R-Pi Digital Photo Frame

[Chris Savage]

Back in 2015 I bought a Raspberry Pi 2. Booted a few times to set up and check out and then never touched it again. The original application I got it for was to make my own NAS, but I ran out of time due to personal issues and bought a Buffalo Systems NAS. Plus there were performance concerns with the Pi 2.

Then, in 2016 I got a Raspberry Pi 3, and I realized I wanted to do something with the Pi 2, which had been sitting around...a digital photo frame, perhaps. But, being a newbie to the R-Pi, it wasn't something I could just slap together.

Anyone know of any cool projects? I just want it to display photos like a slideshow, but also have the ability to show special photos on special dates automatically. For example, on Christmas show Christmas photos. On a birthday show photos of that person's birthday.

I don't think I want sounds, but perhaps text overlay would be cool.

[granz]

Several years ago, I did pretty much the same thing for a "digital sign" welcoming people to our church, giving directions and giving notice about upcoming events. I don't remember much about it, but one thing that I did/considered was to have a shared folder for the images. That way, the pastor (or I) could just log into the sign's share and upload new image files. Then the slide-show software would just mindlessly show whatever was in that shared folder.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what software I used - but it shouldn't be any trouble finding stuff. I remember seeing several projects for digital photo frames for the Pi. A quick search just brought up a bunch of hits, and the Pi Zero is plenty powerful enough for whatever you need from a photo frame.

[Chris Savage]

Several years ago, I did pretty much the same thing for a "digital sign" welcoming people to our church, giving directions and giving notice about upcoming events. I don't remember much about it, but one thing that I did/considered was to have a shared folder for the images.

Do you remember if it was a Python project? I would guess you had to make some modifications to an existing project or did you just swap in your photos? Yes, I know I am testing your memory. 

[granz]

Do you remember if it was a Python project? I would guess you had to make some modifications to an existing project or did you just swap in your photos? Yes, I know I am testing your memory. 

Yeah, and my memory is failing your test. 

No, I seem to remember some Python (it seems that I used a Python script (copied from somewhere,) but that was to monitor a pushbutton that I soldered to a GPIO pin, to allow a good shutdown. I'm guessing that the "slide show" was actually a program that I downloaded from somewhere.

[Jeff_T]

@Chris Savage did you want Python Chris, if so I can help you set that up.

Recently I lost my PC and Python files and have been working hard to recover what I can to a new PC, I have managed to get most of them back but they are not as organized as they were originally so that is something I have to work on.

The new PC came with Win 11, something else to deal with, and it came with an application called Clipchamp so I am interested in using Clipchamp to produce some YouTube videos. One of the things I have always struggled with is narrating the videos, I don't think I have a good voice for presentations, anyway Clipchamp has text to speech and it sounds pretty darn good and I would like to try it.

Regarding your project if it is Python I have a script that converts a BMP or PNG file to a HEX file in RGB 565 format. All you have to do is plug in the size of your display and hit go, you can then save as many of the hex files to a SD card as you want, I also have the function to write the data to a display.

Like @granz says I'm sure you could find something ready made but if you have a specific issue just post and I will see if I can come up with any ideas.

[Chris Savage]

@Chris Savage did you want Python Chris, if so I can help you set that up.

Well, I was more or less trying to see if a potential project would be using a language I was at least familiar with. I am a novice when it comes to the R-Pi. I bought the first one (Model B), just to see if I could interface hardware to it and talk to it. To that end, I interfaced a Parallax Serial LCD and sent some text to it. Here's the kicker though; I was using scratch to generate Python code. 

I really need to experiment more with the R-Pi to see what I can do.

Recently I lost my PC and Python files and have been working hard to recover what I can to a new PC, I have managed to get most of them back but they are not as organized as they were originally so that is something I have to work on.

I know not everyone can do this, but it's worth it for me; every PC I have (two desktops and a laptop) as well as my NAS drive each have an external USB backup drive that is twice the size of the internal storage. Monthly, I do a backup image of each PC. This way if a hard drive fails, I can plug in a new one, do a restore and everything is back, including all installed applications.

I also backup all my "documents" separately...this would be the typical system docs like, "My Pictures", "My Music", "My Documents", etc. Each computer has a secondary hard drive (D:), which is always my "work" drive. All the data on these is backed up to the external USB as well. These drives are stored in a Fire / Water safe.

The new PC came with Win 11, something else to deal with, and it came with an application called Clipchamp so I am interested in using Clipchamp to produce some YouTube videos. One of the things I have always struggled with is narrating the videos, I don't think I have a good voice for presentations, anyway Clipchamp has text to speech and it sounds pretty darn good and I would like to try it.

I'm not familiar with Clipchamp. I have been resisting Microsoft's many attempts to get me to upgrade to Windows 11. I even tricked their installer into thinking that my PCs aren't eligible for the upgrade. So now they nag me to buy a new PC every other week.

Regarding your project if it is Python I have a script that converts a BMP or PNG file to a HEX file in RGB 565 format. All you have to do is plug in the size of your display and hit go, you can then save as many of the hex files to a SD card as you want, I also have the function to write the data to a display. Like @granz says I'm sure you could find something ready made but if you have a specific issue just post and I will see if I can come up with any ideas.

In the past I have taken the projects of others and modified them to suit my own purposes. The Garage Parking Assistant wasn't my idea. Someone had posted their own version on the Parallax Forums and I thought I would expand on the idea. The original had a single red LED that came on when you reached the target point to stop. The distance was hard-coded in the source.

I wanted a traffic light style display and the ability to program the "zones", etc. There have been a few other projects that were variations of someone else's idea. So I was hoping if I could find a project that did most of what I wanted that I could modify that code to do the specific things I wanted to do.

I did want to be able to put various photos into directories by category. I then wanted to be able to modify which categories were being displayed based on the date. Of course, I wanted to be able to easily add / remove / update the photos as well.

[Jeff_T]

Hi Chris, Clipchamp is new to me but I believe it's been around for two or three years now.

I used to have Cyberlink Power Director 14 which is no longer supported, I had a lifetime license but the catch is after a certain time Cyberlink no longer make the download available so it is crucial to keep a copy of your application safe with the registration key, not only that but my old PC had a Radeon graphics card that does not fit my new PC which made creating videos a little easier.

I'll post a demo soon but in the mean time for anyone wanting to get into programming microprocessors such as Arduino/ESP32/STM32/Pi Pico and more it's worth taking a look at WOKWI, I have my own version of a traffic light there https://wokwi.com/projects/405593360669083649 it's free and fun to use.

[Chris Savage]

Hi Chris, Clipchamp is new to me but I believe it's been around for two or three years now.

I looked it up. By the name, I was thinking it was some sort of screen capture utility. I now see that it's a video editing application. I have both Vegas Pro and Pinnacle Studio. Used to use Adobe Premiere until they started charging a subscription fee.

I'll post a demo soon but in the mean time for anyone wanting to get into programming microprocessors such as Arduino/ESP32/STM32/Pi Pico and more it's worth taking a look at WOKWI, I have my own version of a traffic light there https://wokwi.com/projects/405593360669083649 it's free and fun to use.

I checked this out. Looks interesting. Simulators seem to be a lot more common these days and support a lot more devices. I remember back in the 80s/90s they were very limited, so I never really got into them. I will have to look at this more after I get moved in and set up again.