This is a minimalistic web server that controls a Raspberry Pi's attached PiCamera.

It was extracted from [https://github.com/tlack/dobot-tcn/](my robot training framework) because I thought it might be useful to others.

It is useful for creating video data sets for repeated experiments. In my usage a single application instance controls numerous semi-synchronized cameras on the LAN.

HTTP API allows you to start and stop video recording. There is an endpoint that fetches video contents and an endpoint that returns a list of current videos.

Uses Flask. On Google AIY Bonnet boards, will make alert noise when shooting.

Edit camera settings on first line.

Run one copy of this script on each PiCamera node.

The API presents these endpoints:

http://0.0.0.0:5858/

Returns listing of known videos

http://0.0.0.0:5858/start?fname=test.h264

Start recording to named video file

http://0.0.0.0:5858/start

Stop recording

http://0.0.0.0:5858/send?fname=test.h264

Retrieve contents of video. Returned as Base64 string inside JSON structure:

{"fn": "test.h264", "data": "...enormous string...", "size": 123123}

Soon: return very exacting timing data for shutter open and shutter close, number of frames, etc.

Support CNN inference on Google AIY boards.

Record / return various sensor readings along with video data.

HTML page to view current camera frame. Or websockets! :D

These are tiny scripts. Read the source. Create a Github issue for more help.