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.. currentmodule:: picamera



The following recipes involve advanced techniques and may not be "beginner friendly". Please feel free to suggest enhancements or additional recipes.

Warning

When trying out these scripts do not name your file :file:picamera.py. Naming scripts after existing Python modules will cause errors when you try and import those modules (because Python checks the current directory before checking other paths).

## Capturing to a numpy array

Since 1.11, picamera can capture directly to any object which supports Python's buffer protocol (including numpy's :class:~numpy.ndarray). Simply pass the object as the destination of the capture and the image data will be written directly to the object. The target object must fulfil various requirements (some of which are dependent on the version of Python you are using):

1. The buffer object must be writeable (e.g. you cannot capture to a :class:bytes object as it is immutable).
2. The buffer object must be large enough to receive all the image data.
3. (Python 2.x only) The buffer object must be 1-dimensional.
4. (Python 2.x only) The buffer object must have byte-sized items.

For example, to capture directly to a three-dimensional numpy :class:~numpy.ndarray (Python 3.x only):

.. literalinclude:: examples/array_capture_py3.py



It is also important to note that when outputting to unencoded formats, the camera rounds the requested resolution. The horizontal resolution is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 32 pixels, while the vertical resolution is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 16 pixels. For example, if the requested resolution is 100x100, the capture will actually contain 128x112 pixels worth of data, but pixels beyond 100x100 will be uninitialized.

So, to capture a 100x100 image we first need to provide a 128x112 array, then strip off the uninitialized pixels afterward. The following example demonstrates this along with the re-shaping necessary under Python 2.x:

.. literalinclude:: examples/array_capture_py2.py



Warning

Under certain circumstances (non-resized, non-YUV, video-port captures), the resolution is rounded to 16x16 blocks instead of 32x16. Adjust your resolution rounding accordingly.

.. versionadded:: 1.11



## Capturing to an OpenCV object

This is a variation on :ref:array_capture. OpenCV uses numpy arrays as images and defaults to colors in planar BGR. Hence, the following is all that's required to capture an OpenCV compatible image:

.. literalinclude:: examples/opencv_capture.py


.. versionchanged:: 1.11
Replaced recipe with direct array capture example.



## Unencoded image capture (YUV format)

If you want images captured without loss of detail (due to JPEG's lossy compression), you are probably better off exploring PNG as an alternate image format (PNG uses lossless compression). However, some applications (particularly scientific ones) simply require the image data in numeric form. For this, the 'yuv' format is provided:

.. literalinclude:: examples/yuv_capture1.py



The specific YUV format used is YUV420 (planar). This means that the Y (luminance) values occur first in the resulting data and have full resolution (one 1-byte Y value for each pixel in the image). The Y values are followed by the U (chrominance) values, and finally the V (chrominance) values. The UV values have one quarter the resolution of the Y components (4 1-byte Y values in a square for each 1-byte U and 1-byte V value). This is illustrated in the diagram below:

It is also important to note that when outputting to unencoded formats, the camera rounds the requested resolution. The horizontal resolution is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 32 pixels, while the vertical resolution is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 16 pixels. For example, if the requested resolution is 100x100, the capture will actually contain 128x112 pixels worth of data, but pixels beyond 100x100 will be uninitialized.

Given that the YUV420 format contains 1.5 bytes worth of data for each pixel (a 1-byte Y value for each pixel, and 1-byte U and V values for every 4 pixels), and taking into account the resolution rounding, the size of a 100x100 YUV capture will be:

The first 14336 bytes of the data (128*112) will be Y values, the next 3584 bytes (128 \times 112 \div 4) will be U values, and the final 3584 bytes will be the V values.

The following code demonstrates capturing YUV image data, loading the data into a set of numpy arrays, and converting the data to RGB format in an efficient manner:

.. literalinclude:: examples/yuv_capture2.py



Note

You may note that we are using :func:open in the code above instead of :func:io.open as in the other examples. This is because numpy's :func:numpy.fromfile method annoyingly only accepts "real" file objects.

This recipe is now encapsulated in the :class:~array.PiYUVArray class in the :mod:picamera.array module, which means the same can be achieved as follows:

.. literalinclude:: examples/yuv_capture3.py



As of 1.11 you can also capture directly to numpy arrays (see :ref:array_capture). Due to the difference in resolution of the Y and UV components, this isn't directly useful (if you need all three components, you're better off using :class:~array.PiYUVArray as this rescales the UV components for convenience). However, if you only require the Y plane you can provide a buffer just large enough for this plane and ignore the error that occurs when writing to the buffer (picamera will deliberately write as much as it can to the buffer before raising an exception to support this use-case):

.. literalinclude:: examples/yuv_capture4.py



Alternatively, see :ref:rgb_capture for a method of having the camera output RGB data directly.

Note

Capturing so-called "raw" formats ('yuv', 'rgb', etc.) does not provide the raw bayer data from the camera's sensor. Rather, it provides access to the image data after GPU processing, but before format encoding (JPEG, PNG, etc). Currently, the only method of accessing the raw bayer data is via the bayer parameter to the :meth:~PiCamera.capture method. See :ref:bayer_data for more information.

.. versionchanged:: 1.0
The :attr:~PiCamera.raw_format attribute is now deprecated, as is the
'raw' format specification for the :meth:~PiCamera.capture method.
Simply use the 'yuv' format instead, as shown in the code above.


.. versionchanged:: 1.5
Added note about new :mod:picamera.array module.


.. versionchanged:: 1.11
Added instructions for direct array capture.



## Unencoded image capture (RGB format)

The RGB format is rather larger than the YUV format discussed in the section above, but is more useful for most analyses. To have the camera produce output in RGB format, you simply need to specify 'rgb' as the format for the :meth:~PiCamera.capture method instead:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rgb_capture1.py



The size of RGB data can be calculated similarly to YUV captures. Firstly round the resolution appropriately (see :ref:yuv_capture for the specifics), then multiply the number of pixels by 3 (1 byte of red, 1 byte of green, and 1 byte of blue intensity). Hence, for a 100x100 capture, the amount of data produced is:

Warning

Under certain circumstances (non-resized, non-YUV, video-port captures), the resolution is rounded to 16x16 blocks instead of 32x16. Adjust your resolution rounding accordingly.

The resulting RGB data is interleaved. That is to say that the red, green and blue values for a given pixel are grouped together, in that order. The first byte of the data is the red value for the pixel at (0, 0), the second byte is the green value for the same pixel, and the third byte is the blue value for that pixel. The fourth byte is the red value for the pixel at (1, 0), and so on.

As the planes in RGB data are all equally sized (in contrast to YUV420) it is trivial to capture directly into a numpy array (Python 3.x only; see :ref:array_capture for Python 2.x instructions):

.. literalinclude:: examples/rgb_capture2.py



Note

RGB captures from the still port do not work at the full resolution of the camera (they result in an out of memory error). Either use YUV captures, or capture from the video port if you require full resolution.

.. versionchanged:: 1.0
The :attr:~PiCamera.raw_format attribute is now deprecated, as is the
'raw' format specification for the :meth:~PiCamera.capture method.
Simply use the 'rgb' format instead, as shown in the code above.


.. versionchanged:: 1.5
Added note about new :mod:picamera.array module.


.. versionchanged:: 1.11
Added instructions for direct array capture.



## Custom outputs

All methods in the picamera library which accept a filename also accept file-like objects. Typically, this is only used with actual file objects, or with memory streams (like :class:io.BytesIO). However, building a custom output object is extremely easy and in certain cases very useful. A file-like object (as far as picamera is concerned) is simply an object with a write method which must accept a single parameter consisting of a byte-string, and which can optionally return the number of bytes written. The object can optionally implement a flush method (which has no parameters), which will be called at the end of output.

Custom outputs are particularly useful with video recording as the custom output's write method will be called (at least) once for every frame that is output, allowing you to implement code that reacts to each and every frame without going to the bother of a full :ref:custom encoder <custom_encoders>. However, one should bear in mind that because the write method is called so frequently, its implementation must be sufficiently rapid that it doesn't stall the encoder (it must perform its processing and return before the next write is due to arrive if you wish to avoid dropping frames).

The following trivial example demonstrates an incredibly simple custom output which simply throws away the output while counting the number of bytes that would have been written and prints this at the end of the output:

.. literalinclude:: examples/custom_outputs_count.py



The following example shows how to use a custom output to construct a crude motion detection system. We construct a custom output object which is used as the destination for motion vector data (this is particularly simple as motion vector data always arrives as single chunks; frame data by contrast sometimes arrives in several separate chunks). The output object doesn't actually write the motion data anywhere; instead it loads it into a numpy array and analyses whether there are any significantly large vectors in the data, printing a message to the console if there are. As we are not concerned with keeping the actual video output in this example, we use :file:/dev/null as the destination for the video data:

.. literalinclude:: examples/custom_outputs_motion_detector.py



You may wish to investigate the classes in the :mod:picamera.array module which implement several custom outputs for analysis of data with numpy. In particular, the :class:~array.PiMotionAnalysis class can be used to remove much of the boiler plate code from the recipe above:

.. literalinclude:: examples/custom_outputs_motion_analysis.py


.. versionadded:: 1.5



## Unconventional file outputs

As noted in prior sections, picamera accepts a wide variety of things as an output:

The simplest of these, the filename, hides a certain amount of complexity. It can be important to understand exactly how picamera treats files, especially when dealing with "unconventional" files (e.g. pipes, FIFOs, etc.)

When given a filename, picamera does the following:

1. Opens the specified file with the 'wb' mode, i.e. open for writing, truncating the file first, in binary mode.
2. The file is opened with a larger-than-normal buffer size, specifically 64Kb. A large buffer size is utilized because it improves performance and system load with the majority use-case, i.e. sequentially writing video to the disk.
3. The requested data (image captures, video recording, etc.) is written to the open file.
4. Finally, the file is flushed and closed. Note that this is the only circumstance in which picamera will presume to close the output for you, because picamera opened the output for you.

As noted above, this fits the majority use case (sequentially writing video to a file) very well. However, if you are piping data to another process via a FIFO (which picamera will simply treat as any other file), you may wish to avoid all the buffering. In this case, you can simply open the output yourself with no buffering. As noted above, you will then be responsible for closing the output when you are finished with it (you opened it, so the responsibility for closing it is yours as well).

For example:

.. literalinclude:: examples/weird_outputs.py



## Rapid capture and processing

The camera is capable of capturing a sequence of images extremely rapidly by utilizing its video-capture capabilities with a JPEG encoder (via the use_video_port parameter). However, there are several things to note about using this technique:

• When using video-port based capture only the video recording area is captured; in some cases this may be smaller than the normal image capture area (see discussion in :ref:camera_modes).
• No Exif information is embedded in JPEG images captured through the video-port.
• Captures typically appear "grainier" with this technique. Captures from the still port use a slower, more intensive denoise algorithm.

All capture methods support the use_video_port option, but the methods differ in their ability to rapidly capture sequential frames. So, whilst :meth:~PiCamera.capture and :meth:~PiCamera.capture_continuous both support use_video_port, :meth:~PiCamera.capture_sequence is by far the fastest method (because it does not re-initialize an encoder prior to each capture). Using this method, the author has managed 30fps JPEG captures at a resolution of 1024x768.

By default, :meth:~PiCamera.capture_sequence is particularly suited to capturing a fixed number of frames rapidly, as in the following example which captures a "burst" of 5 images:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_capture_sequence.py



We can refine this slightly by using a generator expression to provide the filenames for processing instead of specifying every single filename manually:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_capture_generator.py



However, this still doesn't let us capture an arbitrary number of frames until some condition is satisfied. To do this we need to use a generator function to provide the list of filenames (or more usefully, streams) to the :meth:~PiCamera.capture_sequence method:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_capture_yield.py



The major issue with capturing this rapidly is firstly that the Raspberry Pi's IO bandwidth is extremely limited and secondly that, as a format, JPEG is considerably less efficient than the H.264 video format (which is to say that, for the same number of bytes, H.264 will provide considerably better quality over the same number of frames). At higher resolutions (beyond 800x600) you are likely to find you cannot sustain 30fps captures to the Pi's SD card for very long (before exhausting the disk cache).

If you are intending to perform processing on the frames after capture, you may be better off just capturing video and decoding frames from the resulting file rather than dealing with individual JPEG captures. Thankfully this is relatively easy as the JPEG format has a simple magic number (FF D8). This means we can use a :ref:custom output <custom_outputs> to separate the frames out of an MJPEG video recording by inspecting the first two bytes of each buffer:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_capture_mjpeg.py



So far, we've just saved the captured frames to disk. This is fine if you're intending to process later with another script, but what if we want to perform all processing within the current script? In this case, we may not need to involve the disk (or network) at all. We can set up a pool of parallel threads to accept and process image streams as captures come in:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_capture_threading.py



## Unencoded video capture

Just as unencoded RGB data can be captured as images, the Pi's camera module can also capture an unencoded stream of RGB (or YUV) video data. Combining this with the methods presented in :ref:custom_outputs (via the classes from :mod:picamera.array), we can produce a fairly rapid color detection script:

.. literalinclude:: examples/color_detect.py



## Rapid capture and streaming

Following on from :ref:rapid_capture, we can combine the video capture technique with :ref:streaming_capture. The server side script doesn't change (it doesn't really care what capture technique is being used - it just reads JPEGs off the wire). The changes to the client side script can be minimal at first - just set use_video_port to True in the :meth:~PiCamera.capture_continuous call:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_streaming.py



Using this technique, the author can manage about 19fps of streaming at 640x480. However, utilizing the MJPEG splitting demonstrated in :ref:rapid_capture we can manage much faster:

.. literalinclude:: examples/rapid_streaming_mjpeg.py



The above script achieves 30fps with ease.

## Web streaming

Streaming video over the web is surprisingly complicated. At the time of writing, there are still no video standards that are universally supported by all web browsers on all platforms. Furthermore, HTTP was originally designed as a one-shot protocol for serving web-pages. Since its invention, various additions have been bolted on to cater for its ever increasing use cases (file downloads, resumption, streaming, etc.) but the fact remains there's no "simple" solution for video streaming at the moment.

If you want to have a play with streaming a "real" video format (specifically, MPEG1) you may want to have a look at the pistreaming demo. However, for the purposes of this recipe we'll be using a much simpler format: MJPEG. The following script uses Python's built-in :mod:http.server module to make a simple video streaming server:

.. literalinclude:: examples/web_streaming.py



Once the script is running, visit http://your-pi-address:8000/ with your web-browser to view the video stream.

Note

This recipe assumes Python 3.x (the http.server module was named SimpleHTTPServer in Python 2.x)

## Capturing images whilst recording

The camera is capable of capturing still images while it is recording video. However, if one attempts this using the stills capture mode, the resulting video will have dropped frames during the still image capture. This is because images captured via the still port require a mode change, causing the dropped frames (this is the flicker to a higher resolution that one sees when capturing while a preview is running).

However, if the use_video_port parameter is used to force a video-port based image capture (see :ref:rapid_capture) then the mode change does not occur, and the resulting video should not have dropped frames, assuming the image can be produced before the next video frame is due:

.. literalinclude:: examples/record_and_capture.py



The above code should produce a 20 second video with no dropped frames, and a still frame from 10 seconds into the video. Higher resolutions or non-JPEG image formats may still cause dropped frames (only JPEG encoding is hardware accelerated).

## Recording at multiple resolutions

The camera is capable of recording multiple streams at different resolutions simultaneously by use of the video splitter. This is probably most useful for performing analysis on a low-resolution stream, while simultaneously recording a high resolution stream for storage or viewing.

The following simple recipe demonstrates using the splitter_port parameter of the :meth:~PiCamera.start_recording method to begin two simultaneous recordings, each with a different resolution:

.. literalinclude:: examples/multi_res_record.py



There are 4 splitter ports in total that can be used (numbered 0, 1, 2, and 3). The video recording methods default to using splitter port 1, while the image capture methods default to splitter port 0 (when the use_video_port parameter is also True). A splitter port cannot be simultaneously used for video recording and image capture so you are advised to avoid splitter port 0 for video recordings unless you never intend to capture images whilst recording.

.. versionadded:: 1.3



## Recording motion vector data

The Pi's camera is capable of outputting the motion vector estimates that the camera's H.264 encoder calculates while generating compressed video. These can be directed to a separate output file (or file-like object) with the motion_output parameter of the :meth:~PiCamera.start_recording method. Like the normal output parameter this accepts a string representing a filename, or a file-like object:

.. literalinclude:: examples/motion_data1.py



Motion data is calculated at the macro-block level (an MPEG macro-block represents a 16x16 pixel region of the frame), and includes one extra column of data. Hence, if the camera's resolution is 640x480 (as in the example above) there will be 41 columns of motion data ((640 \div 16) + 1), in 30 rows (480 \div 16).

Motion data values are 4-bytes long, consisting of a signed 1-byte x vector, a signed 1-byte y vector, and an unsigned 2-byte SAD (Sum of Absolute Differences) value for each macro-block. Hence in the example above, each frame will generate 4920 bytes of motion data (41 \times 30 \times 4). Assuming the data contains 300 frames (in practice it may contain a few more) the motion data should be 1,476,000 bytes in total.

The following code demonstrates loading the motion data into a three-dimensional numpy array. The first dimension represents the frame, with the latter two representing rows and finally columns. A structured data-type is used for the array permitting easy access to x, y, and SAD values:

.. literalinclude:: examples/motion_data2.py



You can calculate the amount of motion the vector represents simply by calculating the magnitude of the vector with Pythagoras' theorem. The SAD (Sum of Absolute Differences) value can be used to determine how well the encoder thinks the vector represents the original reference frame.

The following code extends the example above to use PIL to produce a PNG image from the magnitude of each frame's motion vectors:

.. literalinclude:: examples/motion_data3.py



You may wish to investigate the :class:~array.PiMotionArray and :class:~array.PiMotionAnalysis classes in the :mod:picamera.array module which simplifies the above recipes to the following:

.. literalinclude:: examples/motion_data4.py



The following command line can be used to generate an animation from the generated PNGs with ffmpeg (this will take a very long time on the Pi so you may wish to transfer the images to a faster machine for this step):

avconv -r 30 -i frame%03d.png -filter:v scale=640:480 -c:v libx264 motion.mp4

Finally, as a demonstration of what can be accomplished with motion vectors, here's a gesture detection system:

.. literalinclude:: examples/gesture_detect.py



Within a few inches of the camera, move your hand up, down, left, and right, parallel to the camera and you should see the direction displayed on the console.

.. versionadded:: 1.5



## Splitting to/from a circular stream

This example builds on the one in :ref:circular_record1 and the one in :ref:record_and_capture to demonstrate the beginnings of a security application. As before, a :class:PiCameraCircularIO instance is used to keep the last few seconds of video recorded in memory. While the video is being recorded, video-port-based still captures are taken to provide a motion detection routine with some input (the actual motion detection algorithm is left as an exercise for the reader).

Once motion is detected, the last 10 seconds of video are written to disk, and video recording is split to another disk file to proceed until motion is no longer detected. Once motion is no longer detected, we split the recording back to the in-memory ring-buffer:

.. literalinclude:: examples/circular_record2.py



This example also demonstrates using the seconds parameter of the :meth:~PiCameraCircularIO.copy_to method to limit the before file to 10 seconds of data (given that the circular buffer may contain considerably more than this).

.. versionadded:: 1.0


.. versionchanged:: 1.11
Added use of :meth:~PiCameraCircularIO.copy_to



## Custom encoders

You can override and/or extend the encoder classes used during image or video capture. This is particularly useful with video capture as it allows you to run your own code in response to every frame, although naturally whatever code runs within the encoder's callback has to be reasonably quick to avoid stalling the encoder pipeline.

Writing a custom encoder is quite a bit harder than writing a :ref:custom output <custom_outputs> and in most cases there's little benefit. The only thing a custom encoder gives you that a custom output doesn't is access to the buffer header flags. For many output formats (MJPEG and YUV for example), these won't tell you anything interesting (i.e. they'll simply indicate that the buffer contains a full frame and nothing else). Currently, the only format where the buffer header flags contain useful information is H.264. Even then, most of the information (I-frame, P-frame, motion information, etc.) would be accessible from the :attr:~PiCamera.frame attribute which you could access from your custom output's write method.

The encoder classes defined by picamera form the following hierarchy (dark classes are actually instantiated by the implementation in picamera, light classes implement base functionality but aren't technically "abstract"):

The following table details which :class:PiCamera methods use which encoder classes, and which method they call to construct these encoders:

.. tabularcolumns:: |p{52mm}|p{42mm}|p{53mm}|



It is recommended, particularly in the case of the image encoder classes, that you familiarize yourself with the specific function of these classes so that you can determine the best class to extend for your particular needs. You may find that one of the intermediate classes is a better basis for your own modifications.

In the following example recipe we will extend the :class:PiCookedVideoEncoder class to store how many I-frames and P-frames are captured (the camera's encoder doesn't use B-frames):

.. literalinclude:: examples/custom_encoders.py



Please note that the above recipe is flawed: PiCamera is capable of initiating :ref:multiple simultaneous recordings <multi_res_record>. If this were used with the above recipe, then each encoder would wind up incrementing the i_frames and p_frames attributes on the MyCamera instance leading to incorrect results.

.. versionadded:: 1.5



## Raw Bayer data captures

The bayer parameter of the :meth:~PiCamera.capture method causes the raw Bayer data recorded by the camera's sensor to be output as part of the image meta-data.

Note

The bayer parameter only operates with the JPEG format, and only for captures from the still port (i.e. when use_video_port is False, as it is by default).

Raw Bayer data differs considerably from simple unencoded captures; it is the data recorded by the camera's sensor prior to any GPU processing including auto white balance, vignette compensation, smoothing, down-scaling, etc. This also means:

• Bayer data is always full resolution, regardless of the camera's output :attr:~PiCamera.resolution and any resize parameter.
• Bayer data occupies the last 6,404,096 bytes of the output file for the V1 module, or the last 10,270,208 bytes for the V2 module. The first 32,768 bytes of this is header data which starts with the string 'BRCM'.
• Bayer data consists of 10-bit values, because this is the sensitivity of the OV5647 and IMX219 sensors used in the Pi's camera modules. The 10-bit values are organized as 4 8-bit values, followed by the low-order 2-bits of the 4 values packed into a fifth byte.

• Bayer data is organized in a BGGR pattern (a minor variation of the common Bayer CFA). The raw data therefore has twice as many green pixels as red or blue and if viewed "raw" will look distinctly strange (too dark, too green, and with zippering effects along any straight edges).

• To make a "normal" looking image from raw Bayer data you will need to perform de-mosaicing at the very least, and probably some form of color balance.

This (heavily commented) example script causes the camera to capture an image including the raw Bayer data. It then proceeds to unpack the Bayer data into a 3-dimensional numpy array representing the raw RGB data and finally performs a rudimentary de-mosaic step with weighted averages. A couple of numpy tricks are used to improve performance but bear in mind that all processing is happening on the CPU and will be considerably slower than normal image captures:

.. literalinclude:: examples/bayer_data.py



An enhanced version of this recipe (which also handles different bayer orders caused by flips and rotations) is also encapsulated in the :class:~picamera.array.PiBayerArray class in the :mod:picamera.array module, which means the same can be achieved as follows:

.. literalinclude:: examples/bayer_array.py


.. versionadded:: 1.3


.. versionchanged:: 1.5
Added note about new :mod:picamera.array module.



## Using a flash with the camera

The Pi's camera module includes an LED flash driver which can be used to illuminate a scene upon capture. The flash driver has two configurable GPIO pins:

• one for connection to an LED based flash (xenon flashes won't work with the camera module due to it having a rolling shutter). This will fire before (flash metering) and during capture
• one for an optional privacy indicator (a requirement for cameras in some jurisdictions). This will fire after taking a picture to indicate that the camera has been used

These pins are configured by updating the VideoCore device tree blob. Firstly, install the device tree compiler, then grab a copy of the default device tree source:

$sudo apt-get install device-tree-compiler$ wget https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/raw/master/extra/dt-blob.dts

The device tree source contains a number of sections enclosed in curly braces, which form a hierarchy of definitions. The section to edit will depend on which revision of Raspberry Pi you have (check the silk-screen writing on the board for the revision number if you are unsure):

Model Section
Raspberry Pi Model B rev 1 /videocore/pins_rev1
Raspberry Pi Model A and Model B rev 2 /videocore/pins_rev2
Raspberry Pi Model A+ /videocore/pins_aplus
Raspberry Pi Model B+ rev 1.1 /videocore/pins_bplus1
Raspberry Pi Model B+ rev 1.2 /videocore/pins_bplus2
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B rev 1.0 /videocore/pins_2b1
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B rev 1.1 and rev 1.2 /videocore/pins_2b2
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B rev 1.0 /videocore/pins_3b1
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B rev 1.2 /videocore/pins_3b2
Raspberry Pi Zero rev 1.2 and rev 1.3 /videocore/pins_pi0
Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless rev 1.1 /videocore/pins_pi0w

Under the section for your particular model of Pi you will find pin_config and pin_defines sections. Under the pin_config section you need to configure the GPIO pins you want to use for the flash and privacy indicator as using pull down termination. Then, under the pin_defines section you need to associate those pins with the FLASH_0_ENABLE and FLASH_0_INDICATOR pins.

For example, to configure GPIO 17 as the flash pin, leaving the privacy indicator pin absent, on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B rev 1.1 you would add the following line under the /videocore/pins_2b2/pin_config section:

pin@p17 { function = "output"; termination = "pull_down"; };


Please note that GPIO pins will be numbered according to the Broadcom pin numbers (BCM mode in the RPi.GPIO library, not BOARD mode). Then change the following section under /videocore/pins_2b2/pin_defines. Specifically, change the type from "absent" to "internal", and add a number property defining the flash pin as GPIO 17:

pin_define@FLASH_0_ENABLE {
type = "internal";
number = <17>;
};


With the device tree source updated, you now need to compile it into a binary blob for the firmware to read. This is done with the following command line:

$dtc -q -I dts -O dtb dt-blob.dts -o dt-blob.bin Dissecting this command line, the following components are present: • dtc - Execute the device tree compiler • -I dts - The input file is in device tree source format • -O dtb - The output file should be produced in device tree binary format • dt-blob.dts - The first anonymous parameter is the input filename • -o dt-blob.bin - The output filename This should output nothing. If you get lots of warnings, you've forgotten the -q switch; you can ignore the warnings. If anything else is output, it will most likely be an error message indicating you have made a mistake in the device tree source. In this case, review your edits carefully (note that sections and properties must be semi-colon terminated for example), and try again. Now the device tree binary blob has been produced, it needs to be placed on the first partition of the SD card. In the case of non-NOOBS Raspbian installs, this is generally the partition mounted as /boot: $ sudo cp dt-blob.bin /boot/

However, in the case of NOOBS Raspbian installs, this is the recovery partition, which is not mounted by default:

$sudo mkdir /mnt/recovery$ sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/recovery
$sudo cp dt-blob.bin /mnt/recovery$ sudo umount /mnt/recovery
\$ sudo rmdir /mnt/recovery

Please note that the filename and location are important. The binary blob must be named dt-blob.bin (all lowercase), and it must be placed in the root directory of the first partition on the SD card. Once you have rebooted the Pi (to activate the new device tree configuration) you can test the flash with the following simple script:

import picamera

with picamera.PiCamera() as camera:
camera.flash_mode = 'on'
camera.capture('foo.jpg')


You should see your flash LED blink twice during the execution of the script.

Warning

The GPIOs only have a limited current drive which is insufficient for powering the sort of LEDs typically used as flashes in mobile phones. You will require a suitable drive circuit to power such devices, or risk damaging your Pi. One developer on the Pi forums notes:

For reference, the flash driver chips we have used on mobile phones will often drive up to 500mA into the LED. If you're aiming for that, then please think about your power supply too.

If you wish to experiment with the flash driver without attaching anything to the GPIO pins, you can also reconfigure the camera's own LED to act as the flash LED. Obviously this is no good for actual flash photography but it can demonstrate whether your configuration is good. In this case you need not add anything to the pin_config section (the camera's LED pin is already defined to use pull down termination), but you do need to set CAMERA_0_LED to absent, and FLASH_0_ENABLE to the old CAMERA_0_LED definition (this will be pin 5 in the case of pins_rev1 and pins_rev2, and pin 32 in the case of everything else). For example, change:

pin_define@CAMERA_0_LED {
type = "internal";
number = <5>;
};
pin_define@FLASH_0_ENABLE {
type = "absent";
};


into this:

pin_define@CAMERA_0_LED {
type = "absent";
};
pin_define@FLASH_0_ENABLE {
type = "internal";
number = <5>;
};


After compiling and installing the device tree blob according to the instructions above, and rebooting the Pi, you should find the camera LED now acts as a flash LED with the Python script above.

.. versionadded:: 1.10