Raspberry Pi : education tool for teaching photography II

Abstract

Traditionally, photography lessons are carried out in an outdoor setting. Due to the lack of means to provide a large screen, which can be viewed by all, participants will have to gather around the trainer to listen to his/ her explanation and jot down valuable pointers.

However, with rapid technological advancements, portable devices are capable of connecting among each other seamlessly. Since mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones are easily accessible, learning photography can be leveraged by taking advantage of mobile technologies.

The purpose of this Final Year Project is to develop an educational tool based on a previously built application; a remote camera control system that allows user to control a digital camera remotely, via a Raspberry Pi using a mobile device. This educational tool revolutionizes the way photography is being taught.

The application enables instructor to share images captured wirelessly, with participants of the course. A transparent overlay was created on top of the image to allow instructor to annotate on it, either by mouse-drawing or touch-based drawing. Annotation will then be pushed to students’ devices in real-time manner. The application can also generate histograms during live view mode, and after image has been captured. The histogram of image captured will appear on students’ devices.

HTML5 canvas element was implemented to achieve annotating purpose. Comet with long polling technique has been applied to realize real-time push notifications on students’ devices. Generating histogram was handled by JavaScript library and jQuery library.

At the end of the project, the education tool was integrated into the previous application. The overall requirements were met and objectives were fulfilled.