pylonguy 1.8.0

PyQt5 wrapper for pypylon SDK for Basler camera manipulation, aimed for microfluidics and slow motion.

PylonGUY

Your best friend for high-performance camera control for Basler cameras with high-speed recording capabilities and simple GUI.

Features

• Real-time preview with adaptive grab strategy (lag-free at any FPS)
• Camera configuration with automatic adjustment to camera capabilities
• High-speed frame capture to raw frames with FFmpeg post-processing
• Configurable playback rate for slow-motion video
• Interactive ROI selection and offset controls
• Preset configurations (Default, HighSpeed, FullFrame, Microfluidics)
• Auto-apply presets on camera connection
• Waterfall mode for line-scan recording

Installation

From PyPI

pip install pylonguy

From source

git clone https://github.com/merv1n34k/pylonguy.git
cd pylonguy
pip install -e .

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• ffmpeg in PATH (for video processing)
• Basler Pylon SDK (for camera communication)

Installing ffmpeg

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# Windows
# Download from https://ffmpeg.org/download.html and add to PATH

Installing Pylon SDK

Download from Basler website. See pypylon known issues for platform-specific notes.

Usage

# Run the application
pylonguy

# Or with uv
uv run pylonguy

How it works

The application separates capture from video encoding for maximum performance:

1. Capture Phase: Frames stream from camera → memory buffer → raw files on disk
2. Processing Phase: After recording stops, FFmpeg assembles raw frames into video

This allows you to specify any desired playback frame rate, e.g.:

• Camera captures at 1000 fps
• Video plays back at 24 fps
• Result: 1 second of capture = 41.7 seconds of slow-motion video

Waterfall Mode

Record single lines instead of full frames for:

• Maximum frame rates (minimal data transfer)
• Line-scan camera emulation
• Monitoring flow in microfluidic channels

Output format: .wtf (waterfall) files, convertible to PNG:

python -m pylonguy.wtf2png recording.wtf

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.