Timelapse pictures & videos with Duet and webcam on layer change

Danal

@resam said in Timelapse pictures & videos with Duet and webcam on layer change:

I'm thinking about removing this dependency and implementing a simple frame-grabber with OpenCV in Python directly... This means the webcam can't be used for Octoprint or other tools easily, but if people only want timelapses, thats fine.

Would this affect the ability to have the camera visible and updating in Duet Web Control?

resam

@Danal yes - in that case the "access to the webcam" is exclusive. Either timelapse snapshots or DWC/Octoprint/some other streaming.

There might be a way around it, but it involves a more complex Linux setup - which I want to avoid. I can make it optional: "quickstart = exclusive timelapse snapshot" and as second option, the existing mjpg-streamer integration via a URL.

Let me know how many of you want to keep DWC/Octoprint webcam access, and how many ONLY want to use timelapse snapshots.

T3P3Tony

@resam would it be possible to serve those timelapse shots (or rather the latest one) to DWC? For remote monitoring it gives a once per layer update.

resam

@T3P3Tony probably - but the idea behind using OpenCV and ditching mjpg-streamer was to REDUCE complexity

For people who want to keep their DWC webcam, you should probably still use mjpg-streamer (unless somebody knows of a similar / better tool?)

Danal

Having a camera visible in DWC allows a human to periodically check from their mobile and abort prints that go wrong. And/or have the confidence at hour X that a long print is going right!! They may be checking from the next room, or across town. Timelapse is nifty to document, share, show to non-3D print people, etc. It is most desirable to capture these on the same long prints where remote monitoring is most desirable.

Longwinded way of saying: If we are building an Rpi setup (or image) to provide a camera for Duet/RepRap based printers, it really should do both camera functions, seamlessly.

Blending that with the desirability of a proxy function, the DWC camera view should work on "local network" or "via proxy" equally seamlessly.

T3P3Tony

@resam yeah I get that. I think the big opportunity is to add that complexity back in to compare commanded movement with what happens and what the model should look like so a failed print can be detected.

garyd9

This thread can't be allowed to die... This tool is incredible, @resam

I didn't bother with the "M400" or "G4 P500", and it's still perfect. If the snapshot isn't exactly on the layer change, it's okay. As long as I get a snapshot each layer, it's all good.

It would be nice of the script had an option to automagically run ffmpeg and then (on success) remove the jpg directory. Perhaps if I ever get any free time, I'll add that functionality (and adjust the focus on my pi camera.)

thank you!

Edit: first time lapse using this code (camera is mounted in a temporary location, so haven't bothered with focus yet.) https://youtu.be/inLM1-AvhUo

Gary

bjoern85

Can you make a small guide, how to set this up on an sbc?
After cloning from github i don't know what to do...

I'm using another SBC with octoprint, webcam and octolapse. But the connection to the duet ethernet is not fast enough sometimes.

I would love to make timelapses with my deltaprinter.

Thank you for all your work

resam

@bjoern85 did you try starting the script as documented in the README?
From your SBC terminal (or SSH):
./timelapse.py <folder> <duet_host> <webcam_url>

bjoern85

@resam thank you! and sorry for my late reply. i'm testing it right now.
it looks, like it works. somehow... i was able to download a single jpg file during the print, which has a size of 2gb but i could not open it.

edit: ...achtion=snapshot instead of ...action=stream would help, i guess

garyd9

I have to admit that my reply to this thread is, at least in part, a bump to keep it from dying... it's just too valuable.

On the other hand, I do have updated information, @resam, in regards to using this script with RR3 on a Duet3 (in standalone mode.)

For some reason, using the script from your github (pulled on 24th of Jan, 2020), the process would stop working after each print. It was almost as if the telnet session froze or locked up or something after the print finished and ffmpeg was run. I'd see the 'Print finished' message, the mp4 would be created, and then it wouldn't start again when a new print was started.

I've modified my version of the script to deal with that by breaking from the "while true" loop after a print is finished and inserting the code below before the exception handler (at the same scope as the "while true"):

conn = None
sock.shutdown(socket.SHUT_RDWR)
sock.close()

This should break the loop, shutdown and close the socket, and then loop back up for another connection attempt (which usually works fine.)

Take care
Gary

resam

Thanks @garyd9 - I haven't tested it yet on RRF3 (still need to upgrade my printers).
I'm a bit surprised because we do have error handling that should auto-reconnect if any failure with the telnet socket occurs: https://github.com/Kriechi/DuetRRF-timelapse/blob/d2b472ceb26491f07812c030e00ee1005d69487b/timelapse.py#L136

I'm happy to add more error handling - but at this point I'm not sure what actually hangs/blocks. Or did anything in RRF3 change regarding the way telnet connections are handled @dc42?

assasinscreed00

@resam So I'm a noob with python and rasperry pi's but I think I mostly understand the github and what i need to do, but you said you ditched mjpg streamer and instead use OpenCv, I can't find how to setup OpenCV to host the webcam image on a url. Can I still use mjpg streamer (seems easier for a noob to setup)

resam

@assasinscreed00 I don't remember saying I ditched OpenCV - I still use mjpg streamer, just like almost every tutorial on the internet.

mrehorstdmd

I took a different approach. I had to replace my Droid Turbo phone because it was a few years old and I had cracked the screen and some critical apps would no longer work right, so I put it to use monitoring my printer.

My printer has clear PC front doors so I made a simple suction cup mounted holder for the phone that sticks to the door and provides a good view of the bed plate. I loaded the phone with an app called Open Camera that includes the ability to program it to automatically snap images at whatever interval you desire. I then set up Google Photos to back up the images snapped by the camera. The backup happens as soon as each image is snapped.

alt text

I power the phone with a USB wall wart and usually program it it to take pictures at 30 second intervals. The phone camera can produce 24 Mp images, so much better resolution than you can ever get from a RPi camera. Open Camera optionally labels each image with the time and date it was made. If I'm running a long print I can check status by opening Google Photos and viewing the most recently uploaded image.

When the print is done, if I want to make a video, I batch scale the images to whatever resolution I want in the video using irfanview and then convert the image sequence to an .avi file using ImageJ. All the software is free and has no advertising, and no subscription fees, and all of it works reliably.

Sample image:

alt text

More here: https://drmrehorst.blogspot.com/2019/08/putting-old-cell-phone-to-good-use.html

The camera doesn't sync with layer changes, and I can't use it to kill the printer if a print fails, but that's a pretty rare event.

I set it up to make a timelapse video of my corexy sand table recently.

https://vimeo.com/381844758

assasinscreed00

@resam

@resam said in Timelapse pictures & videos with Duet and webcam on layer change:

@T3P3Tony probably - but the idea behind using OpenCV and ditching mjpg-streamer was to REDUCE complexity

For people who want to keep their DWC webcam, you should probably still use mjpg-streamer (unless somebody knows of a similar / better tool?)

this comment is where I thought you said it, I assume I am reading it wrong?

aniron

Is there anything in principle preventing this from working on the older Duets, like the 0.6?

Danal

@aniron said in Timelapse pictures & videos with Duet and webcam on layer change:

Is there anything in principle preventing this from working on the older Duets, like the 0.6?

Could you restate what "this" is? Lots of things discussed above...

aniron

@Danal sorry, I was referring to the OP. Didn't realise how old it was.

"Requirements
DuetWifi or Duet Ethernet or Duet 2 Maestro controlled printer
RepRapFirmware v1.21 or v2.0 or higher"

Danal

Ah, got it. OP will need to answer.

I've been intentionally not "stepping on toes" because both @resam and I have tools that do lapse-to-video. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.

But I will mention mine... The one linked below "duetLapse" should be able to interact with any Firmware V2 or V3. It was developed to run on a Pi, but could potentially run anywhere that Python runs. It only needs to be able to open the camera, and to reach the printer via network.

https://github.com/DanalEstes/DuetLapse