psomers3 / nanocamera

A simple to use camera interface for the Jetson Nano for working with USB and CSI cameras in Python.

NanoCamera

A simple to use camera interface for the Jetson Nano for working with USB and CSI cameras in Python.

It currently supports the following types of camera:

• Works with CSI Cameras (Tested and Works)
• Works with various USB cameras (Tested with Logitech USB camera)
• Works with IP Cameras (Future version)

Features

• It is OpenCV ready. Image file can be called directly with OpenCV imshow
• Image file is a numpy RGB array.
• Support different Camera Flip Mode (Counterclockwise, Rotate 180 degress, Clockwise - 90 degrees, Horizontal Flip, Vertical Flip)
• Can be used with multiple cameras
• Support Frame rate enforcement. *Only available for USB cameras.
• Frame rate enforcement ensures the cameras work at the given frame rate using gstreamer videorate plugin
• It is based on Accelerated GStreamer Plugins
• Should work with other Jetson boards like Jetson TX1, TX2 and others (Not tested)
• Easily read images as numpy arrays with image = camera.read()
• Supports threaded read - available to all camera types. To enable a fast threaded read, you will to enable the enforce_fps: enforce_fps = True

Requirements

This library requires OpenCV to be installed to work. If you don't have OpenCV, you can install one with pip:

pip3 install opencv-python 

Install

Installation is simple. Can be installed in two ways with Pip or Manually.

Pip Installation

pip3 install nanocamera 

Manual Installation

git clone https://github.com/thehapyone/NanoCamera
cd NanoCamera
sudo python3 setup.py install

Usage & Example

Using NanoCamera is super easy. Below we show some usage examples. You can find more in the examples.

Working with CSI Camera

For CSI Cameras, the camera_type = 0.

Find here for full CSI camera example

Python Example - Create CSI camera using default FPS=30, default image size: 640 by 480 and with no rotation (flip=0)

import nanocamera as nano
# Create the Camera instance for 640 by 480
camera = nano.Camera()

Customizing the width and height

import nanocamera as nano
# Create the Camera instance for No rotation (flip=0) with size of 1280 by 800
camera = nano.Camera(flip=0, width=1280, height=800, fps=30)

if image is inverted, set flip = 2

Working with USB Camera

For USB Cameras, set the camera_type = 1, and set the device_id as well Find here for full USB camera example

Python Example - Create USB camera connected to /dev/video1

import nanocamera as nano
# Create the Camera instance for No rotation (flip=0) with size of 640 by 480
camera = nano.Camera(camera_type=1, device_id=1, width=640, height=480, fps=30)

Enable frame rate enforcement i.e force the camera to work at the given frame rate

import nanocamera as nano
# enforce the capture frame rate with the enforce_fps=True
camera = nano.Camera(camera_type=1, device_id=1, width=640, height=480, fps=30, enforce_fps=True)

You can see connected USB cameras by running :

ls /dev/video*

# for usb camera /dev/video2, the device_id will be 2

Reading Camera

Call read() to read the latest image as a numpy.ndarray. The color format is BGR8.

frame = camera.read()

A Simple program to read from the CSI camera and display with OpenCV

import cv2
#from nanocamera.NanoCam import Camera
import nanocamera as nano

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Create the Camera instance
    camera = nano.Camera(flip=0, width=640, height=480, fps=30)
    print('CSI Camera is now ready')
    while True:
        try:
            # read the camera image
            frame = camera.read()
            # display the frame
            cv2.imshow("Video Frame", frame)
            if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
                break
        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            break

    # close the camera instance
    camera.release()

    # remove camera object
    del camera

See also

• Platooning Robot - Resources for building collaborative robots