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PiCamera - Software setupLink

Flash Raspbian Lite OSLink

The procedure to flash the Raspberry Pi OS on the microSD card AND to set up the necessary options is:

  1. Open the Imager app
  2. Choose the OS, we use the Raspberry Pi OS Lite (32bit) as we have an PiZW
  3. Select the storage device (microSD)
  4. Click the "Advanced options" icon (bottom right)
  5. "Set hostname" to picamera, add a number or another indication if you plan to have more than one
  6. "Enable SSH" to "Use password authentication"
  7. "Set username and password" to romi and my_raspberry!
  8. "Configure wireless LAN" to:
    • SSID: Plant Imager
    • password: my_secret_password!
    • Set the "Wireless LAN country"
  9. Change the "locale settings" to match yours
  10. Finally, hit the "Write" button to flash the OS to the microSD.

Important

We use the 32bit version with the Raspberry Pi OS Lite NOT Desktop!.

Important

Do NOT forget to replace the (not so) secret password by the one you used!

You should end up with something like this:

Manually setting the advanced optionsLink

Hereafter we show how to manually define the advanced options after flashing the OS without defining any. This requires to boot the RPi with a screen and keyboard.

Warning

There is NO NEED to do this if you have followed the previous instructions on how to configure the advanced options prior to flashing the microSD card!

The first time you boot your RPi with your new image, you can follow the steps of the "Welcome" screen:

  • Select a country, language, keyboard layout, timezone.
  • Connect to a Wi-Fi network, here our access point:
  • SSID: Plant Imager
  • password: my_secret_password!
  • Change the default user pi and password raspberry to:
  • user: romi
  • password: my_raspberry!.
  • (Optional) Update packages to their newest version, this OBVIOUSLY requires an internet connexion.

Important

Do NOT forget to replace the (not so) secret password by the one you used!

1. Set the hostnameLink

We strongly advise to give a specific hostname to each device to avoid having the all named raspberrypi.

Important

RFCs mandate that a hostname's labels may contain only the ASCII letters 'a' through 'z' (case-insensitive), the digits '0' through '9', and the hyphen. Hostname labels cannot begin or end with a hyphen. No other symbols, punctuation characters, or blank spaces are permitted.

Choose an option, then reboot the RPi!

It is possible to set the hostname with the raspi-config tool, in a terminal: 

sudo raspi-config
Then move to 1 System Options > S4 Hostname. Enter the desired hostname, e.g. picamera, and hit <OK>.

It is possible to set the hostname manually by changing /etc/hostname & /etc/hosts with: 

export NEW_HNAME="picamera"
sudo sed "s/raspberrypi/$NEW_HNAME/" /etc/hostname
sudo sed "s/raspberrypi/$NEW_HNAME/" /etc/hosts

2. Enable SSHLink

Enabling SSH allows to easily connect to all the devices (connected to the Plant Imager Access Point) using a terminal.

Warning

This represents a security risk if you do not change the default user pi and password raspberry or use a weak password!

It is possible to enable SSH with the raspi-config tool, in a terminal: 

sudo raspi-config
Then move to 5 Interfacing Options > P2 SSH, and select <Yes>.

It is possible to enable SSH with systemctl, in a terminal: 

sudo systemctl enable ssh    
sudo systemctl start ssh

Once the picamera device is connected to a network, you can SSH to this device using a machine connected to the same network. You will need the IP address of the device you want to connect to. It is accessible in a terminal with: 

hostname -l

3. Set username and passwordLink

If at the first boot you did NOT change the default pi user & raspberry password you can still do it as follows:

  1. Create the user romi with: 
    sudo adduser romi
    This will also create the home directory for this user and ask for a password.
  2. Add this user to dialout, video & sudo groups with: 
    sudo adduser romi dialout
sudo adduser romi video
sudo adduser romi sudo
  3. Remove the default pi user with: 
    sudo deluser --remove-home pi

4. Configure wireless LANLink

It is possible to configure the wireless LAN with the raspi-config tool, in a terminal: 

sudo raspi-config
Then move to 1 System options > S2 Wireless LAN, then enter your SSID Plant Imager and password my_secret_password!.

You can edit the wpa_supplicant.conf file to add the Plant Imager network information. Copy/paste the next lines in your favorite editor, change the psk, then copy/paste this in the terminal: 

cat << EOF >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
network={
  ssid="Plant Imager"
  psk="my_secret_password!"
}
EOF
This will add the lines 2 to 5 to the end of the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

Important

Do NOT forget to replace the (not so) secret password by the one you used!

5. Change the locale settingsLink

It is possible to change the locale settings with the raspi-config tool, in a terminal: 

sudo raspi-config
Then move to 5 Localisation Options, then set L1 Locale, L2 Timezone, L3 Keyboard and L4 WLAN country.

It is possible to change the locale settings with the dpkg-reconfigure tool, in a terminal: 

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
Then follow the instructions in the terminal prompt.

ROMI softwareLink

We will now set up the necessary ROMI software to enable the camera and make the PiCamera device communicate with the main controller. Notably to be able to capture the images upon request by the Plant Imager main controller.

Install requirementsLink

To install the requirements, in a terminal simply run: 

sudo apt install build-essential cmake git libpng-dev libjpeg9-dev

We also deactivate something useless in our case (dynamic linker): 

sudo mv /etc/ld.so.preload /etc/ld.so.preload.bak

Clone the sourcesLink

To clone the sources from the ROMI GitHub repository, simply run: 

git clone --branch ci_dev --recurse-submodules https://github.com/romi/romi-rover-build-and-test.git

Note

The --recurse-submodules option will automatically initialize and update each submodule in the repository.

Compile the sourcesLink

Then move to the cloned romi-rover-build-and-test directory and compile the romi-camera app with: 

cd romi-rover-build-and-test
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make romi-camera

Test the romi-camera appLink

Assuming:

  • everything went well in the previous steps
  • you are connected to the Plant Imager network
  • the rcom-registry app is running on the plant-imager controller see here
  • you want to register a camera named camera-top
  • it has an HQ (v2) camera lens

You can test the romi-camera app with: 

./bin/romi-camera --registry 10.10.10.1 --topic camera-top --camera-version hq --mode still --width 2028 --height 1520 &

Automatically enable the romi-camera app at startupLink

To activate the romi-camera app at startup, we add the previous command to /etc/rc.local as follows: 

cat << EOF >> /etc/rc.local

sudo -u romi /home/romi/romi-rover-build-and-test/build/bin/romi-camera --registry 10.10.10.1 --topic camera-top --camera-version hq --mode still --width 2028 --height 1520 &
EOF

This assumes you have created a romi user, if not, change the romi:

  • in sudo -u romi to the correct username
  • in /home/romi to the correct username

Todo

The use of rc.local is obsolete... use systemd instead!