PizeroCam

• This project uses Raspberry Pi Zero 2W as a Server that takes still images with Pi Camera 3.
• This project uses the Neopixel ring LED for illumination and the PiSugar project for UPS (optional).
• Clients on any platform can request photos to be taken and sent over.
• One use case is to read the pH according to the text and colour scheme on the pH scale.

Wireless pi-camera module on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WH (Server)

Please follow the instructions (to be added #TODO) to set up the Pi Zero

Pi Zero has limited RAM; SHH using the command-line interface (CLI) is recommended.

However, you can also use the Pi Connect Service to connect to Pi Zero.

1. Assemble the hardware components.

   If you are using PiSugar (Wireless):

   wget https://cdn.pisugar.com/release/pisugar-power-manager.sh
   bash pisugar-power-manager.sh -c release
   

   PiSugar will establish a web server through which you can check your battery status. Use the link at the end of the installation.

2. Clone this repo;

   git clone https://github.com/cyrilcaoyang/pizerocam/
   

   DO NOT enter the project folder yet

3. Create a Python environment (it will be outside of the project folder)

   python -m venv picam_env --system-site-packages
   

   Make sure to use the flag at the end, otherwise, picamera2 package cannot be recognized.

4. Activate the venv

   source picam_env/bin/activate
   
   

5. (Optional) Activate the environment every login session(SSH):

   nano ~/.profile
   

   Add the following line:

   source PATH_TO_ENVIRONMENT/bin/activate
   

   Apply changes:

   source ~/.profile
   

6. Install the LED driver code

   pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-neopixel
   

7. Just navigate to the server.py code and start the server

   python server.py
   

Installing of the Client on the PC that runs the workflows (Client)

1. It is recommended to use the Conda environment (to be added)

2. Clone and install the sdl_utils package.

   clone ~~~~
   pip install -e .
   

3. For the demo, Python Imaging Library (PIL) (or the Pillow fork)

   pip install pillow
   

   Download and install Tesseract for OCR (which requires Python 3.6+)

   • github.com/UB-Mannheim/tesseract/wiki

4. Clone and install this package. DO pip install so you get all the required packages.

   clone https://github.com/cyrilcaoyang/pizerocam/
   pip install -e .
   

5. Navigate to the client.py code and start the client

   python client.py