ImportError: No module named picamera

Question

I am trying to build a security system on the Rasberry pi 3 using python 3 that senses motion then takes a photo and sends the photo via email to me. When i run the code it says it can't import the module picamera, I have installed the module on terminal using the 'sudo apt-get install python-pip' command but it says already satisfied. Here is the code:

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
import picamera
import datetime
import subprocess
import smtplib
import os


AuthUser = '[email protected]'
AuthPass = 'alarmsystem'

toAdd = '[email protected]'
fromAdd = AuthUser

subject = 'Motion Detected'

def getFileName(): 
    return datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d_%H.%M.%S.h264")

from gpiozero import MotionSensor

pir = MotionSensor(4)

from PiCamera import PiCamera

camera = PiCamera()
camera.capture('image.jpg')

while True:
    pir.wait_for_motion()
    print("Motion Detected")
    camera.start_preview()
    pir.wait_for_no_motion()
    camera.stop_preview()



mail = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com',587)
gmailUpload = () 
mail.ehlo()
mail.starttls()
mail.login ('[email protected]', 'alarmsystem')
mail.send_mail = (fromAdd, toAdd)

#sensor setup

sensorPin = 7

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD)
GPIO.setup(sensorPin, GPIO.IN, pull_up_down=GPIO.PUD_DOWN)

prevState = False
currState = False

camera = picamera.PiCamera()

from gpiozero import MotionSensor

pir = MotionSensor(4)


while True:
    time.sleep(0.1)
prevState = currState
currState = GPIO.input(sensorPin)
if currState != prevState:
    newState = "HIGH" if currState else "LOW"
print ("GPIO pin %s is %s" % (sensorPin, newState))
if currState:
    fileName = getFileName()
    print ("Starting Recording...")
    camera.start_preview()
    camera.start_recording(fileName)
    print (fileName)
else:
    camera.stop_preview()
    camera.stop_recording()
    print ("Stopped Recording")
    print ("Sending Mail Notification...")
subprocess.call("mail -s 'Motion Detected' [email protected] < /home/pi/mail/images", shell=True)
print ("Complete")

Please help me fix this issue it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Answer 1

Running sudo apt-get install python-pip isn't going to install PiCamera for Python 3, as you stated that you expected. That command installs the Python 2 version of Pip, the Python package manager — so it's installing the wrong package, and for the wrong version of Python too!

As noted in the PiCamera documentation you should just directly install the PiCamera module for Python 3:

sudo apt-get install python3-picamera

Generally packages named python-X are Python 2 modules, and python3-X packages are for Python 3. Python 2 modules are not compatible with Python 3, so even if you have a working Python 2 version of the module you want, it won't necessarily work with Python 3.

---

As Dirk points out in the comments, it's unclear exactly what your code is supposed to do, and why you are importing things twice.

Consider reviewing the Quick Start example; the given way to instantiate a PiCamera is

import picamera

camera = picamera.PiCamera()

The following will also work:

from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()

But note the first import (the bit after from) must be lower case.