PiXPi

"PiXPi" is a digital camera controller which is dedicated to use in photography.

This device is automating camera shutter and flashes driving, along with the possibility to connect various external modules, through which it's enabling an easy way to utilize some less popular photography techniques like "high-speed photography" or "extreme macro photography".

Scope of work

I started this project roughly almost 2 and a half years ago, beginning from idea, through controller and modules hardware design, development of controller software(and for 2 of uC based modules also) as well Android application to design of a logo and a simple webpage.

Software

Moving on to software details, the controller board is based on Linux(OpenWrt), which is hosting Python application. This Python app is responsible for receiving and executing requests received from Android Application. Requests sent from the mobile application are containing executable Python code, but a regular user is not interacting with plain code, just graphical blocks, code itself is generated "under-the-hood" by integrated into an application Google's "Blockly" graphical programming library.

Gallery

Some photos taken with aid of this controller can be seen on the web-page which I created for this project:
PiXPi photo gallery

(Open)Sources

I made this project available as open-source as well open-hardware, so you can find most of the sources on my GitHub:

Link: PiXPi repo's

One exception is Android application, it's source are also available, but on request.

More details and a bit of bragging ;)

If you are interested in more technical details as well some "build-logs", you can check the Hackaday.io project site:

PiXPi hackaday.io project page: Link

Hackaday.io page was created as an entry for the "2019 Hackaday Prize" and within this I was able to advance to "final 20" stage:

Here you can read about it: Link

Additionally project was described individually in separate articles:

Hackaday article:Link

Medium/Hackster article:Link