How to Take Time-Lapse Shots of Growing Plants
Plant life is approaching you quickly; before you know this little sprout is an adult monster plant desperate for a bigger pot. If you are a green person who is fascinated by the growth of your plant, here is the perfect way to document each tender disclosure.
Artist and programmer Nicole Hee set up a Raspberry Pi powered camera to capture the slow growth of her fig plant with violin leaves. She programmed her computer to tweet the image every day under the nickname @grow_slow , in case anyone else wants to follow its development. Two years later, He compiled them all into a small video about “growth and movement”:
On his website, he writes that the project is a “reflection on nature and technology,” and explains that the webcam takes a picture of her plant every morning at 10:17 am:
Often I was busy with my life, accidentally looked at my plant and thought: “Yeah, but when did it grow so fast?” It was easy for me to forget that plants are alive and all that are not just decorations for the house, but organisms that move, change and grow.
The internet is fast, but the plants are slow. This project is an experiment to combine the two. @grow_slow follows the slow web philosophy. Any photograph can be mundane on its own, but as a collection they become interesting over time.
It also provides step-by-step instructions on how to set up your own technology meditation, or, if it’s not as deep, a way to photograph your plant every day.
What do you need
It uses a Logitech HD Webcam C310 which it connects via USB to a Raspberry Pi, an external monitor and keyboard, and some kind of Wi-Fi connection if you also want to post photos to the internet. It uses a Linux utility called cron job, which is essentially a Python scripted scheduler. Oh, you need a plant too.
Customize your Pi
He recommends setting up SSH access from another computer, because it is not always convenient to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse to a webcam that is responsible for documenting plants. But for those new to the Raspberry Pi, it’s useful.
Set a date for your timer
Presumably, you want to set a specific time on a daily basis and not get five hundred images per hour. You need to make sure your Pi is set to the correct date. Sometimes this is set automatically, so enter “date” to check. If not, enter “tzselect” and it will guide you through choosing the correct time zone.
Connect your webcam
The webcam needs to be connected via USB to the Pi, but it offers this code for it to work:
To make the webcam work with the Pi, we’re going to install a package called
fswebcam:
sudo apt-get install fswebcamWith a USB camera connected, we can take photos very easily via the command line:
fswebcam test.jpg
Give It Social Media (Life)
You will need a Twitter handle to post these photos if you want to follow in He’s footsteps. She used a Python script that ran once a day and tweeted pictures of plants from her webcam, which requires the Twython package and a cron job schedule. Its instructions are quite complex (but still quite doable!) And you should check them out here . And remember that He wants to share this project so people can tailor it to their needs.
“You can change the frequency of the photos, or timestamp the names, or upload each photo to the server, or tweet the words and photos, or instead of taking pictures of your plant, take a picture of your piano or window. , or a bed, or an aquarium, or something else, she writes.
Hmm, @slow_goldfish, anyone?