If you have an old os distro then avconf will be the default but later distros now use ffmpeg. You should be able to do what you want using the video.conf file. Let me know if there are changes you would like. I used settings to automate putting timelapse videos onto a Kodi RPI so I could easily review them on my TV. This was a while back when we were in Texas but Looks like we are stuck in Canada this winter.

I will take a look at manual override of camera settings. It should not be too difficult. Not sure if there needs to be individual variable settings (It might Clutter up config.py) , just a parameter string, dictionary file or possibly a YAML config file. Give me a list of the settings you would like to see overridden.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 8:43 PM Distortionist notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok thank you for your quick response. I tested it out today and everything worked well. I left PANO_DAYONLY_ON in there set to False, it does not seem to cause me issues so far. I will remove it if it does, I did notice some little things, I will verify tomorrow if they happen again, but I noticed makevideo.sh is not smart enough to figure out the files are in a folder inside of timelapse, I manually moved them to timelapse, one folder below where they were, and cleared the recent links manually. After that the video is created. I am not sure if this is intentional and we need to edit the video.conf with the folder containing the files we want to make a video off each time. It is not a big deal at all, but it would be nice if it figures out there is a folder in there and does it itself, and if there are multiple, maybe list them and you select 1 2 3 or 4, whatever.

I have some requests other ideas, I am not sure how complex they are, and I feel like I am asking a lot from you but they are just features that would be extremely useful in your really cool software, you can think about adding in your free time.

1) let us choose any destination for the video created, outside of the media main folder, I would like it to go to a smb mount in mnt. It seems to me tied to media folder. 2) let us choose custom exposure settings like ISO, Shutter, awb, etc... I find the white balance all over the place it is what annoyed me the most, but I would like control of all those if I can. 3) It would be nice if there were an option to lock ISO, shutter, awb, etc based on the automatic settings that are computed at the first shot, and maybe optionally to recalculate and lock every X shots.

I am not sure how hard all that is, but they would be extremely useful.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 1:36 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

Recent Folder can sometimes get screwed up if symlink points to a non existent file, Recent entries are symbolic links to the actual images. Once the recent max is reached oldest entry is removed and new symbolic link created for the latest entry.

I suggest you delete all files in the recent folder (they are only sym links so the original image files will remain. Example below assumes default location of recent folders.

eg cd ~/pi-timolo/media/recent/timelapse rm *

Recent will then start to fill until max is reached. Default is 40 but you can make this any reasonable value. I don't recommend anything over 400 or 500 since it slows directory refresh.

PANO_DAYONLY_ON is just a new setting I was working on but not implemented. It is in the pi-timolo.py code but not in the config.py since it is not implemented yet. Just ignore for now.

Messed up settings. There is a config.py.prev so you could copy it over config.py

eg

cp config.py config.py.bak cp config.py.prev config.py

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/issues/109#issuecomment-715980378 , or unsubscribe < https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARJFPENISMCOU5SVDDC4VW3SML7CVANCNFSM4S5FBZEA

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[Distortionist]

I'll try the settings. I assumed it was like the pi-timolo.py where the paths were locked in. I tried putting ~/something and it created a folder called ~ in media haha. I'll set the path to the /mnt/ folder and see if it works. The archive path worked.

Yes a string would be great, when set it can use them instead. One for daytime and one for night time if possible.

I'm in Canada too, Hello from Nova Scotia.

On Sat., Oct. 24, 2020, 10:29 p.m. Claude Pageau, notifications@github.com wrote:

All Video settings are in the video.conf file. You can change the folder destinations Etc.for convid.sh and/or makevideo.sh

https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/blob/master/source/video.conf

Disregard the avconf references since ffmpeg is auto detected. If you have an old os distro then avconf will be the default but later distros now use ffmpeg. You should be able to do what you want using the video.conf file. Let me know if there are changes you would like. I used settings to automate putting timelapse videos onto a Kodi RPI so I could easily review them on my TV. This was a while back when we were in Texas but Looks like we are stuck in Canada this winter.

I will take a look at manual override of camera settings. It should not be too difficult. Not sure if there needs to be individual variable settings (It might Clutter up config.py) , just a parameter string, dictionary file or possibly a YAML config file. Give me a list of the settings you would like to see overridden.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 8:43 PM Distortionist notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok thank you for your quick response. I tested it out today and everything worked well. I left PANO_DAYONLY_ON in there set to False, it does not seem to cause me issues so far. I will remove it if it does, I did notice some little things, I will verify tomorrow if they happen again, but I noticed makevideo.sh is not smart enough to figure out the files are in a folder inside of timelapse, I manually moved them to timelapse, one folder below where they were, and cleared the recent links manually. After that the video is created. I am not sure if this is intentional and we need to edit the video.conf with the folder containing the files we want to make a video off each time. It is not a big deal at all, but it would be nice if it figures out there is a folder in there and does it itself, and if there are multiple, maybe list them and you select 1 2 3 or 4, whatever.

I have some requests other ideas, I am not sure how complex they are, and I feel like I am asking a lot from you but they are just features that would be extremely useful in your really cool software, you can think about adding in your free time.

1) let us choose any destination for the video created, outside of the media main folder, I would like it to go to a smb mount in mnt. It seems to me tied to media folder. 2) let us choose custom exposure settings like ISO, Shutter, awb, etc... I find the white balance all over the place it is what annoyed me the most, but I would like control of all those if I can. 3) It would be nice if there were an option to lock ISO, shutter, awb, etc based on the automatic settings that are computed at the first shot, and maybe optionally to recalculate and lock every X shots.

I am not sure how hard all that is, but they would be extremely useful.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 1:36 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

Recent Folder can sometimes get screwed up if symlink points to a non existent file, Recent entries are symbolic links to the actual images. Once the recent max is reached oldest entry is removed and new symbolic link created for the latest entry.

I suggest you delete all files in the recent folder (they are only sym links so the original image files will remain. Example below assumes default location of recent folders.

eg cd ~/pi-timolo/media/recent/timelapse rm *

Recent will then start to fill until max is reached. Default is 40 but you can make this any reasonable value. I don't recommend anything over 400 or 500 since it slows directory refresh.

PANO_DAYONLY_ON is just a new setting I was working on but not implemented. It is in the pi-timolo.py code but not in the config.py since it is not implemented yet. Just ignore for now.

Messed up settings. There is a config.py.prev so you could copy it over config.py

eg

cp config.py config.py.bak cp config.py.prev config.py

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub < https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/issues/109#issuecomment-715980378 , or unsubscribe <

https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARJFPENISMCOU5SVDDC4VW3SML7CVANCNFSM4S5FBZEA

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.

-- See my YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/pageaucp

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[pageauc]

We are in Ontario just a 10 min walk from Lake Huron. Will see what I can do about camera settings manual override. Let me know how the video.conf works for you. Claude ...

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 9:37 PM Distortionist notifications@github.com wrote:

I'll try the settings. I assumed it was like the pi-timolo.py where the paths were locked in. I tried putting ~/something and it created a folder called ~ in media haha. I'll set the path to the /mnt/ folder and see if it works. The archive path worked.

Yes a string would be great, when set it can use them instead. One for daytime and one for night time if possible.

I'm in Canada too, Hello from Nova Scotia.

On Sat., Oct. 24, 2020, 10:29 p.m. Claude Pageau, < notifications@github.com> wrote:

All Video settings are in the video.conf file. You can change the folder destinations Etc.for convid.sh and/or makevideo.sh

https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/blob/master/source/video.conf

Disregard the avconf references since ffmpeg is auto detected. If you have an old os distro then avconf will be the default but later distros now use ffmpeg. You should be able to do what you want using the video.conf file. Let me know if there are changes you would like. I used settings to automate putting timelapse videos onto a Kodi RPI so I could easily review them on my TV. This was a while back when we were in Texas but Looks like we are stuck in Canada this winter.

I will take a look at manual override of camera settings. It should not be too difficult. Not sure if there needs to be individual variable settings (It might Clutter up config.py) , just a parameter string, dictionary file or possibly a YAML config file. Give me a list of the settings you would like to see overridden.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 8:43 PM Distortionist notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok thank you for your quick response. I tested it out today and everything worked well. I left PANO_DAYONLY_ON in there set to False, it does not seem to cause me issues so far. I will remove it if it does, I did notice some little things, I will verify tomorrow if they happen again, but I noticed makevideo.sh is not smart enough to figure out the files are in a folder inside of timelapse, I manually moved them to timelapse, one folder below where they were, and cleared the recent links manually. After that the video is created. I am not sure if this is intentional and we need to edit the video.conf with the folder containing the files we want to make a video off each time. It is not a big deal at all, but it would be nice if it figures out there is a folder in there and does it itself, and if there are multiple, maybe list them and you select 1 2 3 or 4, whatever.

I have some requests other ideas, I am not sure how complex they are, and I feel like I am asking a lot from you but they are just features that would be extremely useful in your really cool software, you can think about adding in your free time.

1) let us choose any destination for the video created, outside of the media main folder, I would like it to go to a smb mount in mnt. It seems to me tied to media folder. 2) let us choose custom exposure settings like ISO, Shutter, awb, etc... I find the white balance all over the place it is what annoyed me the most, but I would like control of all those if I can. 3) It would be nice if there were an option to lock ISO, shutter, awb, etc based on the automatic settings that are computed at the first shot, and maybe optionally to recalculate and lock every X shots.

I am not sure how hard all that is, but they would be extremely useful.

On Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 1:36 PM Claude Pageau < notifications@github.com> wrote:

Recent Folder can sometimes get screwed up if symlink points to a non existent file, Recent entries are symbolic links to the actual images. Once the recent max is reached oldest entry is removed and new symbolic link created for the latest entry.

I suggest you delete all files in the recent folder (they are only sym links so the original image files will remain. Example below assumes default location of recent folders.

eg cd ~/pi-timolo/media/recent/timelapse rm *

Recent will then start to fill until max is reached. Default is 40 but you can make this any reasonable value. I don't recommend anything over 400 or 500 since it slows directory refresh.

PANO_DAYONLY_ON is just a new setting I was working on but not implemented. It is in the pi-timolo.py code but not in the config.py since it is not implemented yet. Just ignore for now.

Messed up settings. There is a config.py.prev so you could copy it over config.py

eg

cp config.py config.py.bak cp config.py.prev config.py

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https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARJFPENISMCOU5SVDDC4VW3SML7CVANCNFSM4S5FBZEA

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.

-- See my YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/pageaucp

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[pageauc]

Ok After doing more testing It appears the subdirectory creation was not being triggered due to difference not being a float value. I have done some quick testing and the subdirectory creation looks like it is triggered correctly when the age of the directory exceeds the specified max hours. The check is used for timelapse and motion.

Please upgrade to release 12.03 using the menubox.sh UPGRADE menu pick Please let me know the results of your testing Than Claude ....

[pageauc]

I released pi-timolo ver 12.04 that adds logic for PANO_DAYONLY_ON setting. Also updated config.py but you can manually add variable if necessary otherwise message will appear. Also video.conf has settings for auto removing or moving source timelapse images to archive location There are also settings for copying video to a mount point share. This is what I use to put my video's on a disk attached to a RPI running KODI. I am looking at the manual override settings. I think I will put settings in a python list (or maybe dictionary) in config.py. One for Day and One for Night. That way camera settings can be added or removed from the list as necessary. Stay Safe and Healthy Claude ...

[Distortionist]

I have configured the settings appropriately. Thank you. I appreciate the trouble adding the manual override as well.

I will upgrade later on today.

On Sun., Oct. 25, 2020, 10:43 a.m. Claude Pageau, notifications@github.com wrote:

I released pi-timolo ver 12.04 that adds logic for PANO_DAYONLY_ON setting. Also updated config.py but you can manually add variable if necessary otherwise message will appear. Also video.conf has settings for auto removing or moving source timelapse images to archive location There are also settings for copying video to a mount point share. This is what I use to put my video's on a disk attached to a RPI running KODI. I am looking at the manual override settings. I think I will put settings in a python list (or maybe dictionary) in config.py. One for Day and One for Night. That way camera settings can be added or removed from the list as necessary. Stay Safe and Healthy Claude ...

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/issues/109#issuecomment-716150608, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ARJFPELRJ2C3I2BRZ3FHZZ3SMQTQPANCNFSM4S5FBZEA .

[pageauc]

I have written a little python script that reads dictionary override values for the picamera. It is not too long but demonstrates applying custom settings. The values on the sample dictionary settings are NOT very good but I put variables down that I thought might be relevant. Current settings do NOT take very good images but was just testing logic for reading camera vars.
Can you work with this to get the type of images you would like. I can use these as default override settings.

For picamera API Docs See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Code should be fairly easy to understand. It is the camera settings that need tuning.

Thanks Claude ...

testcam.zip

[Distortionist]

I would love to try the Panoramas, can you recommend a motor and controller for me to try that you know will work with your script?

I downloaded and checked out your override script. I think it has all the settings I would like control of if I need. Thank you. I feel silly but does pi-timolo automatically enable it if CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON = True ?

It is terrible weather today so I really did not run the camera today.

On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 5:14 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

I have written a little python script that reads dictionary override values for the picamera. It is not too long but demonstrates applying custom settings. The values on the sample dictionary settings are NOT very good but I put variables down that I thought might be relevant. Current settings do NOT take very good images but was just testing logic for reading camera vars. Can you work with this to get the type of images you would like. I can use these as default override settings.

For picamera API Docs See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Code should be fairly easy to understand. It is the camera settings that need tuning.

Thanks Claude ...

testcam.zip https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/files/5435862/testcam.zip

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[pageauc]

This is currently a standalone script for testing purposes. The idea would be to put the new variables with comments in config.py. If you want to test pano I would recommend waveshare hat since Pimoroni hat has to be ordered from England with currency exchange and extra shipping costs. BTW I have several pimoroni hats and they are IMO better than Waveshare.

Waveshare HAT https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07PPV122Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Pimoroni HAT https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pan-tilt-hat?variant=22408353287

pi-timolo will automatically install the required pantilthat driver for either of these or a compatible.

This hat sits on top of the RPI plugged into the GPIO header. I also put standoffs on the opposite side to support the hat but not absolutely required. See wiki for details https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/wiki/Panoramic-Images-Stitching-Feature

Note assembly is a little finicky but there are YouTube videos (see wiki for a link) Also I had to drill a hole in the camera plastic insert panel for the RPI camera to see through. First one I drilled a hole for the lens and filed bigger for the raised square around the lens. Second one I just drilled a bigger hole and only did a bit of filing. Also had to clip a corner of the tilt servo with side cutters so it would clear the pan servo. Just working with small screws can be finicky

BTW I would still like to see what settings you come up with for the camera override settings. Claude ....

[Distortionist]

My HQ camera is new I only did that one timelapse test with it so far, and just mucking around inside learning how to use it and the lenses. I currently have 2 pi cameras 2.1 stuck to a window with tape taking 24 hour timelapses with simple bash scripts I made that use the sunrise and sunset as timers with an offset of 35minutes.

In daytime I was not happy locking exposure settings, the dark and shade vs bright sun was too much to find a happy median that didn't cause seizures. It was too annoying so it currently is not locked to any exposure, but I am trying locking to different awb settings. I think I like cloud setting the most.

The night time camera is a NoIR camera to catch the stars moving in the night sky (or see the result of earth spinning I guess), I have the awb locked to greyworld, the ISO locked to 800, and the shutter locked to 10 seconds which is the maximum.

I expect I would do the exact same with the HQ camera except the night shutter speed I would probably go to 15 seconds, I would also experiment with 20 seconds but I don't think I would like the trails from the stars.

I will test that script when I get the chance.

On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 6:01 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

This is currently a standalone script for testing purposes. The idea would be to put the new variables with comments in config.py. If you want to test pano I would recommend waveshare hat since Pimoroni hat has to be ordered from England with currency exchange and extra shipping costs. BTW I have several pimoroni hats and they are IMO better than Waveshare.

Waveshare HAT

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07PPV122Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Pimoroni HAT https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pan-tilt-hat?variant=22408353287

pi-timolo will automatically install the required pantilthat driver for either of these or a compatible.

This hat sits on top of the RPI plugged into the GPIO header. I also put standoffs on the opposite side to support the hat but not absolutely required. See wiki for details https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/wiki/Panoramic-Images-Stitching-Feature

Note assembly is a little finicky but there are YouTube videos (see wiki for a link)

BTW I would still like to see what settings you come up with for the camera override settings. Claude ....

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[pageauc]

FYI. Release 12.06 fixes a problem not maintaining TIMELAPSE_RECENT_MAX. It now keeps timelapse recent at specified maximum. I think it occured when global variables were renamed to capitalized snake format. Works now and recent is much faster with smaller number of recent entries. I set mine to 100 but default is 40. Anyway it now works the way it should. It should autocleanup older recent entries.

Hope everything is going well and you are safe, healthy and happy I will add the image settings override feature when I get your recommended default settings. Added a few more settings. See zip file

testcam.zip

Claude ...

[Distortionist]

Hi there! All is well thank you. I hope things are going well for you too. Sorry I have not gotten back to you, I gave the script a good run the day before yesterday for the first time without the overrides to have a base to compare to. Unfortunately it has been pretty crappy and rainy outside, today started with a bit of snow but it was very little and it may be clearing enough to give the overrides a try outside. The white balance and timelapse was better this time but it did start jumping around a bit as it got darker before it settled on good night settings. I have linked my videos below with 2.1 cameras I am using currently with my own simple raspistill scripts, the nighttime ones are locked everything to manual settings, the day one is only locked to awb cloud, I may lock the ISO to

100. The night settings I have currently locked are ISO to 800, Shutter to 10 seconds, and awb to greyworld because it is a noir cam.

I will update pi-timolo before running it again and I will check out the new overrides while I am at it. I got a chance to upload all the videos I have made with timelapses. My other pi with 2 cameras stuck to my window taking 24h timelapses, one camera is for day and one is for night. It is driving me crazy though it won't switch automatically in a script, it just hangs but if i invoke the script rather than let it run from crontab it runs fine. Oh the joys. Anyway, that is another project I am working on at the same time.

I ordered the Pimoroni hat. Not sure when I will get the chance to play with it, I would like to mount the HQ camera to it I am using with your pi-timolo. I would have to figure out how to mount it on my tripod. I have a pretty crude setup. I may have to buy a different camera for it. I am not sure if it can take the HQ cameras weight.

I managed to upload all my videos to youtube, this is all new to me, including my weather station and website you can see here http://livingstonecove.ca The videos I uploaded including the pi-timolo test can be found here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKGTTzMHcEtq-U22-Twfv9A The pi-timolo test is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bTeVI7dUWE

I will let you know when I do the override test.

I did find that the video maker cleanup misses one file haha. It is pretty funny but I have the path for the source set to media/timelapse, so I move the images from the dated subfolder created making the timelapse with mv * .. and make the timelapse. After it is done it cleans up and moves everything to archive except for 1 file. I manually delete it. I also manually clear the recents broken links after that. I feel like this is not the way you intended me to use it. I think you intended users to change the video.conf each time with the foldername of the timelapse shots I want to turn to a video. It is just easier and quicker to move and not edit the file. Maybe if it automatically figured out the folders and went in and made a video for each folder it would be more convenient, or maybe I am just missing something here.

Cheers and thank you.

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 8:37 AM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

FYI. Release 12.06 fixes a problem not maintaining TIMELAPSE_RECENT_MAX. It now keeps timelapse recent at specified maximum. I think it occured when global variables were renamed to capitalized snake format. Works now and recent is much faster with smaller number of recent entries. I set mine to 100 but default is 40. Anyway it now works the way it should. It should autocleanup older recent entries.

Hope everything is going well and you are safe, healthy and happy I will add the image settings override feature when I get your recommended default settings. Added a few more settings. See zip file

testcam.zip https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/files/5451558/testcam.zip

Claude ...

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[pageauc]

You should add music to your videos. You can do this from within YouTube Studio on a PC with chrome browser. See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/94316?hl=en

This is a mini video editor. You can add an audio track and pick creative commons music or sound effects from the google audio library. They have a large library of pretty good music.

I normally edit in my videos using my PC video editor. A good free Open Source video editor is Lightworks https://www.lwks.com/ Claude ...

[Distortionist]

I usually edit my videos from my PC and add sound but I don't really do much editing. These timelapses I am trying to make completely automated, I am self employed and a single dad with too many things on the go to edit these videos and pretty them up manually. I am always playing catch up with everything I have to do! I just love to see the day go by fast, my favourite are the night ones, I am patiently waiting for a nice long cloudless night to see the stars go by. I love that NOIR camera and the night time lapse videos it produces. I also can't wait to use my HQ camera I use with pi-timolo on a nice clear night where I can leave it out there pointing up and taking 15 second exposure pictures all night. I am interested to see its bigger sensor and lens pictures compared to the smaller 8mp camera with no IR filter. I really want to catch meteors and satellites in the sky. I love that stuff.

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 10:45 AM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

You should add music to your videos. You can do this from within YouTube Studio on a PC with chrome browser. See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/94316?hl=en

This is a mini video editor. You can add an audio track and pick creative commons music or sound effects from the google audio library. They have a large library of pretty good music.

I normally edit in my videos using my PC video editor. A good free Open Source video editor is Lightworks https://www.lwks.com/ Claude ...

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[Distortionist]

I feel really dumb but I am trying to test the override script, and it looks like it takes a shot, but I have no idea where on earth it put it! It is not in the folder I ran it from, it is not in the media/timelapse folder, not in the pi-timolo folder.. haha. Sorry but can you point me in the right direction here?

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 10:45 AM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

You should add music to your videos. You can do this from within YouTube Studio on a PC with chrome browser. See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/94316?hl=en

This is a mini video editor. You can add an audio track and pick creative commons music or sound effects from the google audio library. They have a large library of pretty good music.

I normally edit in my videos using my PC video editor. A good free Open Source video editor is Lightworks https://www.lwks.com/ Claude ...

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[pageauc]

I sent you a copy of testcam.py that I was testing with. I set CAMERA_OVERRIDE_DAY_ON = False # Default= False Override Day Settings Only (daymode auto detects Day) CAMERA_OVERRIDE_NIGHT_ON = False

This turned off the override feature so you did not get any override. I have added a reminder at bottom of script. Here are the settings currently

CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON = True     # Default= False Do NOT use Override settings True= Enabled
CAMERA_OVERRIDE_DAY_ON = True   # Default= False Override Day Settings Only (daymode auto detects Day)
CAMERA_OVERRIDE_NIGHT_ON = True # Default= False Override Night Settings Only (daymode auto detects Night)
CAMERA_WARM_SEC = 4           # Default= 4 Seconds to wait for camera to warm up

daymode = True  # This var will normally be set in pi-timolo based on pixel average.
                 # change to appropriate value for testing.

Please use the attached script that should work better for you. It just does one image at a time by design. I did not want to put in a loop since it would required adding more code. Claude ....

testcam.zip

[pageauc]

I think I will eliminate the CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON setting since the day night overrides would be simpler and less confusing. Note this script is just for testing things. Also some camera values can be read from the actual value the camera used. I may display the actual camera setting used where it is practical. Eg if Automatic setting used it would show what the camera AWB, Shutter, Etc was actually used by the camera. This is covered in the picamera api docs.

See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Claude ...

[Distortionist]

Yes it produced a picture now.

I did change the settings but I only changed CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON to True. I did not think I needed the other two because it was just one picture it produces at a time. I turned them all on and it works as expected now. With our luck the clouds took over already and I don't know If it will look all that great, but I have some settings to try. I will try them anyway for a little bit and let you know!

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:23 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

I think I will eliminate the CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON setting since they day night overrides would be simpler and less confusing. Note this script is just for testing things. Also some camera values can be read from the actual value the camera used. I may display the actual camera setting used where it is practical. Eg if Automatic setting used it would show what the camera AWB, Shutter, Etc was actually used by the camera. This is covered in the picamera api docs.

See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Claude ...

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[Distortionist]

Here is the short test today, it does look better than the last one but it looks like it is going to rain and I got the camera back inside. I need to test it over a full day to see how the whitebalance and shadows behave.

Here are the options I used for todays test :

CAMERA_DAY_OVERRIDE = {'resolution':(1920, 1080), # W, H of image to capture 'hflip':False, # True or False 'vflip':False, # True or False 'rotation':0, # Valid values in degrees 0, 90, 180 'iso':100, # Valid values 100 to 800 'brightness':50, # Valid Values 1 to 100 'contrast':20, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'saturation': 5, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'sharpness':30, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'shutter_speed':0, # 0=Auto or microseconds value 'awb_mode':'cloudy', 'exposure_mode':'auto', 'image_effect':'none', 'meter_mode':'matrix' }

And this is the result :

https://youtu.be/H9tqvcckjzc

The weather conditions are quite different than last time but it does seem less jumpy with the clouds, if you compare to last video around the 1 minute 10 second mark. I will test again when I get the chance for a whole day. I should have used shorter intervals as well, I forgot to change the warmup timer.

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:28 PM distortionist distortionist@gmail.com wrote:

Yes it produced a picture now.

I did change the settings but I only changed CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON to True. I did not think I needed the other two because it was just one picture it produces at a time. I turned them all on and it works as expected now. With our luck the clouds took over already and I don't know If it will look all that great, but I have some settings to try. I will try them anyway for a little bit and let you know!

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:23 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

I think I will eliminate the CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON setting since they day night overrides would be simpler and less confusing. Note this script is just for testing things. Also some camera values can be read from the actual value the camera used. I may display the actual camera setting used where it is practical. Eg if Automatic setting used it would show what the camera AWB, Shutter, Etc was actually used by the camera. This is covered in the picamera api docs.

See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Claude ...

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[Distortionist]

Hi Claude. I hope you are well. I have received the pimoroni pan tilt hat. I can't play with it because the only free camera is the HQ camera and it doesn't fit the mount. I have to investigate finding a new mount although it may just not be able to take the HQ camera's weight. The 2 cameras I have that would fit are stuck to my window taking time lapses already.

I have not had much chance to play with the test, the wind has been strong and we have had cloudy weather. Today is nice and it is currently shooting. I did however fine tune the other cameras, and to fix my white balance issues I have switched to manual control. There are 2 settings that would be useful to take control off and I really find they make a huge difference are the manual white balance, in raspistill it is a -awbg switch and then you define red and blue gain (green is fixed). For daytime on the 2.1 cameras locking them at 2.0,1.3 produces nice color throughout the day so far, and the white balance is not jumping around. I also started using dynamic range compensation, so when its a bright sky it doesn't turn the landscape black, it would try to dim the brighter areas and brighten up the dark areas, it works really well. My first test was yesterday, the results are awesome. I had turned the saturation a bit higher with the new settings to see if I get better results now but I had to tone it down for today, but I am very happy with the results.

If you can add those to the test it would be awesome, I find they improve the time lapse quality significantly! Here is a still from today with the locked white balance and the dynamic range compensation. It is a MASSIVE improvement in a still thanks to the DRC and the video is improved significantly with consistent white balance. [image: image.png]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 3:45 PM distortionist distortionist@gmail.com wrote:

Here is the short test today, it does look better than the last one but it looks like it is going to rain and I got the camera back inside. I need to test it over a full day to see how the whitebalance and shadows behave.

Here are the options I used for todays test :

CAMERA_DAY_OVERRIDE = {'resolution':(1920, 1080), # W, H of image to capture 'hflip':False, # True or False 'vflip':False, # True or False 'rotation':0, # Valid values in degrees 0, 90, 180 'iso':100, # Valid values 100 to 800 'brightness':50, # Valid Values 1 to 100 'contrast':20, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'saturation': 5, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'sharpness':30, # Valid Values -100 to +100 'shutter_speed':0, # 0=Auto or microseconds value 'awb_mode':'cloudy', 'exposure_mode':'auto', 'image_effect':'none', 'meter_mode':'matrix' }

And this is the result :

https://youtu.be/H9tqvcckjzc

The weather conditions are quite different than last time but it does seem less jumpy with the clouds, if you compare to last video around the 1 minute 10 second mark. I will test again when I get the chance for a whole day. I should have used shorter intervals as well, I forgot to change the warmup timer.

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:28 PM distortionist distortionist@gmail.com wrote:

Yes it produced a picture now.

I did change the settings but I only changed CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON to True. I did not think I needed the other two because it was just one picture it produces at a time. I turned them all on and it works as expected now. With our luck the clouds took over already and I don't know If it will look all that great, but I have some settings to try. I will try them anyway for a little bit and let you know!

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 12:23 PM Claude Pageau notifications@github.com wrote:

I think I will eliminate the CAMERA_OVERRIDE_ON setting since they day night overrides would be simpler and less confusing. Note this script is just for testing things. Also some camera values can be read from the actual value the camera used. I may display the actual camera setting used where it is practical. Eg if Automatic setting used it would show what the camera AWB, Shutter, Etc was actually used by the camera. This is covered in the picamera api docs.

See https://picamera.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.13/api_camera.html#picamera

Claude ...

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