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customize raspistill

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2021 4:19 pm
by amphi
Hello, I am using the SLP2 and would like to adjust a few things.
How can i customize the command line raspistill -t 500 --nopreview --burst --stereo SBS -cs 1 --3dswap -cs 1 ... etc.
For example, I want to reduce the preview time from 500 to 100.
Unfortunately I only find outdated things here in the forum e.g. /var/www/html/make_photo.php
StereoPi Wiki does not provide any information on this either.
is there any decent documentation to read somewhere?

Re: customize raspistill

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 1:30 pm
by Realizator
Hello amphi,
WIth SLP2 we moved a lot of things into the binaries to achieve more speed and save memory.
As for the '-t' parameter, in the latest version, it is exposed in the Menu -> Camera setting -> Photo. The default value is 500 (i.e. 0.5 seconds).
Please note, that for the overlight conditions it is better to increase it from 500 to 1000 instead of decreasing it, as the Sony sensor needs more time to appropriately adjust the brightness and AGC.
You can find a brief description and download link in this announcement.

Re: customize raspistill

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:30 pm
by amphi
Hello Realizator, thank you for the feedback and explanation.
Since I can only expand a picture every 6-7 seconds, I thought it was due to the preview image 500.
I interpreted this 500 as 5 seconds. 500ms is therefore to be understood as the minimum time.
I have now found the Still options -t in THE OFFICIAL RASPBERRY PI CAMERA GUIDE. I am looking forward to the firmware update to 0.11.19
Can the time interval between the recordings be shortened in any other way?

Re: customize raspistill

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:00 pm
by Realizator
amphi wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:30 pm
Can the time interval between the recordings be shortened in any other way?
Could you please explain your task? In some cases, it is easier to record a video with low FPS instead of taking images. It depends on your aim.
p.s. we are using the '-np' key in raspistill by default (i.e. "no preview"). '-t' parameter limits the time of the camera auto-adjustments. For each photo (taken by raspistill) camera is doing this process "from scratch", and it takes some time. But for the video camera keeps settings averaged from the previous frames, thus you have no delay issues like with the photo.

Re: customize raspistill

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:47 pm
by amphi
Video recordings are of secondary importance to me.
First and foremost, I want to take high quality 3D images in quick succession. e.g. in sports
For this it would be nice to have an adjustable burst mode - burst or -bm
Then you could take 3 or any number of recordings one after the other without having to switch back to the preview mode between them.
This has the advantage that you can later choose the most beautiful picture from a sequence.
How could I, as a user, create such a script myself?
Or are such implementations even planned?

Re: customize raspistill

Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:04 pm
by Realizator
amphi, under the hood we are using the Raspberry application for taking photos - raspistill.
As I remember, it has no option like you mentioned. For each photo it should do the full cycle of the sensor adjustments, and also a set of post-processing things. The only thing which is close to your aim is "sport" exposure mode, which take less time for the exposure settings.
Your task is very specific, and the only solution here from my point of view is to write a custom software. It is possible to always monitor the current auto-settings of the sensor in the video mode, and after pressing a shot capture a series of images to the memory buffer. And later do all post-process and "save to disk" operations. As a preliminary solution it is possible to create a RAM drive and save all images there first, and than copy them to the micro SD.

You see, "raspistill" is focused on getting a single image with the highest quality, but not for the special use cases like "take a series of images" or "capture the first image immediately after the command, without any autoadjustments".

Raspberry Pi is moving from their old apps raspistill/raspivid to the new libcamera apps in the RaspiOS Bullseye. Stereo is not supported yet, but should be added soon. I want to say that libcamera is much more open source and flexible to do this solution.