SOLVED MMM-Selfieshot: High resolution for selfie

[hclaus]

Dear fellow mirror builders,

for my recent mirror project, I would like to include a selfie function in order to document my continuous aging process above 30

For my prototype, I already use MMM-Selfieshot but I have an issue with setting up the image resolution: I cannot use the full resolution of my raspi camera module (v2.1) which would have a native resolution of 3280 × 2464 pixels. If I set the values of “width” and “height” to 3280x2464, the module always takes pictures at 1280x720. I first thought that the module won’t go beyond 1080p resolution of my display (1920x1080) but this resolution is also not possible and remains at 1280x720.

Does anyone know, whether 1280x720 is the maximum allowed resolution of MMM-Selfieshot (the github documentation doesn’t clarify either… ) or if there is another way to use the full camera resolution (while still being able to have the “result picture” shown after the taken shot)?

If you know other solutions for selfie shots beside MMM-Selfieshot, please let me know as well.

Best from Switzerland,
Hendrik

[MMRIZE]

@hclaus

This module is using fswebcam external program to take the photo.
So you can test your camera and fswebcam by manual like this;

fswebcam
fswebcam --resolution 3280x2464

(It might need more options. See http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man1/fswebcam.1.html)

Or you can test through another way.

(Go to MMM-Selfieshot directory)
cd node_modules/node-webcam/bin
node ./node-webcam.js --w 3280 --h 2464 --l ~/picture.jpg 

Check and show me the result.

[hclaus]

@mmrize

Thank you so much that you try tackling this issue together!!

I tested both paths as recommended:

1. fswebcam --resolution 3280x2464
   This gives me a wonderful picture at the required resolution. It is above 2MB so I didn’t upload it.

2. Via node-webcam.js
   This doesn’t shoot a picture (which should be in the “/home/pi”-directory, right?). The following outputs appear in the console, which leave me wondering what I should do:

pi@raspberrypi:~/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-Selfieshot/node_modules/node-webcam/bin $ node ./node-webcam.js --w 3280 --h 2464 --l ~/picture.jpg
Options
Main {
  width: [ [Function: Number], 1280 ],
  height: [ [Function: Number], 720 ],
  delay: [ [Function: Number], 0 ],
  device: [ [Function: String], false ],
  quality: [ [Function: Number], 100 ],
  output: [ [Function: String], 'jpeg' ],
  verbose: [ [Function: Boolean], true ],
  help: [ [Function: Boolean], false ],
  version: [ [Function: Boolean], false ],
  greyscale: [ [Function: Boolean], false ],
  rotation: [ [Function: String], false ],
  topBanner: [ [Function: Boolean], false ],
  bottomBanner: [ [Function: Boolean], false ],
  skip: [ [Function: Number], 0 ],
  location: <ref *2> {
    resolve: [Function: resolve],
    normalize: [Function: normalize],
    isAbsolute: [Function: isAbsolute],
    join: [Function: join],
    relative: [Function: relative],
    toNamespacedPath: [Function: toNamespacedPath],
    dirname: [Function: dirname],
    basename: [Function: basename],
    extname: [Function: extname],
    format: [Function: bound _format],
    parse: [Function: parse],
    sep: '/',
    delimiter: ':',
    win32: <ref *1> {
      resolve: [Function: resolve],
      normalize: [Function: normalize],
      isAbsolute: [Function: isAbsolute],
      join: [Function: join],
      relative: [Function: relative],
      toNamespacedPath: [Function: toNamespacedPath],
      dirname: [Function: dirname],
      basename: [Function: basename],
      extname: [Function: extname],
      format: [Function: bound _format],
      parse: [Function: parse],
      sep: '\\',
      delimiter: ';',
      win32: [Circular *1],
      posix: [Circular *2],
      _makeLong: [Function: toNamespacedPath]
    },
    posix: [Circular *2],
    _makeLong: [Function: toNamespacedPath]
  }
}
Shorthand {
  w: [ '--width' ],
  h: [ '--help' ],
  D: [ '--delay' ],
  d: [ '--device' ],
  q: [ '--quality' ],
  out: [ '--output' ],
  v: [ '--version' ],
  g: [ '--greyscale' ],
  r: [ '--rotation' ],
  l: [ '--location' ],
  S: [ '--skip' ]
}

[MMRIZE]

@hclaus
I found what’s wrong.
I might have forgotten to implement that feature really when I built this module 2 years ago. Haha… Sorry.

At this moment, the module owner is BrianHepler, but I’m not sure he is still managing this module. I made a PR for this and contributed, but Brian’s acceptance is needed.

Or you can try this repository instead;
https://github.com/MMRIZE/MMM-Selfieshot

Or just open node_helper.js and modify around line 86 for width and height by manual. It is an absolutely bad habit to edit source code directly by you, but at least you can test the working.

I have no good webcam to test it, but you might have a piece of luck.

[hclaus]

@mmrize

Haha, but your original intentions were good and are now fully applied

It works now (with the native Raspi Camera v2.1) and I can now happily integrate the selfie function into my mirror. Thank you so much for looking deeper into it!! BrianHepler seems to have left this forum and does not react on GitHub issues anymore, so you were the last resort.

[bhepler]

@hclaus - Hey, sorry for dropping the ball like that. I have merged the PR from @MMRIZE and added the ability to rotate the countdown & displayed image. The higher resolution fix is already in the main branch. The rotation feature is going through some testing but it should be committed by the end of the week.

[MMRIZE]

@bhepler
I have one thing to discuss with u. Recently Raspberry changed its default camera stack to “libcamera” with modern and advanced spec.
However libcamera doesn’t support macos or old rp, so new independent module might be needed.

[bhepler]

@MMRIZE - Hrm. It doesn’t support old RPi? How old are we talking about? I can kind of understand if it doesn’t support the original, but the big question is does it support the RPi 3A/B+. IIRC, that’s the most popular hardware for the mirrors.

[MMRIZE]

@bhepler not for the rpi hw itself(os update be needed) but for the new compatible cams.
If someone has rpi zero and camera module 2, legacy raspicam stack will still work, but for the new 16MP cam, libcamra would be needed.

[bhepler]

First: Rotation feature has been merged into the latest version.

@MMRIZE - Heh. So if someone uses the least powerful RPi with the most powerful camera, it may not work. Okay, not unexpected but yeah I could see how that would be a common combination.

Do you have a link where I can research the situation? I hate to pester you with dumb questions. I would rather do my research and then discuss strategies with you rather than me posting a lot of stuff here just to clarify our vocabulary.