Using THETA With Arduino - Saving Settings

#1

Hello, not sure if it would be best to revive this topic or not. I actually am xavier_pestana but I made a new account.

Anyway, I am using an Arduino with a wifi module to send post commands to my Ricoh Theta S. The Arduino UNO has very limited memory to store all the post commands I need to send, and currently I am using a POST command to set the settings I want before I have the camera begin taking photos. Yesterday I came across the camera.setMySettings command. Does this command “save” my settings between sessions?

If it does that may allow me to get rid of the POST command which sets my settings and free up some memory to have a command check for completion of the photo being taken instead!

If this is more appropriate to post in its own thread I’m sorry!

Error 503 when still camera icon flashing
#2

First, thank you for posting. We enjoy your presence in the community. If you can post the Arduino code with the WiFi module, that would be cool.

For camera.setMySettings, there is only a subset of the commands that can be saved to the camera. See this chart:

https://developers.theta360.com/en/docs/v2.1/api_reference/options/index.html

These generally relate to the camera color, exposure, shutter speed type of settings.

As you can see from the chart, the normal settings options is more extensive. And, I think this is what you want. When you change the setting with the normal POST command, doesn’t it save the things like exposureDelay into the camera?

Or, if you’re changing the settings with the Arduino between shots, then you will need to save it to the Arduino.

BTW, are you using an ESP8266 as the HTTP client?

#3

I am going to check out that Simple Remote controller some more! I have just uploaded my code to github.

I am using this ESP 8266 library: https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_ESP8266_AT_Arduino_Library
with this ESP8266 shield: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/esp8266-wifi-shield-hookup-guide

As I have mentioned I am complete novice when it comes to coding so any advice would be appreciated.

The only settings which I would like to control are the exposure setting, the iso, and turn off the sleep function of the camera (I don’t think this worked the last time I tested this, I have it set to 65535 which according to the API reference should have it disable the sleep setting. I will test it again however.)

If I could have these settings saved between sessions that would be great because then I could possibly use the freed up memory to have the Arduino check for success of the photo taken or have the camera send the photos to a hard drive so the Ricoh Theta S does not run out of space.

Just as a little bit of background. The reason I am rotating the camera is I am using 4 photos rotated 90 degrees from eachother, un-stitching them and reassembling them into a 360 degree stereo-graphic panorama. I want to make a stereo-graphic time-lapse of sunrises/sunsets. This is the most affordable solution I have come up with! I have also learned a lot along the way which has been great. Living in Canada I am hoping to get the rig up an running for the spring time and capture some spring and summer sunsets/sunrises.

Thanks for the help guys!

#4

Did you set the offDelay off?

This is an old video for the THETA S using the API 2.1. For the THETA V, you do not need to change the API version. 65535 is “no power off”

Just as a little bit of background. The reason I am rotating the camera is I am using 4 photos rotated 90 degrees from eachother, un-stitching them and reassembling them into a 360 degree stereo-graphic panorama. I want to make a stereo-graphic time-lapse of sunrises/sunsets.

@xwindor, this thread on the dual-fisheye might be of interest to you. The developer is saving unstitched dual-fisheye images directly to the camera. he’s able to take one image per second with the THETA V.

#5

The dual fisheye images look extremely helpful! I don’t have the money to get a Theta V so I’ll have to rely on my method for now but knowing that this is a possibility is very exciting!

I didn’t see the offDelay! I just dropped it into my code now I’ll test it out tonight!

Thanks!