Ellen

This project is a webserver that receives events from Gorilla IVAR into either an .xlsx excel file or a .sqlite Sqlite Database.

Because we are saving Gorilla data, the namesake is from The Ellen Fund, whose mission is to save real-life gorillas.

Quick Install

1. Download the .zip file for your architecture on the latest Releases page
2. Extract the zip and run ellen.exe

Build a single-file executable

We use Pyinstaller. It cannot be used with Windows Store python due to permission errors to the AppData folder.

This process was tested with Windows python Python 3.8.4.

pip install pyinstaller

build single file exe: we take $ellen_source to be the top-level ellen directory.

cd $ellen_source
pyinstaller --onefile ./ellen.spec

omitting the --hidden-import flag will cause errors.

Installation via Source

For use with libellenxls, ensure that the following two libraries are installed:

• https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
• https://pypi.org/project/Pillow/

pip install pillow
pip install openpyxl
pip install flask

| Becuase we rely on some private methods to better manipulate Image positions, please use openpyxl version 3.0.4.

Usage - Server

Start:

./src/server.py

Configuration

The config.ini file is supplied by default. In case it is deleted, it will be regenerated.
The configuration has the following options available:

maxkeepdays = 30        // Maximum number of days back to keep recorded data
maxrecordcount = 10000  // Maximum number of records to keep
maxdbsize = 100         // Maximum size of the storage file in MB

storeimagekind = FACE   // Type of Gorilla Image data to save [FACE, OBJECT, SCENE]
storeimage = True       // Whether to store Gorilla Image data at all [True, False]
storefulljson = False   // Whether to store the entire Gorilla Data Object [True, False]
datadirectory = ./data  // Where to store temporary data
outputdirectory = ./    // Where to output the Storage file
kind = XLS              // Storage File type in either an Excel spreadsheet, or a Sqlite file [XLS, SQL]
timezone = Local         // Whether to store timestamps as local time (as seen by the computer running Ellen), or UTC. [Local, UTC]

port = 5000             // Server port to bind to, defaults to "5000"

This config can be reloaded at any time with the /reload endpoint.

Endpoints:

• /savegorilla
  • POST
  • Receives Gorilla data in JSON format from the IVAR server.
• /healthcheck
  • GET
  • Returns if the server is running
• /reload
  • GET
  • Reloads the config at ./config.ini without requiring a server restart

Todo

• nice-to-have:
  • wtf is going on with python module imports?
  • cleanup old methods
  • make better installation method