vidcontrol is a Python package for managing multi-webcam video capture. It is designed to be cross-platform and easy to use. Under the hood, we use imageio for video capture, which itself uses ffmpeg. This package offers various utility functions for listing and selecting available webcams, and for capturing video from multiple webcams simultaneously. We also provide an easy-to-use interface for resolving image resolutions and frame rates.
This package has been developed in conjunction with ctrlability together with the Prototype Fund.
| Platform | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| MacOS | Full support | Tested and verified on macOS 12.0+ |
| Linux | Not yet, but planned | |
| Windows | Full support | Tested and verified on Windows 11 |
This package requires Python 3.8 or higher. We recommend using a virtual environment for development. You can create a virtual environment using venv or conda.
Additionally, you will need to install ffmpeg on your system. On macOS, you can install ffmpeg using Homebrew:
brew install ffmpegYou can install the latest version of the package directly from this repository:
pip install git+https://github.com/inmotion-health/vidcontrol.gitOr install from source:
git clone https://github.com/inmotion-health/vidcontrol.git
cd vidcontrol
pip install .Generally, this package is constructed around two main classes: VideoManager and VideoSource. The VideoManager is used to manage all available webcams and to create new VideoSource instances. The VideoSource is used to capture video from a single webcam. The following example shows how to use these classes to capture video from a single webcam:
from vidcontrol import VideoManager
manager = VideoManager()
# List available webcams
manager.list_available_cameras()
# Set the height of the video capture
manager.set_preferred_height(480)
# Get a video source and start capturing
source = manager.get_video_source(0)
for frame in source:
# Do something with the frame
passTo capture video from a webcam, you first need to request a VideoSource from the VideoManager. You can do this by calling get_video_source and passing the index of the webcam you want to use. The index is the same as the index returned by list_available_cameras. You can also pass a preferred_height and preferred_fps to get_video_source to set the height and frame rate of the video capture. If you do not pass these parameters, the VideoManager will use the default values.
The VideoManager will then try to find a webcam that supports the requested height and frame rate. If it cannot find a webcam that supports the requested height and frame rate, it will use the next best resolution and frame rate. By default, this fallback is disabled, but you can enable it by setting next_best to True when configuring the VideoManager.
If the VideoSource for a webcam is requested multiple times, the VideoManager will return the same VideoSource instance. This means that you can use the same VideoSource instance in multiple places in your code. This is useful if you want to capture video from a single webcam multiple times.
For more detailed examples, please see the examples folder.
vidcontrol supports various options for configuring the video capture. You can set these options either when creating a new VideoManager or when creating a new VideoSource. The following table lists all available options:
| Parameter | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
| VideoManager | ||
preferred_height |
The preferred height of the video capture. | 480 |
preferred_fps |
The preferred frame rate of the video capture. | 30 |
next_best |
Whether to use the next best resolution if the preferred resolution fails. | False |
| VideoSource | ||
color_format |
The color format of the video capture. | rgb |
Other options: bgr |
||
mirror_frame |
Whether to mirror the frame vertically. | True |
flip_frame_horizontal |
Whether to flip the frame horizontally. | False |
These options are either passed as a dictionary to the VideoManager or VideoSource set_config, or via their respective functions in the form of set_<option>. See the basic usage or pass config example to see how to use some of these options.
We welcome contributions and feedback. Please use GitHub issues to report bugs, discuss features, or ask questions. If you would like to contribute to the project, feel free to open a pull request. Please make sure to follow the PEP8 style guide.
Things we especially would appreciate help with:
- Testing on different platforms and versions
- Testing with different webcams
When contributing, please make sure to use conventional commits for your commit messages. This makes it easier to automatically generate a changelog. You can find more information about conventional commits here.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.
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