pi-frame

A simple Raspberry Pi based photo frame. See the blog post for more info.

Instructions

Gather hardware

Version 1: Pi3, official touchscreen (you’ll need a 2.5A power supply to power them together), 8GB micro SD card, and a ModMyPi customisable Pi screen stand.

Version 2: Pi Zero, micro USB converter, USB wifi, mini HDMI converter, HDMI cable, 8GB micro SD card, data micro USB cable, maybe a case.

Create a flickr account and get a developer key

https://www.flickr.com/signup

https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/create/noncommercial/

Provision a micro SD card

Download a full Jessie with Pixel, not lite or NOOBS, and put it on your micro SD card. I'm asuming 2016-11-25 release. This is on a Mac.

(N is a number, usually 2 for me)

diskutil list
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
sudo dd bs=1m if=~/Downloads/2016-11-25-raspbian-jessie.img of=/dev/rdiskN

Depending on your version of Jessie, you may need to enable ssh (before ejecting) - see this security update

touch /Volumes/boot/ssh

Log in to the pi

For the Zero, follow these instructions

For Pi3, I usually use an ethernet cable to connect my laptop and the Pi and then go to System preferences -> Sharing -> Internet sharing, and then ssh in as pi@raspberrypi.local - or you could use a screen and keyboard / mouse.

Change hostname, password, add wifi

change password

passwd

change hostname

sudo pico /etc/hosts
sudo pico /etc/hostname

add wifi credentials

sudo pico /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

network={
  ssid="YOUR NETWORK SSID"
  psk="YOUR NETWORK PASSWORD"
}

or if your network has no password

network={
  ssid="YOUR NETWORK SSID"
  proto=RSN
  key_mgmt=NONE
}

Get this repo

git clone https://github.com/libbymiller/pi-frame.git /home/pi/frame

Install prerequisites

sudo apt-get install unclutter
sudo pip install flickrapi

If using face detection

sudo apt-get install python-opencv
cd /home/pi/frame
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/opencv/opencv/master/data/haarcascades/haarcascade_frontalface_default.xml

Do first download and log in to flickr

edit cacheimages.py and add your flickr api parameters and user id

python cacheimages.py 

or

python cacheimages_zero.py

(you'll need to put the url it prints into a browser and then paste in the code that flickr gives you. The script will then download some images).

Test

export DISPLAY=:0.0
bash /home/pi/frame/frame.sh

if connected to a screen it should just work; if not, you can still test it by going to http://<piname>.local:3000 on a computer on the same network.

Configure crontab and autostart

pico ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

contents should be:

@lxpanel --profile LXDE-pi
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE-pi
@xscreensaver -no-splash
@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@unclutter -idle 0.1 -root

@/bin/bash /home/pi/frame/frame.sh

Add crontab

crontab -e

0,15,30,45 * * * * cd /home/pi/frame && /usr/bin/python cacheimages.py > log.txt 2>&1

or for pi zero (no face detection)

0,15,30,45 * * * * cd /home/pi/frame && /usr/bin/python cacheimages_zero.py > log.txt 2>&1

Attach screen and reboot.