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Webcams and Timelapse

Hardware/software/hints and tips/discussion/webcam links etc
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Big Daddy
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue 10 Sep 2013 8:40 pm
Weather Station: Ecowitt GW1003 (GW1000)
Operating System: Raspbian 10 (Buster) / Mono 6.12
Location: Freiston, Lincolnshire, UK
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Webcams and Timelapse

Post by Big Daddy »

Hi Everyone,

I have been working on using webcams and also on creating some time-lapse videos.

Webcams can bee seen here.

http://www.midlifedad.me.uk/weather/webcam_north.php

This is the northerly view across Lincolnshire farmland and there are also southerly and easterly views. Image updates every 5 minutes.

Time-lapse videos can be seen here.

http://www.midlifedad.me.uk/weather/video_north.php

These capture dawn to dusk and are updated just after midnight each day. Again 3 views available.

Love how clouds form, roll and then somehow disappear and also how clouds at different levels move in different directions. The Easterly view often catches jets passing across the UK into Europe especially in the early morning. Images generated every 10 seconds and then stitched together at 25fps.

Working on some night videos to try and capture moon and star movements......when we get a clear night that is.

Hope you enjoy.

Andy
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mcrossley
Posts: 12695
Joined: Thu 07 Jan 2010 9:44 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
Operating System: Bullseye Lite rPi
Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
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Re: Webcams and Timelapse

Post by mcrossley »

Nicely done, it's always fascinating watching those timelapse videos, especially when there is wind shear.
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Mike60
Posts: 23
Joined: Thu 10 Sep 2009 6:21 am
Weather Station: WH-2080, WS-2357.
Operating System: W7-Pro
Location: Weybridge

Re: Webcams and Timelapse

Post by Mike60 »

Very nice.
I have one webcam installed but I don't know how to make this videos / timelapse.
Only I post to Wunderground and I record all the time clips 24h length ( ~ 1.9 Gb ) with my X201-W7-Pro.

Have a lovely week.
Mike
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odintheterrible
Posts: 110
Joined: Wed 16 Jan 2013 8:18 am
Weather Station: Brandson 304577 & GW1000
Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Location: Torre-Pacheco, Murcia, Spain

Re: Webcams and Timelapse

Post by odintheterrible »

Greetings,

Nice output and presentation of the video. I've been wondering for some time now how to stream the output from my Sricam to a web site, but the problem I keep bumping up against is the fact that the camera only has an RTSP output stream available (outside of the dedicated app) to view the camera. Given that most web browsers don't handle rtsp streams, it means that the stream has to be transcoded... hence the need for streaming services.
Streaming services are extortionately expensive, so I setup a web server here at home to serve my web site but I was wondering how you manage it ?

Thanks
"Qui Custodit Ipsos Custodes ? ..."

Duct Tape is like 'The Force' ... it has a 'Light Side' AND a 'Dark Side' and it binds the Universe together !
Big Daddy
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue 10 Sep 2013 8:40 pm
Weather Station: Ecowitt GW1003 (GW1000)
Operating System: Raspbian 10 (Buster) / Mono 6.12
Location: Freiston, Lincolnshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Webcams and Timelapse

Post by Big Daddy »

Hi,

I actually don’t stream them and don’t have the bandwidth in my location to do so. I am very remote so am on the limits of any reasonable broadband.

Pleased you like the webcams and video. Will start with the easy one, the webcams.

My webcams are connected to my local network and I run Cumulus on a Pi so have installed avconv and imagemagick on there. They take a snapshot using rtsp stream every 5 minutes and then resize and also correct the “barrel” effect caused by the lens to make the horizon straight. Then upload the image to my website. The update time on the webcams comes by using php to read the file time stamp.

For the time lapse, I have an old pc also connected to my network and this uses an external program to capture the images every 10 seconds from each of the 3 webcams using rtsp. It saves them as jpg images and then at midnight creates the time lapse video as an mp4. The software also gives options of when to capture and it can be set on Dawn and Dusk times by setting lat/long co-ordinates. Not much weather to watch at night so this is how I set it and add a 30 minute offset so it starts capturing just before dawn and finishes just after dusk. The time stamp is generated by the software and you can also use various api’s to add weather information. I won’t mention the name in the forum as it’s commercial software and don’t want to advertise here but please pm me and I will point you in the right direction.

If you need any further help I am happy to try and help but please bear in mind I am a hobbyist and have had no formal training. :D I started a few years ago when my kids bought me a weather station and have since spent a lot of time playing, learning and researching......and having a lot of fun.

Andy
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K8POS
Posts: 94
Joined: Sat 03 Jan 2015 4:17 am
Weather Station: Davis Vantage Pro2
Operating System: Windows 7
Location: Thumb of Michigan
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Re: Webcams and Timelapse

Post by K8POS »

Bigdaddy,

Nice looking site.
I just upgraded my camera to a http://www1.dahuasecurity.com/products/ ... -6451.html
I am amazed at the night time ability. It sees clouds at night I can not see with my naked eye.
I use IP Time lapse http://iptimelapse.com/ to produce my jpg image every 5 minutes. Every hour it updates a timelapse video for the day, and at midnight is creates a video for the past 24 hours. I also like the fact that it uses an API call to the weather underground and puts a watermark with the weather information right on the snap shots.

You can see it here on the left side of my page :http://www.melvinweather.com/template/indexDesktop.php

Enjoy.
Bob
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