Run pibooth

Start the pibooth application using the command:

pibooth

All pictures taken are stored in the folder defined in [GENERAL][directory]. They are named YYYY-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss_pibooth.jpg which is the time when first capture of the sequence was taken. A subfolder raw/YYYY-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss is created to store the single raw captures.

Note

if you have both Pi and DSLR cameras connected to the Raspberry Pi, both are used, this is called the Hybrid mode. The preview is taken using the Pi one for a better video rendering and the capture is taken using the DSLR one for better picture rendering.

You can display a basic help on application options by using the command:

pibooth --help

States and lights management

The application follows the states sequence defined in the simplified diagram below:

The states of the LED 1 and LED 2 are modified depending on the actions available for the user.

Detailed state diagram can be found on this page section.

Controls

After the graphical interface is started, the following actions are available:

Action	Keyboard key	Physical button	Touch event
Toggle Full screen	Ctrl + F	-	-
Choose layout	LEFT or RIGHT	Button 1 or Button 2	Tap 1 finger
Take pictures	P	Button 1	Tap 1 finger
Export Printer/Cloud	Ctrl + E	Button 2	Tap 1 finger
Open/close settings	ESC	Button 1 + Button 2	Tap 4 finger
Select option	UP or DOWN	Button 1	Tap 1 finger
Change option value	LEFT or RIGHT	Button 2	Tap 1 finger

Configure

At the first run, a configuration file is generated in ~/.config/pibooth/pibooth.cfg by default. This file permits to configure the behavior of the application.

A quick configuration GUI menu (see Controls ) gives access to the most common options:

More options are available by editing the configuration file which is easily done using the command:

pibooth --config

The default configuration can be restored with the command (strongly recommended when upgrading pibooth):

pibooth --reset

The configuration directory can be chosen at startup. This feature gives the possibility to keep several configurations on the same Raspberry Pi and quickly switch from one configuration to another. The following command will start pibooth using configuration files from myconfig1/ directory:

pibooth myconfig1/

See the default configuration file for further details.

Final picture resolution

The pibooth application handle the rendering of the final picture using 2 variables defined in the configuration (see Configure below):

• [CAMERA][resolution] = (width, height) is the resolution of the captured picture in pixels. As explained in the configuration file, the preview size is directly dependent from this parameter.

• [PICTURE][orientation] = auto/landscape/portrait is the orientation of the final picture (after concatenation of all captures). If the value is auto, the orientation is automatically chosen depending on the resolution.

Note

The resolution is an important parameter, it is responsible for the quality of the final picture. For Raspberry Pi camera, see the list of picamera possible resolutions .

For gphoto2 camera, the possible resolutions can be listed by executeing the following command (adapt device path as needed):

v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext -d /dev/video0

Captures effects

Image effects can be applied on the capture using the [PICTURE][effect] variable defined in the configuration.

[PICTURE]

# Effect applied on all captures
captures_effects = film

Instead of one effect name, a list of names can be provided. In this case, the effects are applied sequentially on the captures sequence.

[PICTURE]

# Define a rolling sequence of effects. For each capture the corresponding effect is applied.
captures_effects = ('film', 'cartoon', 'washedout', 'film')

Have a look to the predefined effects available depending on the camera used:

• picamera effects

• gPhoto2 effects (PIL based)

Texts and fonts

Texts can be defined by setting the option [PICTURE][footer_text1] and [PICTURE][footer_text2] (lets them empty to hide any text). Some text can be inserted dynamically using some state variables. Available variables to forge the footer texts are:

• date : datetime of the first capture of the current sequence

• count : current counters (see counters in configuration menu)

For instance, insert the date in the footer text:

[PICTURE]

footer_text1 = The full date is {date}

footer_text2 = A custom date is {date.year}-{date.month}-{date.day}

For each text, the font, the color and the alignment can be chosen. For instance, to change the font:

[PICTURE]

# Same font applied on footer_text1 and footer_text2
text_fonts = Amatic-Bold

Different fonts can be defined for each text. It is achieved by setting two names (or TTF file paths) in the [PICTURE][text_fonts] option:

[PICTURE]

# 'arial' font applied on footer_text1, 'Roboto-BoldItalic' font on footer_text2
text_fonts = ('arial', 'Roboto-BoldItalic')

Here is the list of the fonts installed with pibooth:

• Amatic-Bold

• AmaticSC-Regular

• DancingScript-Bold

• DancingScript-Regular

• Monoid-Bold

• Monoid-Regular

• Monoid-Retina

• Roboto-BoldItalic

• Roboto-LightItalic

Use the script pibooth-fonts to list all available system fonts.

GUI translations

The graphical interface texts are available in 9 languages by default: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. The default translations can be easily edited using the command:

pibooth --translate

A new language can be added by adding a new section ([alpha-2-code]). If you want to have pibooth in your language feel free to send us the corresponding keywords via a GitHub issue.

Printer

The print button (see Controls) and print states are automatically activated/shown if:

• pycups and pycups-notify are installed

• at least one printer is configured in CUPS

• the key [PRINTER][printer_name] is equal to default or an existing printer name

To avoid paper waste, set the option [PRINTER][max_duplicates] to the maximum of identical pictures that can be sent to the printer.

Set the option [PRINTER][max_pages] to the number of paper sheets available on the printer. When this number is reached, the print function will be disabled and an icon indicates the printer failure. To reset the counter, open then close the settings graphical interface (see Controls).

Here is the default configuration used for this project in CUPS, it may depend on the printer used:

Options	Value
Media Size	10cm x 15cm
Color Model	CMYK
Media Type	Glossy Photo Paper
Resolution	Automatic
2-Sided Printing	Off
Shrink page …	Shrink (print the whole page)

Plugins

Plugins installed via pip are enabled automatically at startup but two options are available in the config to handle specific cases.

# Path to custom plugin(s) not installed with pip (list of quoted paths accepted)
plugins =

# Plugin names to be disabled after startup (list of quoted names accepted)
plugins_disabled =

The first option allows to add a plugin which is not a pip package (could be useful for development). In this case, put the path to the plugin Python file.

The second option allows to disable a plugin without needing to uninstall it. The plugin name to be used is the Python module name (e.g. pibooth_qrcode for pibooth-qrcode plugin)

Note

Even if the plugin is disabled it will be listed in the Installed plugin section in the logs