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silvanmelchior / RPi_Cam_Web_Interface

A web interface for the RPi Cam
MIT License
1.52k stars 489 forks source link

Capture an image every 5 minutes #671

Open mfraser opened 1 year ago

mfraser commented 1 year ago

I'm currently using my own Python program to capture an image every 5 minutes constantly at 00,05,10 etc to create a time lapse video of the day. I would like to use RPi-Cam-Web-Interface as it will give me the option of changing things like white balance depending upon the time of day. Is it possible to make RPi-Cam-Web-Interface capture an image like this and also have the current image as a separate image?

roberttidey commented 1 year ago

Capturing a sequence of images at regular intervals is the built in time lapse function of the RPi interface. You just set the time lapse interval to 600 (for 5 minutes and start the time lapse operation.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by "current image as a separate image". The preview will show the current camera image live. If you wanted a separate copy of the latest time lapse image copied to a separate fixed file then you could do that using a macro which would be a simple bash script.

mfraser commented 1 year ago

Capturing a sequence of images at regular intervals is the built in time lapse function of the RPi interface. You just set the time lapse interval to 600 (for 5 minutes and start the time lapse operation.

Trouble is, if I start the time lapse running at say 10.03, then it will capture 5 minutes from then at 10.08, 10.13. I want it so that it will always capture at 00,05,10,15 etc whenever I start the time lapse running.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by "current image as a separate image". The preview will show the current camera image live. If you wanted a separate copy of the latest time lapse image copied to a separate fixed file then you could do that using a macro which would be a simple bash script.

If I want to use the current capture elsewhere, I need to know what the current image is.

roberttidey commented 1 year ago

Use the scheduler to start (and stop) the time lapse at a specific time. Set the scheduler to Fixed Times mode, set time for the start and end as times, and then enter the start command tl 1 and stop tl 0 in the period start fields.

Two example methods of accessing the current capture.

1) Use the macro method to copy the current image to a fixed file name like current.jpg

2) Include a command to find the name of the most recent file in the media folder which will be the latest time lapse capture. (e.g. ls -lrt | tail -n 1)