Bullet Time Camera

Overview

Created by Ben Rigas, the Bullet Time Camera uses 24 Raspberry Pis and Pi Cameras to take 24 simultaneous photos, stitch them together and share a 360 degree animated image.

(Put a sample .gif here!) (Put a pic of the Bullet Time Camera here)

Slack Channel

We actively discuss the Bullet Time Camera system in the MakerFX Slack workspace in the #mfx-bullet-time channel.

Hardware

• Custom bent PVC frame, 10 foot diameter, 7 feet tall. Breaks into sections, fits into minivan.
• 24 Raspberry Pi Computers
• 24 Pi Cameras
• 24 SD Cards
• 24 Custom 3D-Printed Pi + Pi Cam mounts
• 24 USB power cables (6 ft?)
• 25 custom ethernet cables
• 4 Anker USB Power Supplies (this one?)
• 48 port network switch
• Zipties
• Velcro Cable Ties
• Black draping material
• Large television & mount for crowd
• MacOS Computer to run the swift application

Software Stack

• BulletTimeControl - Github
• The control application is written in Swift and runs in Xcode
• The control scripts are run from a mac terminal window
• To be able to run the scripts, you'll need to have an ssh key already setup on each pi

Hardware Setup

• Build PVC Frame
• Mount 24 Pi + Pi Cam assemblies
• Run USB power cables, connect to Pis and USB power supplies
• Run Ethernet cables
• Connect all Pis and control computer to ethernet switch
• Connect control computer to network with ethernet adapter
• Test Operation
• Attach Drapes

• Setup Lighting

Operation

Ben is working to simplify this - here's the process for now :)

Startup

• start all the webservers (one per pi) using the run-server.sh script

Taking photos

• click the button
• look at the preview
• find the file
• share the file

Shutdown

• Turn on all the lasers with the turn-on-lasers.sh script - since the lasers go off when the pi shuts down, this lets you confirm shutdown of each pi
• Shutdown all the pis with the shutdown-pis.sh script

Todo

• Remove hard coded paths from source
• Register domains

Ideas for Improvements

• Metal pins instead of zip ties. Ian bought an assortment at Harbor Freight that can be tested
• Add watermark / footer to images / animation to promote the makerspace, maker faire, foundation, or other event, etc.
• Some nature of kiosk to let the person get their own image without the operator needing to send
• Tablet control
• Video monitor
• Continuous Video to avoid timing issues
• Clamps to mount lights to frame
• Move to POE (power over ethernet) - for example, 3 of these switches ($73 at amazon), and 24 of these adapters ($10.89 at amazon - need to find something less expensive) New find: AliExpress - $75.04 for an 8-port POE switch and all the cables. (So $300 to get 4 so that we have a spare...)
• Use the new Raspberry Pi PiServer to reduce the need for SD Cards by using PXE "pronounced pixie" booting
  • We talked about using one of the small donated computers - disk space will be an issue, as you need to have enough disk space for each OS image (yikes!)
• Use some nature of computer vision to help with aiming
• Make props for photos
• Make a black box for kids to stand on - or for women to put their purse / phone in
• Switch the control app from MacOS to a Raspberry Pi
• Create website for BTCam