First things first, get an sd disk and get a raspberry pi image on it (by following these instructions)[https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/mac.md
diskutil list
#find your sd cart in the list
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/<disk #>
#e.g. diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk5
sudo dd bs=1m if=</path/to/raspbian.img> of=/dev/<disk #>
#e.g. sudo dd bs=1m if=~/Downloads/2016-05-27-raspbian-jessie.img of=/dev/rdisk5
Then install your camera by plugging it in to the board.
Boot up your raspberry pi.
I'm running this in desktop mode. Yes it requires more cpu, but this allows me to more easily test the webcamera by plugging in to a display.
Add wifi credentials to the pi. Set correct timezone.
First enable the camera. Test camera functionality by running a python script
import picamera from PiCamera
from time import sleep
camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview()
sleep(5)
camera.stop_preview()
If you saw camera output on your display for 5 seconds, great, otherwise, you will need to debug the camera connection.
At this point, ssh to the pi will suffice. To find the ip address, from you're device
arp -a | grep raspberry | awk '{print $2}'
then
ssh pi@<ip address>
sudo apt-get install vim
See github for instructions. Of course you could write that part to use scp or just save to disk. I am using dropbox because they gave be 1 TB and I can quickly use the same location as a cdn for (the website)[../website/README.md]
First copy the sample-configure.py file and call it configure.pg with accurate credentials.
Try running the script
python timelapse_pi.py
You might find some errors, directories not existing, or the dropbox uploader not working. Fix these errors. Note that the script only runs at certain times of the day, you might need to adjust those for testing purposes.
If it all runs, set up a crontab to run nohup python timelapse_pi.py & on reboot. Or manually run the nohup