Pi Camera
pi-camera

This page collects different ways to use Raspberry Pi computer boards (and related boards) to make small, cheap, lightweight cameras for different purposes, including #aerial-mapping, #balloon-mapping, #kite-mapping, #timelapse and #spectrometry. ## Raspberry Pi Simple Camera Kit We've [been working on some software](https://github.com/publiclab/image-builder-rpi/) for this widely used mini camera-and-computer in a tiny box (especially the lightweight "Zero W" model) to make it available with a **pre-flashed SD card** that turns this into a **ready-to-use WiFi enabled camera**. This gets over many of the barriers of using the regular Raspberry Pi kit and having to do a lot of programming/installing to get it running. We've managed to get a **plug and play** version running! Just plug it in using a Micro USB cable (or battery pack) and it'll create a WiFi network called "00PiCamera" -- password "publiclab" -- which you can log into from your phone or laptop. You'll quickly see streaming video, be able to take photos, timelapses, or videos, do motion triggered capture, and more: * [Pi Camera Kit](https://store.publiclab.org/products/raspberry-pi-camera) * [Infragram Pi Camera Kit](https://store.publiclab.org/products/infragram-pi-camera) * our [Microscope Pi kits](https://store.publiclab.org/collections/microscopes) use this as well * [Pre-flashed SD cards for Raspberry Pi cameras](https://store.publiclab.org/products/pi-builder-cards) * combine with (maybe?) [CR123a lithium battery](https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=cr123a) (and tell us how that goes!) For more on the open source Pi Builder software that made this possible, [see this blog post](/notes/icarito/10-21-2018/introducing-pi-builder) and [troubleshoot on this wiki page](/pi-builder) [notes:grid:activity:pi-camera-setup] **** ## Questions Questions can be either frequently asked questions, or "next step" challenges we're looking to solve. [questions:pi-camera] ## Activities Activities show how to use this project, step by step. [activities:pi-camera] **** ### Resources * Camera module http://m.e-cantonfair.com/#/product/552106 * Focus tricks https://raspi.tv/2013/adapt-your-raspberry-pi-camera-for-close-up-use * Very detailed documentation https://elinux.org/Rpi_Camera_Module * Datasheets and very detailed documentation on v1 camera: https://github.com/techyian/MMALSharp/wiki/OmniVision-OV5647-Camera-Module * Datasheets and very detailed documentation on v2 camera: https://github.com/techyian/MMALSharp/wiki/Sony-IMX219-Camera-Module...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
rayavidas " The mass spectrometry is what we use to measure the quantity of light sun all the plants and artificial grass received. The result of combine of i..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
petter_mansson1 "I use a combination of PILLOW, numpy and Matplotlib. You can also find all my camera settings in https://github.com/PiddePannkauga/ndviMachine. It ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jmdavison12 " Thanks Petter, I'm using a headless Raspberry Pi so I don't have the option of writing a GUI application (without networking the stream and severe..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
petter_mansson1 "Here is my repo for the GUI application. Run the script on your raspberry pi. Think you need to install a Tkinter library. At first I only created ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
petter_mansson1 " I wrote a simple GUI application using TK for Python with 2 sliders to control AWB gains. That was my approach to finding a good balance. I don't ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jmdavison12 " " | Read more » over 5 years ago
jmdavison12 " Hi Peter, What red/blue gains did you use for these photos (I assume you are using picamera)? I know that lighting conditions vary and white bala..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
warren "Oops responded to the wrong comment, moving here: Hi all! Great input here. Just noting that we've had a major revision to the PL spectrometer des..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
stoft "Observation of some basic system parameters will help define the limits. 1) A single stable source (Solux and CFL) plus the PLab-class spectromete..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
stoft "With non steady-state sources, measurement error results from asynchronous data sampling. The 'fix' is either long integration time (assuming the s..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah "Sure I'll post a question about it! After stewing on it a while, I don't think it should be a huge issue in most relevant contexts, (esp. for other..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah "Thanks! It looks like khufkens predicted the response from >700 as the data was not yet available. If you look at the spectrum published by Sony..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah " Great fodder for thinking about. 1) Agreed, having an individual light measurement per plant has advantages in certain scenarios. I guess it comes..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jmdavison12 "Dang, nice! Didn't realize this was possible with the blue filter that ships with the piNoIR. I can't believe how clear these results are. I'm als..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
petter_mansson1 " Hi Jacob, Cool! It would be interesting to compare ideas. I'm taking a single image, using the blue filter that came with the NoIR camera module..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jmdavison12 " Wow, great work Peter! Have you not included the non-filtered image used to generate the single channel NDVI? or are you doing 'single image' NDVI..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
ankurp836 " Thanks for buddy Post " | Read more » over 5 years ago
MaggPi " This may be OBE but Hufkens has posted files of the PI response curves: https://khufkens.github.io/pi-camera-response-curves/ which were also r..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
stoft "Ok, the project concepts are taking shape which always prompts more thoughts. 1) By 2D mapping the light spectrum and relative intensity, you will..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
warren "Hi! I think the question of rolling shutter might deserve it's own question posted, to really dig into - it's a great question! One thought I had w..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah "I was just reading on the pi website about the rolling shutter and I was wrong about the global shutter (it said only cameras with physical shutter..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah "So I was reading about minimum exposure time of the Pi cameras and learned that it uses something called a "rolling shutter", which means it reads ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jenjimah " Yes that's exactly what I intend to do with the sun. Given sensor stability, and no shifts or changes in the spectrometer's build, calibration wou..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
stoft "A few more thoughts... On absolute 'average' intensity - You could use a Solux source (at fixed distance and known orientation) as a transfer stan..." | Read more » over 5 years ago