Raspberry-Pi-Time-Lapse

Just a simple how to on getting a timelapse working with a raspberry pi.

sudo raspi-config

Enable camera and reboot

mkdir camera

Create Camera Script

sudo nano /home/pi/camera.sh

#!/bin/bash

DATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

raspistill -o /home/pi/camera/$DATE.jpg

sudo chmod +x ./camera.sh

Set up Timelapse with crontab

crontab -e

* * * * * /home/pi/camera.sh 2>&1

# +---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  +------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  +---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  +------- month (1 - 12)
# |  |  |  |  +---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0 or 7)
# |  |  |  |  |
  *  *  *  *  *  command to be executed

so for example if you wanted it every 10 minutes:

*/10 * * * * /home/pi/camera.sh 2>&1

navigate to camera folder:

ls *.jpg > stills.txt

Raspbian Jessie

Rename your files:

ls *.jpg| awk 'BEGIN{ a=0 }{ printf "mv %s image%04d.jpg\n", $0, a++ }' | bash

from: http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/48095/alternative-to-mencoder-and-ffmpeg-for-timelapse-in-raspbian-jessie

Install gstreamer:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-omx  gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad

examples:

mp4

gst-launch-1.0 -v multifilesrc location=image%04d.jpg caps="image/jpeg,framerate=\(fraction\)30/1" ! jpegdec ! queue ! videoscale ! video/x-raw, width=1296, height=976 ! queue ! omxh264enc target-bitrate=15000000 control-rate=variable ! video/x-h264, profile=high ! h264parse ! mp4mux ! filesink location=todays_video.mp4

avi

gst-launch-1.0 multifilesrc location=image%06d.jpg index=1 caps="image/jpeg,framerate=24/1" ! jpegdec ! omxh264enc ! avimux ! filesink location=timelapse.avi

nonworking so far...

install libav-tools

sudo apt-get install libav-tools

create timelapse (adapt path to where your images are)

avconv -r 24 -f image2 -i /home/pi/camera/*.jpg -r 24 -vcodec libx264 -crf 20 -g 15 timelapse.mp4

Raspbian Wheezy

sudo apt-get install mencoder

ls *.jpg > stills.txt

mencoder -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:aspect=16/9:vbitrate=8000000 -vf scale=1920:1080 -o timelapse.avi -mf type=jpeg:fps=24 mf://@stills.txt

Using FFMPEG to compile timelapse video (on a windows PC)

this assumes all the image are the same dimensions and type, and all the files are named sequentially.

C:\Users\username\Desktop\TIMELAPSE_WORKING\PICTURES>C:\Users\username\Desktop\TIMELAPSE_WORKING\FFMPEG\ffmpeg-20161023-5867234-win64-static\bin\ffmpeg.exe -start_number 1 -i plant%d.jpg -c:v libx264 timelapse.mp4

Scheduling timelapse sessions

• set a fake time on boot e.g. sudo date -s "10 JAN 2016 0:0:00"
• set crontab to take image every x amount of time
• set crontab to run shutdown script after x hours