Getting Started - cmuche/octoprint-timelapseplus GitHub Wiki

Before you can use Timelapse+ you will have to configure some basic settings. Open the Timelapse+ plugin settings page in OctoPrint.

Basic Setup

Setup FFmpeg, FFprobe and the Webcam URL

In order to render your videos and get information about previously rendered videos, Timelapse+ requires FFmpeg and FFprobe. You need to install this on your host machine and ensure that OctoPrint is able to access the FFmpeg and FFprobe binaries. FFprobe is usually bundled with FFmpeg. So when your FFmpeg path is /usr/bin/ffmpeg your FFprobe path is probably /usr/bin/ffprobe.

Webcam Type

This setting tells Timelapse+ from what kind of webcam source it should capture your snapshots. It could either be an endpoint which provides a single still JPG/JPEG image (which should be the preferred method) or a stream (MJPEG/MP4/HLS). Keep in mind that Timelapse+ needs to do some extra transcoding when capturing your snapshots from a stream. So this could possibly affect your timing, depending on the extra time it needs for the conversion.

Webcam URL or Webcam Script Path

This is the URL of the mentioned image endpoint or stream.

If you choose Script as the Webcam Type, this will be the path to the script file which will be executed. Timelapse+ will pass a file path as an argument to the script and your script needs to create the snapshot as a jpg file at this location. Timelapse+ will fetch the generated image after your script has terminated.

Capture Mode and GCODE Preparation

Timelapse+ has two modes to trigger snapshots. The first is the good old time-based mode, which captures a frame every x seconds. If you select this mode you can set a timer interval in seconds.

The second option is the command-based mode. With this you can control the snapshot capturing directly from your GCODE. Whenever a special line (command) is sent to the printer, Timelapse+ will capture a snapshot. This is powerful if you set up your slicer so that it generates a snapshot command when a layer change occurs.

Timelapse+ supports two types of commands: @-Commands like @SNAPSHOT and Action Commands like M118 //action:SNAPSHOT or M118 A1 action:SNAPSHOT. A snapshot will be captured when any of these is sent to the printer. You can read more about Action Commands here and here. The Snapshot Command is customizable so when you enter for examle CAPTUREFRAME as the Snapshot Command, Timelapse+ will be triggered whenever it sees @CAPTUREFRAME in your GCODE or your printer sends the Action Command //action:CAPTUREFRAME.

Concepts

When a print is started (and Timelapse+ is configured correctly), Timelapse+ will start its capturing and you can see the current Print Job on the top of the page. You can see some details like how many frames were captured so far. When the print is finished or failed, Timelapse+ will store the captured frames in a Frame Collection which contain all the raw frame images taken of the print. These Frame Collections can be used to render a timelapse video. You can always re-render a timelapse with different settings. All your captured Frame Collections are listed on the Timelapse+ main page and with a click on the 'Render' button you will open the window for starting a Render Job. A Render job contains 3 main options to choose from: The Enhancement Preset, the Render Preset and the Output Format. You can define a list of customized presets in the settings page and re-use them for a Render Job. After you click on 'Start' a new Render Job with your chosen settings will be started and you can see it and track its status on the Timelapse+ main page.