New Plugin – BloomSky

New Plugin – BloomSky

This plugin is for users who have the Bloomsky webcam. It uses the Bloomsky API which allows you to save the images to your own server along with the associated meta data. In addition it also saves daily timelapses and then allows you to visualize the data on the page. More features will be available in future updates of this plugin.
As I was not approved for one, I would like to give huge thanks to Tom from Dongan Hills, NY, who provided me remote access to his camera and thus ability to work with the API! Thanks Tom!

Main features

  • shows the most recent image updated automatically at an interval you specify
  • periodical saving of images to your server using a CRON job (timestamp of when the photo was taken is taken into account to prevent saving duplicates)
  • saving daily timelapse videos any time a new one is available, up to 5 days to the past
  • also saving the image meta data – temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, UV and then showing these on the page also taking into account the units set in Meteotemplate config.php and converting the numbers if necessary
  • interactive calendar to view images from particular day
  • daily summary (max/min of all the parameters, also compared to the values from your station)
  • possibility to color the image background based on the meta data
  • calculation of sunrise/sunset and showing the image closest to this time
  • showing/saving always the current image (unlike for example WU, where the delay is up to 45 minutes)

Description

This plugin is for those users who have the Bloomsky webcam.

First get your free API key and insert this in the plugin settings. This will pair the plugin with the data from your camera. Then, using a CRON job, the plugin will periodically save the current image to your own server. You can specify the save interval and the plugin also takes into account when that image was actually taken and only saves it if it is not the same as the last saved image. The plugin will also always check if a new daily timelapse is available and if so, it will save it as well (up to 5 days to the past). In addition, the actual image is saved twice. Once in its original size and also a copy of it as a thumbnail, which is small and so the pages with lots of images load very fast and only when you click a particular image, the full version is loaded.

The images are saved on your server, but also all the metadata associated with this image are saved in a database, which is created automatically by the template. This way, the plugin can then pair this data with the particular image when displaying it, allowing all sorts of filtering and visualization.

On the main page there is the most recent image available, you can set the interval and it will update automatically without the need to refresh the page. This interval is different from the interval at which the images are saved so you can set it quite short if you want your image to update often.

Next to the current image is a calendar where the user can select a particular day. Then, the plugin will load all the data available for that day. First it will check if daily timelapse is available. If so, it will be shown in a videoplayer, which includes options such as pause, view full screen etc.

Below the video a summary block will show you the max/min measured by both the camera and your station for that day. There is also the sunrise and sunset times and an image that is closest to this time (if available, the script checks and only shows the image if it is within one hour after the sunrise or sunset)

Next is a table of the actual images grouped by hours. Each hour for which there is some image is shown along with the data associated with that image (temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, UV) and of course the time the picture was taken (taken, not the time when it was saved). You can also click one of the buttons above to change the background of the images based on particular parameter. For example, if you click the temperature, the image with the lowest temperature on that day will have a dark blue background, while the one with the highest temperature will be dark red. Same can be done for humidity, pressure and UV. Each image is shown as the thumbnail and when clicked, will open in the original full view.

The camera does not measure the actual amount of precipitation, but it reports it as true or false. Therefore if you click the button Show precipitation, only images which have the tag rain as true will be displayed (if none, then all images will disappear).

 

Instructions how to install and screenshots:

http://www.meteotemplate.com/web/plugins/bloomSky.php

15 thoughts on “New Plugin – BloomSky”

    • If you could send it through John that would be great. I dont know too much but am willing to give it a shot. Email is caleb @ gabbie.nz

      Cheers

    • Don’t worry about emailing me v1 of the file. I’ve found what the issue was and have it working with the current version, v2. If you edit the plugins/bloomsky/current.php file and the edit out ( put a // in front of) line 21. Line 21 is print_r($data);

      So make it look like

      // print_r($data);

      and save the file. Reload the page and should be working now.

      • The rest of the page is working and it is downloading the photos from the api. But that does point towhat needs to be looked at. John Beck has it working with v1 of the plugin, but not v2. If I could get a copy of v1 of the plugin I’ll have a look and see if I can find out what is happening 🙂

  3. Jachym,
    Happy New Years! I appreciate your help but am still trying to determine whether a recent change in their API may be preventing the data from being properly imported. I have verified that no data has been written to the bloomsky table, however, I am seeing the images, thumbnails and the end of day video being pulled in. Unfortunately, I’ve been unsuccessful so far as to being able to “manually” run the script with “http://api.bloomsky.com/api/skydata/?format=json” since I don’t know how to configure the options portion (my unique authorization key). I’m not trying to burn anymore of your time but just looking for some possible suggestions as to the way forward. Thanks again for your continued support, Sir!

    John B

    • Thanks for letting me know John, Im just finishing 2 more things and I will then look at it, I have access to one user´s camera to test things out. I put it on my to-do list. I will keep you updated.

  4. So I’m not getting any errors when the CRON executes, however, when I try to execute the update script in IE, I get the popup “do you want to update or save update.json”. When I attempt to run the update script from Microsoft Edge, I don’t receive the same error however, I see no response. It may be that the API from BloomSky has some problems. What is strange is that I’m pulling in the recent photo but not capturing the historical photos or any of the associated weather data. Is there a way for me to verify the API outside of your plugin update?

    John

    • Hi, to be absolutely honest Im not sure how to help because:
      1. I do not have BS myself, no way to test anything
      2. I dont have possibility to use neither IE nor Edge (and I would highly encourage everyone not to use either of those two, the first one is totally outdated and should not be used at all, the latter one is still buggy and incompatible with how ALL other browsers work (Chrome, FF, Opera, Maxthon, Vivaldi, Safari, you name it…)

      Sorry, Im sort of lost with this, this plugin… I was glad it works at all given the circumstances how I created it and what I can/cannot do

  5. Jachym,
    What problems will it cause if I accidentally ran the index.php before I ran the CROB update script? I am pulling in the latest pic but nothing additionally is being captured. Thanks again for all of the assistance!

    John

  6. Hi, unfortunately the answer is no. It is not a stand alone script. It is deeply integrated into Meteotemplate. It uses its core functions to do all the conversions, parsing etc., but most importantly, uses its database in the backend, which saves all the data.

    Only thing I can suggest is installing the template, which is really easy. There is a detailed wiki and if you still have problems, just let me know, I have helped installing it to many people.

    Jachym

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