Some python3 scripts for taking source material from a timelapse camera such as a GoPro and video cameras such as dash cams and building out a video like this.
You will need ffmpeg and ImageMagick. To install on macOS using Homebrew run brew install ffmpeg imagemagick.
pip install -r requirements.txt
Suggested configuration values are in .env.dist. Run cp .env.dist .env before running the scripts below.
This script scrapes images from your 'slave' video sources.
$ timelapse-thingy/scrape.py --master-dir gopro --output-dir scrape-output --slave-dirs dashcam/front dashcam/rear --slave-offsets -159 -160
This will run in alphabetic order through the images in the gopro directory. It detects the timelapse interval and
then goes looking for the appropriate frames from the video files in the directories specified by --slave-dirs.
If your device clocks weren't in perfect sync you can specify the difference in seconds with --slave-offsets. The
resulting files in the output directory will look something like this:
0000001_01_G0030030.JPG # Source 01 - GoPro image
0000001_02_20190414_113821_PF_660.JPG # Source 02 - Frame 660 from dashcam/front/20190414_113821_PF.mp4
0000001_03_20190414_113821_PR_630.JPG # Source 03 - Frame 630 from dashcam/rear/20190414_113821_PR.mp4
0000002_01_G0030031.JPG # Source 01 - GoPro image
0000002_02_20190414_113821_PF_1590.JPG # Source 02 - Frame 1590 from dashcam/front/20190414_113821_PF.mp4
0000002_03_20190414_113821_PR_1560.JPG # Source 03 - Frame 1560 from dashcam/rear/20190414_113821_PR.mp4
...
Here, frames 0000001 and 0000002 can later be combined into composed frames for your unified timelapse video.
The scrape script even allows for breaks in the GoPro timelapse (mine likes to overheat and shutdown when my car is parked 😒). The script will keep advancing through time by the detected timelapse interval until it finds the next appropriate timelapse image, repeating the last image it saw before the break.
Similarly, if the script cannot find corresponding frames from the videos in your slave directories it will repeat the last image it was able to locate.
Note: The most reliable way to identify the timestamps of video files is parsing the filename. If the video filenames
do not begin with a timestamp in YYYYMMDD_HHmmss format you can customise the date format e.g.
--slave-filename-date-format '%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%s'. You will also need to specify a different regular expression to
match the date portion of the filename e.g. --slave-filename-date-regex '^\\d{4}(?:_\\d{2}){5}'. It's imperative your
date format is in descending order of magnitude e.g. year then month then day as this ensures sorting the files
alphabetically is identical to sorting the files by date 🍻.
This script uses the Bing Maps API to build out custom source images with an indicator of the current position.
Optionally, custom push pins can be added to the map via the MAP_PUSH_PIN_DICT_LIST config.
$ timelapse-thingy/build_map_images.py --working-dir scrape-output --input-source-index 1 --output-source-index 4
This script takes your source images (written by scrape.py or otherwise) and compiles them into output frame images
using the montage tool from ImageMagick.
$ timelapse-thingy/compose.py --input-dir scrape-output --output-dir compose-output
Based on the default MONTAGE_ARG_LIST value in .env, this builds 4K (3840x2160) frames with a 2x2 grid of images
sized to 1920x1080. The default MONTAGE_SOURCE_ORDER_DICT value puts source 02 (dash cam front) in the top left,
source 03 (dash cam rear) in the top right, source 01 (GoPro) in the bottom left and source 04 (a custom generated
map image) in the bottom right but feel free to tweak it 🐫.
Tip: my GoPro outputs 4000x3000 images so I used this command to convert the GoPro (source 01) images to 16:9.
$ find scrape-output -name '*_01_*' -exec convert {} -distort SRT 1,0 -gravity center -crop 4000x2250+0+0 +repage {} \;
This isn't mandatory but if you leave images at 4x3 aspect ratio there will be black bars either side of your images in the composed frames.