aestream 0.1.0

Streaming library for Address-Event Representation (AER) data

AEStream - Address Event streaming library

AEDAT parses event-based dynamic-vision system (DVS) data from an input source and streams it to a sink.

AEStream is built in C++, but can be interfaced via CLI or Python (work in progress).

Usage (Python)

First, install PyTorch and libcaer. Then install aestream via pip: pip install aestream

# Stream events from a DVS camera over USB at address 2:4
with DVSInput((640, 480)) as stream:
    while True:
        frame = stream.read() # Provides a (640, 480) tensor
        ...

# Stream events UDP port 3333
with UDPInput((640, 480)) as stream:
    while True:
        frame = stream.read() # Provides a (640, 480) tensor
        ...

More examples can be found in our example folder.

Usage (CLI)

AEStream produces a binary stream that requires you to specify an input source and an optional output source (defaulting to STDOUT). The general syntax is as follows (input is required, output is optional):

aestream input <input source> [output <output sink>]

Supported Inputs and Outputs

We currently support the following inputs:

Input	Description	Usage
DAVIS	346x260 DVS camera, Inivation	input inivation X Y davis
DVXplorer	640x480 DVS camera, Inivation	input inivation X Y dvx
Prophesee	640x480 DVS camera, Prophesee	input prophesee X
Prophesee	1280x720 DVS camera, Prophesee	input prophesee X
File	.aedat or .aedat4	input file x.aedat4

We currently support the following outputs:

Output	Description	Usage
STDOUT	Standard output (default output)	output stdout
Ethernet over UDP	Outputs to a given IP and port using the SPIF protocol	output spif 10.0.0.1 1234
File	Output to file	output file my_file.txt

CLI examples

Example	Syntax
Read file to STDOUT	aestream input file example/davis.aedat4
Stream DVS Davis346 (USB 0:2) by iniVation AG to STDOUT (Note, requires Inivation libraries)	aestream input inivation 0 2 davis output stdout
Stream Prophesee 640x480 (serial Prophesee:hal_plugin_gen31_fx3:00001464) to STDOUT (Note, requires Metavision SDK)	aestream input prophesee Prophesee:hal_plugin_gen31_fx3:00001464 output stdout
Read file to remote machine X.X.X.X	aestream input file example/davis.aedat4 output udp X.X.X.X

Setup (C++)

AEStream requires libtorch. Metavision SDK, libcaer and OpenCV are optional dependencies, but are needed for some functionality.

AEStream is based on C++20. Since C++20 is not yet fully supported by all compilers, we recommend using GCC >= 10.2.

To build the binaries of this repository, run the following code:

export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=`absolute path to libtorch/`
# Optional: Ensure paths to libcaer, Metavision, or OpenCV is in place
mkdir build/
cd build/
cmake -GNinja ..
ninja

If your default C++ compiler doesn't support C++ 20, you will have to install an up-to-date compiler and provide the environmental variable CXX. For instance like this: CXX=/path/to/g++ cmake -GNinja ..

Acknowledgments

AEStream is created by

• Jens E. Pedersen (@GitHub jegp), doctoral student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.
• Christian Pehle (@GitHub cpehle), PostDoc at University of Heidelberg, Germany.

The work has received funding from the EC Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant Agreements 785907 and 945539 (HBP) and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Fundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy EXC 2181/1 - 390900948 (the Heidelberg STRUCTURES Excellence Cluster).

Thanks to Philipp Mondorf for interfacing with Metavision SDK and preliminary network code.