Raspberry Pi Camera Setup - Motion detected movie creation (obsolete)

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THIS PAGE IS OBSOLETE - PLEASE CONTINUE READING HERE: Home Automation with Raspberry Pi

This article describes the setup of the Raspberry Pi Camera with motion to take pictures on [1]motion. If you want to see, how you make a time-lapse movie rather than a motion-triggered, see Raspberry Pi Camera Setup for Time-Lapse!

Setup

Get package list

apt-get update

Update all packages

apt-get upgrade

Enable the camera

raspi-config

Raspicam01.png
Then answer the following stupid questions ("really enable?" and "reboot now?"), and you're done.

Configuration

Now we've set up drivers, we need to verknuspel[2] the Raspi Cam with motion. That is a bit tricky, since motion does not support the Raspi Cam. But it supports webcams. So we need to convert our Raspi Cam into a webcam.

Make the Pi take pictures

Make PiCam Device accessible

Since /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ is the default CGI-directory...

  • make sure, everyone can access the camera device[3]:
chmod o+rwx /dev/vchiq 

Setup script for taking a picture

  • create a folder named webcam:
cd /usr/lib/cgi-gbin
mkdir webcam
chown pi webcam
  • create this script named webcam.cgi:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Content-type: image/jpeg"
echo ""
#
# timeout should not be 0, since images will be to dark and are noisy
#raspistill --nopreview -t 1 -w 1024 -h 768 -o -
# 
# Since my cam is mounted wrong, I prefer to flip it :)
raspistill --nopreview -t 1 -w 1024 -h 768 -o - | convert - -flip -
#
#raspistill -t 0 -w 1024 -h 768 -o -
exit 0

* Make it executable

chmod +x webcam.cgi

This won't work very reliably, because this will occur:

stdout: mmal: mmal_vc_component_enable: failed to enable component: ENOSPC
mmal: camera component couldn't be enabled
mmal: main: Failed to create camera component
mmal: Failed to run camera app. Please check for firmware updates

No solution yet, so I decided to don't let motion execute the cgi, but crond:

  • create this script named takePicture.sh:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Globals
#
GFOLDERTARGET="/var/www/webcam"
GFILELOCK="${GFOLDERTARGET}/takePicture.lck"
GFILELOCKAGEMAX="60"
#
#
#
# Main
#
# Check locking
if [ -f "${GFILELOCK}" ]; then
  LOCKFILEAGE="`stat --format=\"%Z\" \"${GFILELOCK}\"`"
  NOW="`date +'%s'`"
  AGE="`expr ${NOW} - ${LOCKFILEAGE}`"
  if [ "${AGE}" -gt "${GFILELOCKAGEMAX}" ]; then
     echo "Lockfile is ${AGE} seconds old, removing it."
     rm "${GFILELOCK}"
  else
     echo "Lockfile is ${AGE} seconds old, exiting."
     exit 1
  fi
fi
#
#
# Lock
echo $$ > "${GFILELOCK}"
#
# timeout should not be 0, since images will be to dark and are noisy
# Since my cam is mounted wrong, I prefer to flip it :) (and flop it)
raspistill --nopreview -w 1024 -h 768 -o - | convert - -flip -flop - > "${GFOLDERTARGET}/lastsnap.tmp"
mv "${GFOLDERTARGET}/lastsnap.tmp" "${GFOLDERTARGET}/lastsnap.jpg"
#
# Unlock
rm "${GFILELOCK}"
#
# Exit
exit 0
  • create a folder named webcam:
cd /var/www
mkdir webcam
chown pi webcam

Setup script for taking pictures

  • create this script named takePictures.sh[4]:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Globals
GSNAPSHOTSPERMINUTE=4
GSNAPSHOTINTERVAL="`expr 60 / 4`"
#
# Main
#for i in {0.."${GSNAPSHOTSPERMINUTE}"..1} # fail
#for i in {0..4..1} # works
for ((i=1; i<=${GSNAPSHOTSPERMINUTE}; i++)) 
do
  TIMEBEFORESNAPSHOT="`date +'%s'`"
  echo "Taking snapshot at `date`"
  /home/pi/Development/motion_webcam/takePicture.sh
  TIMEAFTERSNAPSHOT="`date +'%s'`"
  DURATIONOFSNAPSHOT="`expr ${TIMEAFTERSNAPSHOT} - ${TIMEBEFORESNAPSHOT}`"
  if [ "${DURATIONOFSNAPSHOT}" -lt "${GSNAPSHOTINTERVAL}" ]; then
     DELAY="`expr ${GSNAPSHOTINTERVAL} - ${DURATIONOFSNAPSHOT}`"
     echo "Sleeping for ${DELAY} seconds."
     sleep ${DELAY}
  fi
done
  • Add this to pi's crontab:
# PiCam
* * * * *       /home/pi/Development/motion_webcam/takePictures.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

Check if it works

Get motion to check 'em

Install motion

apt-get install motion

Configure motion

Edit /etc/motion/motion.conf:

netcam_url http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/webcam/webcam.cgi
netcam_url http://127.0.0.1/webcam/lastsnap.jpg

and

target_dir /var/www/webcam-archive

and

width 1024

and

height 768

and

framerate 2

and

minimum_frame_time 0

Don't forget to relaunch motion:

root@raspberrypi:/etc/motion# /etc/init.d/motion restart

How do the scripts work?

  • The takePictures.sh script will be fired every minute and will take, launching takePicture.sh a picture avery 15 seconds (4 per minute)
  • motion will check the change of the created lastsnap.jpg and…
    • …will create a movie
    • …will create a nicly named set of images as archive of the stills

  1. guess what! :)
  2. yes, I just coined the term. I hope it will make it! More about verknuspel!
  3. including web users
  4. Execution of /home/pi/Development/motion_webcam/takePicture.sh takes approx. 7 seconds!