Log Raspberry pi time according to GPU (i.e. using real time OS)

Question

Using the below given script, I am able to log camera.timestamp and camera.frame.timestamp. These should ideally be same as they both query GPU System clock time. For example, for 30hz frame-rate, inter frame interval should be 33ms which is what I get with camera.frame.timestamp but not with camera.timestamp.

Also I am logging both of the above mentioned timestamp value every 10ms. The camera.frame.timestamp does not increase every 10ms which is understandable (or that's what I understood) as increment happens only when the frame is complete so it will basically increment at 1/frame-rate seconds whereas camera.timestamp or MMAL_PARAMETER_SYSTEM_TIME does. Now the problem is is that camera.timestamp is not very accurate as compared to camera.frame.timestamp cause of the above shown results (jittery inter frame interval).

How can I fetch camera.timestamp (GPU system clock) accurately just like the camera.frame.timestamp using the picamera python library?

import io
import time
import datetime as dt
from picamera import PiCamera
from threading import Thread, Event
from queue import Queue, Empty
import sys, getopt
import argparse
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

#camera parameter setting
WIDTH  = 640
HEIGHT = 480
FRAMERATE = 30
VIDEO_STABILIZATION = True
EXPOSURE_MODE = 'night'
BRIGHTNESS = 55
CONTRAST = 50
SHARPNESS = 50
SATURATION = 30
AWB_MODE = 'off'
AWB_GAINS = 1.4

#video, timestamps and ttl file name
VIDEO_FILE_NAME = "cam4_output_" + str(dt.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")) + ".h264"
TIMESTAMP_FILE_NAME = "cam4_timestamp_" + str(dt.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")) + ".csv"
TTL_FILE_NAME = "cam4_ttl_" + str(dt.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")) + ".csv"

#running time variable intialization
runningTimeHours, runningTimeMinutes, runningTimeSeconds = 0,0,0

#set raspberry pi board layout to BCM
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
#pin number to receive TTL input
pinTTL = 4
#set the pin as input pin
GPIO.setup(pinTTL, GPIO.IN)
#add event detection script to GPIO pin
GPIO.add_event_detect(pinTTL, GPIO.BOTH)

#video output thread to save video file
class VideoOutput(Thread):
    def __init__(self, filename):
        super(VideoOutput, self).__init__()
        self._output = io.open(filename, 'wb', buffering=0)
        self._event = Event()
        self._queue = Queue()
        self.start()

    def write(self, buf):
        self._queue.put(buf)
        return len(buf)

    def run(self):
        while not self._event.wait(0):
            try:
                buf = self._queue.get(timeout=0.1)
            except Empty:
                pass
            else:
                self._output.write(buf)
                self._queue.task_done()

    def flush(self):
        self._queue.join()
        self._output.flush()

    def close(self):
        self._event.set()
        self.join()
        self._output.close()

    @property
    def name(self):
        return self._output.name

#timestamp output object to save timestamps according to pi and TTL inputs received and write to file
class TimestampOutput(object):
    def __init__(self, camera, video_filename, timestamp_filename, ttl_filename):
        self.camera = camera
        self._video = VideoOutput(video_filename)
        self._timestampFile = timestamp_filename
        self._ttlFile = ttl_filename
        self._timestamps = []
        self._ttlTimestamps = []

    def ttlTimestampsWrite(self, input_pin):
        inputState = GPIO.input(input_pin)
        if self.camera.frame.timestamp is not None:
            self._ttlTimestamps.append((inputState, self.camera.timestamp, self.camera.frame.timestamp, self.camera.dateTime, self.camera.clockRealTime))
        else:
            self._ttlTimestamps.append((inputState, -1, self.camera.timestamp, self.camera.dateTime, self.camera.clockRealTime))

    def write(self, buf):
        if self.camera.frame.complete and self.camera.frame.timestamp is not None:
            self._timestamps.append((
                self.camera.timestamp,
                self.camera.frame.timestamp,
                self.camera.dateTime,
                self.camera.clockRealTime
                ))
        return self._video.write(buf)

    def flush(self):
        with io.open(self._timestampFile, 'w') as f:
            f.write('Timestamps, GPU Times, time.time(), clock_realtime\n')
            for entry in self._timestamps:
                f.write('%d,%f,%f,%f\n' % entry)
        with io.open(self._ttlFile, 'w') as f:
            f.write('Input State, Timestamp, GPU Times, time.time(), clock_realtime\n')
            for entry in self._ttlTimestamps:
                f.write('%f,%f,%f,%f,%f\n' % entry)


    def close(self):
        self._video.close()

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument("-hr", "--hours", type=int, help="number of hours to record")
parser.add_argument("-m", "--minutes", type=int, help="number of minutes to record")
parser.add_argument("-s", "--seconds", type=int, help="number of seconds to record")
args = parser.parse_args()

runningTimeHours = float(args.hours)
runningTimeMinutes = float(args.minutes)
runningTimeSeconds = float(args.seconds)

totalRunningTime = runningTimeHours*60*60 + runningTimeMinutes*60 + runningTimeSeconds

with PiCamera(resolution=(WIDTH, HEIGHT), framerate=FRAMERATE) as camera:
    camera.brightness = BRIGHTNESS
    camera.contrast = CONTRAST
    camera.sharpness = SHARPNESS
    camera.video_stabilization = VIDEO_STABILIZATION
    camera.hflip = False
    camera.vflip = False

    #warm-up time to camera to set its initial settings
    time.sleep(2)

    camera.exposure_mode = EXPOSURE_MODE
    camera.awb_mode = AWB_MODE
    camera.awb_gains = AWB_GAINS

    #time to let camera change parameters according to exposure and AWB
    time.sleep(2)

    #switch off the exposure since the camera has been set now 
    camera.exposure_mode = 'off'

    output = TimestampOutput(camera, VIDEO_FILE_NAME, TIMESTAMP_FILE_NAME, TTL_FILE_NAME)
    GPIO.add_event_callback(pinTTL, output.ttlTimestampsWrite)
    try:
        camera.start_preview()
        # Construct an instance of our custom output splitter with a filename  and a connected socket
        print('Starting Recording')
        camera.start_recording(output, format='h264')
        print('Started Recording')
        camera.wait_recording(totalRunningTime)
        camera.stop_recording()
        camera.stop_preview()
        print('Recording Stopped')
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print('Closing Output File')
        sys.exit(2)
    except:
        output.close()
        print('exception! output file closed')
    finally:
        output.close()
        print('Output File Closed')