picam is a simple camera system for the Raspberry Pi, which takes snapshots at custom intervals (daily, hourly, or every minute), and uploads them to your FTP server. It is designed specifically for unstable network conditions, and will buffer images locally until they all can be uploaded successfully. Images older than N days can be automatically deleted from the FTP server. Finally, a web server is provided to take a snapshot and view the image via any web browser.
Tested on a Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian OS v8 and Node.js v0.10.
- Snap pictures from Pi camera at daily, hourly or minute intervals.
- Upload images to any FTP server.
- Designed to work under unstable network conditions.
- Automatic recovery, even if network is down for a any amount of time.
- Automatic deletion of old images (older than N days).
- Built-in web server for snapping picture and viewing result instantly.
For brand new Raspberry Pi devices, make sure you enable SSH and the camera module. With Rasibian OS, this is located in the main menu, "Raspberry Pi Configuration" dialog. Then, open a Terminal and make sure your packages are up to date, and install curl and Node.js:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install curl
sudo apt-get install node
Once that is complete, become root and install the picam software:
sudo bash
mkdir -p /opt/picam
cd /opt/picam
curl -L https://github.com/jhuckaby/picam/archive/master.zip | tar zxvf - --strip-components 1
chmod 755 server.js
mkdir temp && chmod 777 temp
As a final step, issue these three commands to make sure the picam server starts up at server boot:
cp /opt/picam/picam.init /etc/init.d/picam
chmod 775 /etc/init.d/picam
update-rc.d picam defaults
That's it! Start the server with this command:
/etc/init.d/picam start
The picam configuration file will be installed to /opt/picam/config.json and has this format:
{
"webServerPort": 80,
"logFile": "picam.log",
"tempDir": "temp",
"snapshotCommand": "/usr/bin/raspistill",
"snapshotOpts": "",
"imageWidth": 1920,
"imageRotate": 0,
"imageFormat": "jpg",
"imageQuality": 90,
"filenamePrefix": "image-",
"curlCommand": "/usr/bin/curl",
"curlOpts": "--retry 100 --retry-max-time 60 -v",
"ftpHostname": "FTP.YOURSERVER.COM",
"ftpUsername": "YOUR_USERNAME",
"ftpPassword": "YOUR_PASSWORD",
"ftpDirectory": "path/to/your/images",
"keepDays": 90,
"schedule": {
"00:00": "snapshotUpload",
"04:30": "deleteOldFiles",
":30": "uploadAllFiles"
}
}Here are descriptions of the configuration properties:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
webServerPort |
Which port to listen on (80 is the default for HTTP). |
logFile |
Path and filename of the log file, relative to the base dir (/opt/picam). |
tempDir |
Path to temp directory where local images are stored, relative to the base dir (/opt/picam). |
snapshotCommand |
The actual command to use to take Pi camera snapshots, should be /usr/bin/raspistill. |
snapshotOpts |
Optional arguments to pass to the raspistill command. |
imageWidth |
Optionally scale images down to the specified width in pixels (height is calculated automatically), defaults to 1920. |
imageRotate |
Optionally rotate image by the specified number of degrees. |
imageFormat |
The image format to use (jpg or png). Defaults to jpg. |
imageQuality |
Set the image quality from 1 - 100 (only for jpg format). |
filenamePrefix |
Optional filename prefix, defaults to image-. |
curlCommand |
Location to the curl binary on the Pi. Typical location is /usr/bin/curl. |
curlOpts |
Optional arguments to pass to curl which can include retries. |
ftpHostname |
FTP hostname for uploading images. |
ftpUsername |
FTP username for authenticating uploads. |
ftpPassword |
FTP password for authenticating uploads. |
ftpDirectory |
FTP remote directory for image upload (optional, defaults to FTP user's home dir). |
keepDays |
Maximum number of days to keep images on server before deleting (optional). |
schedule |
When to snapshot, upload and delete files (see below). |
The schedule configuration property should be and object containing specific keys, describing when events should execute. The keys can be any of the following:
| Key Syntax | Description |
|---|---|
HH::MM |
Run once per day, at the specified hour and minute. |
:MM |
Run hourly, at the specified minute. |
minute |
Run every minute, on the minute, every hour. |
hour |
Run once per hour on the hour, same as :00. |
day |
Run once per day at midnight, same as 00:00. |
month |
Run once per month at midnight on the 1st. |
year |
Run once per year on January 1st at midnight. |
The values (commands to execute) should be any of the following (strings):
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
snapshotUpload |
Take snapshot and upload it via FTP. |
deleteOldFiles |
Delete old files from the FTP server (older than keepDays days). |
uploadAllFiles |
Retry any pending files that may have failed on the previous upload attempt. |
Here is the default schedule:
"schedule": {
"00:00": "snapshotUpload",
"04:30": "deleteOldFiles",
":30": "uploadAllFiles"
}The default schedule will take and upload snapshots daily at midnight (00:00). It is also set to delete old files (number of days specified by the keepDays config property) at 4:30 AM (04:30) local server time. Also, it will keep trying to upload files every hour on the half hour (:30). This is for retrying failed uploads.
If you want to snap images hourly instead of daily, change the snapshotUpload key to something like this:
"schedule": {
":00": "snapshotUpload"
}
If you want images every minute of every hour of every day, you can use the keyword minute, like this:
"schedule": {
"minute": "snapshotUpload"
}
Image snapshots are designed to be taken using the raspistill utility, which should come with your Raspberry Pi (assuming you have Raspbian OS). You can specify the desired image size via the imageWidth configuration property, the image format via imageFormat, among others. These properties all become arguments on the raspistill command. Example command:
/usr/bin/raspistill -rot 90 -w 1920 -q 90 -o image-2018-05-21-00-00-10.jpg
The image files themselves are always named using the current year, month, day, hour, minute and second: YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MI-SS. This is so the FTP deletion system can identify when they were first uploaded. However, you can supply your own filename prefix via the filenamePrefix configuration property. This defaults to image-. Example filename:
image-2018-05-21-00-00-10.jpg
The built-in web server allows you to run certain image commands via a web browser. Just construct a URL to your Raspberry Pi's IP address (or hostname, if you have that configured in DNS), and include one of the following URIs. Here is the list of available commands:
This instructs the Pi to immediately take a snapshot, and send the image back to the browser. This allows you quickly "see" what the Pi camera is seeing. It does not upload the image to the FTP server. Example URL:
http://192.168.1.10/snapshot
Please note that it takes about 5 seconds to warm up the camera, take the shot, and send it to your browser.
This instructs the Pi to run a snapshot + upload, just like the scheduled snapshotUpload command. This will not display the image in the browser, but rather just instructs the Pi to run the two commands in the background. Example URL:
http://192.168.1.10/run
This instructs the Pi to upload any pending images that may have failed to upload on previous attempts. This is the same as the uploadAllFiles scheduled command. This will not display the image in the browser, but rather just instructs the Pi to run the command in the background. Example URL:
http://192.168.1.10/upload
This instructs the Pi to delete old images from the FTP server, based on the keepDays configuration property. This is the same as the deleteOldFiles scheduled command. This will not display anything in the browser, but rather just instructs the Pi to run the command in the background. Example URL:
http://192.168.1.10/delete
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Joseph Huckaby
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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