Raspistill + convert + sshfs

· 337 words · 2 minute read

If you have a raspberry with a camera module, you can use them as a webcam. The simpliest idea is to capture a picture every x seconds and serve it with a simple web server. But if you don’t want to use the raspberry as a web server (low bandwitdh, other tasks, privacy,…), you can use sshfs to copy the image to a remote filesystem and serve it from there. The main idea:

	+------+                            +-------------------+
	|  pi  | +----------------------->  |     web server    |
	+------+                            +-------------------+
	                                            ^ ^ ^        
	                                            | | |        

                                        	   internet

Setup 🔗

Raspberry pi 🔗

  • Install Raspbian (upgrade it, configure it,…)
  • Install ImageMagick (aptitude install imagemagick)
  • Install sshfs (aptitude install sshfs)
  • Enable camera with raspi-config wizard
  • Add the user you want to use to the fuse group (usermod -aG fuse <user>)
  • Logout and login (to apply group permissions)
  • Create a directory where the remote directory will be mounted (mkdir -p /home/user/pics)

Web server 🔗

  • Create a dedicated user (adduser pi)
  • Setup a directory where the image will be located (I’ve used OpenBSD, so the default directory is /var/www/htdocs)
mkdir -p /var/www/htdocs/webcam/images/
chown -R pi.pi /var/www/htdocs/webcam/

Note that this is the simple way, the best way will be to create a dedicated vhost, secure it,…

  • Create /var/www/htdocs/webcam/index.html file with the following content:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30" >
</head>
<body>
<img src=./images/webcam.jpg>
</body>
</html>

Usage 🔗

Raspberry pi 🔗

  • Mount using sshfs the remote directory previosly created
sshfs -o auto_cache,reconnect,no_readahead,Ciphers=arcfour $REMOTEUSER@$REMOTEHOST:/var/www/htdocs/webcam/images/ /home/user/pics/

Note that I’ve used a few sshfs options. Check man sshfs for more information.

  • Capture a test pic with raspistill
raspistill -h ${HEIGHT} -w ${WIDTH} -q ${QUALITY} -o /dev/shm/testpic.jpg -n

Note that I’ve used /dev/shm (ram filesystem) to store the temporary picture

  • Watermark it!
convert /dev/shm/testpic.jpg -fill white -undercolor '#00000080' -gravity SouthEast -annotate +0+5 " My webcam " /home/user/pics/webcam.jpg

Your browser 🔗

  • Go to http://yourwebserver/webcam/
  • Profit!

Improvements 🔗

  • Loop it! (a simple bash script with a while loop…)
  • Watermark it with the date (replace “My webcam” with the date output)
  • Disable autorefresh in the index.html
  • …
raspberry raspisitll convert imagemagick sshfs