Freeture forced frame save
The continuous capture mode was in the freeture already, but it did not save anything to file; only to memory or screen (X required for screen; useful eg for lens focussing). I have added an option to save the video frames.
There is a script that stops the freeture service running in fireball detection mode, runs this continuous capture mode for a given time (seconds) and then re-starts freeture service again.
This script (/usr/local/bin/freeture_continuous_video.sh
) and the relevant freeture version is part of the EXT auto install process. Will install automatically of on demand (with dfn_down_install_sw_from_server.sh). Some extra configuration in the system might be needed for cameras that were off-line for a long time. I'm happy to do that remotely once you let me know.
It is very KISS, the capture parameters are set in the script. I can modify it if we needed it to be more fancy - eg set the capture time as command-line parameter.
These params are passed (i think the names are self-explanatory):
runTimeSeconds=120
videoGain=29
expTime=33000
imgWidth=1080
imgHeight=1080
imgStartX=420
imgStartY=60
Best way to use it is to put line like this into crontab:
0 20,21,22 5,6,7 12 * /usr/local/bin/freeture_continuous_video.sh
(will run on Dec 5, 6, and 7 at 20:00, 21:00 and 22:00; records 120 seconds of video frames. The frame rate should be default from config file 30Hz.) Please check the freeture watchdog is not acting during the continuous video capture period. This watchdog is just a simple debug on-liner restart ing freeture service if it is not running (for the case it crashed). It is in crontab just at the end. The best way to make sure it is not going to ruin the valuable timed capture is to comment that line(s) out completely:
### restart freeture if crashed #0-50/10 * * * * systemctl status freeture.service | grep running || systemctl restart freeture.service #0-50/10 7-19 * * * systemctl status freeture.service | grep running || systemctl restart freeture.service
The recorded frames go to /data0/video_frames/; a subfolder is created for each night.
example file with path:
/data0/video_frames/2020_10_30/DFNEXT015_2020_10_30_allskyvideo_frame-009617.fits.gz
(Note: the frame no is generated as n+1 the highest number found in the directory - will not re-write anything if scheduled multiple times a day)
Logs are saved to folder /data0/video_frames/log
.