How to Use Time Lapse Videos on SkyWeather2

We recently released the Raspberry Pi WeatherSense software supporting the new Solar SkyCam. As of Version 027 (Released on August 27, 2021)  SkyWeather2 now supports the Remote Solar SkyCams (in addition to a camera plugged into the Pi) including generating daily time lapse videos.

Latest Version of SkyWeather2 Pure Python3 code is here:

https://github.com/switchdoclabs/SDL_Pi_SkyWeather2

What is SkyWeather2 and the Solar SkyCam?

SkyWeather2 is a full blown DIY weather station designed for the Raspberry Pi.  It comes with 7 different sensors to look at your local weather environment and is 100% compatible with all the WeatherSense sensors.

Solar SkyCam works with the on-board Raspberry Pi Camera to provide multiple angles for your weather station to see the world.   You can have the on-board camera and up to about 10 Solar SkyCam Remote systems on your SkyWeather2 System.  SkyCam uses your WiFi and MQTT to transmit pictures to your Raspberry Pi all using Solar Power.

We recently published an article about adding more solar panels to SkyCam here.

SkyWeather2 Time Lapses

SkyWeather2 generates Time Lapse videos at 5am every day showing a video of all the pictures taken in the last 24 hours.  It will do with for the SkyCamPi (the camera on SkyWeather2) and also how many other Solar SkyCam cameras you have on your network.   The Pictures and Time Lapse videos are archived for 14 days and show up on the SkyWeather dash_app for you to view and download.

All you Raspberry Pi based pictures and time lapses show up here as well as the additional Solar SkyCam you have on your system.

 

Time Lapses Display in the dash_app

In the SkyWeather2 dash_app you will find the “SkyCam” tab.  Clicking on the tab will give you the big picture (bad pun) of all your SkyCams, including the Raspberry Pi based Camera in SkyWeather.   As well as all of the solar power data collected by the Solar SkyCam.   Here we have a system that has a total of 3 cameras.

 

Where to Change The Time Lapse Parameters

If you want to change SkyWeather2 Time Lapse variables, edit the file PictureManagement.py in the main program directory.  Here you will see the following lines near the top:

#No of days before which the files are to be deleted
DELETE_FILES_OLDER_THAN_DAYS = 14
#Start Time Lapse at this Time
TIME_LAPSE_START_HOUR = 5
# no of days to keep time lapses
DELETE_TIME_LAPSES_OLDER_THAN_DAYS = 14

All the of these are pretty obvious, but if you change the TIME_LAPSE_START_HOUR variable, you will need to change a line in SkyWeather2.py to reflect your new start time. Otherwise, since the Time lapse conversion also starts at 5am, you will either gain or loose some part of the Time lapse.

Look for this line in SkyWeather2.py:

scheduler.add_job(PictureManagement.buildTimeLapse, 'cron', day='*', hour=5, minute=30, args=["Time Lapse Generation"])

And change the hour to match your time lapse generation time (note that we are 30 minutes later than the top of the hour!).

A similar method will work with the WeatherSense software.