Thumbnails - aaronwmorris/indi-allsky GitHub Wiki

Media Thumbnails

indi-allsky generates and manages preview thumbnails for all primary media objects to maintain rapid load performance across the web gallery and archive viewers.

Supported Media Types

Thumbnails are automatically generated upon creation of the following assets:

  • Still Images & Captures (Daily, Nightly, and Reference Frames)
  • Timelapse Videos (.mp4)
  • Mini-Timelapses
  • Keograms (Single-Night and Long-Term)
  • Star Trails Images & Videos
  • Panorama Images & Videos

Storage Architecture

Thumbnails are stored directly in the database (thumbnail table via IndiAllSkyDbThumbnailTable) rather than as hundreds of thousands of independent small files on the storage filesystem. This design:

  1. Prevents inode exhaustion on flash storage (eMMC and SD cards).
  2. Accelerates database-driven gallery queries with pre-cached base64 or binary image payloads.
  3. Simplifies automated retention and cleanup when parent image records expire.

Rebuilding Thumbnails

If thumbnails are missing following a filesystem restoration or legacy database migration, execute the thumbnail generation utility:

Debian Package Installations

sudo indi-allsky-ctl rebuild-thumbnails

Manual / Developer Installations

source /var/lib/indi-allsky/virtualenv/bin/activate
python /usr/share/indi-allsky/misc/create_thumbnails.py

SyncAPI Synchronization

When media assets are synchronized to a remote portal using the SyncAPI:

  • Thumbnails are synchronized via the dedicated /sync/v1/thumbnail endpoint.
  • If a remote portal database is rebuilt independently, execute indi-allsky-ctl rebuild-thumbnails on the remote server to repopulate missing preview records.