pythorvision

pythorvision is a python package as client API for communicating with XDAQ video streaming subsystem -- ThorVision, designed to manage camera streams and recordings.

Features

pythorvision features High-level API with simple interface for managing camera streams and recordings.

• Camera Discovery: List available cameras and their capabilities.
• Flexible Stream Selection: Select stream capabilities:
  • media type (MJPEG)
  • format
  • resolution
  • framerate
• GStreamer-based Recording: Record video streams into split .mkv files using GStreamer.

Requirements

• Python: Python 3.6 or higher is required.
• Dependencies:
  • GStreamer: Must be installed on the client machine, and gst-launch-1.0 must be available in the system's PATH.

    • You can download GStreamer from gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download.

    • Windows:

      1. Download and run the runtime installer.
      2. Add the bin directory of your GStreamer installation (e.g., C:\gstreamer\1.0\msvc_x86_64\bin) to your system's Path environment variable.

    • macOS:

      • The recommended way to install is using Homebrew:

        brew install gstreamer
        

      • Alternatively, you can download and run the runtime installer from the GStreamer website. If you use the installer, you may need to manually add GStreamer to your PATH:

        export PATH=/Library/Frameworks/GStreamer.framework/Versions/Current/bin:$PATH
        

Installation

To install pythorvision, you can use pip in project root directory:

pip install .

This will install the package and its required Python dependencies.

Tutorial

This tutorial demonstrates how to use ThorVisionClient to connect to the server, start and record streams from cameras, and then clean up the resources.

Run the Example Scripts

Record Video from Two Cameras

Run the following script to record from the first two available cameras for 10 seconds:

python ./examples/run_two_cams.py

The recorded .mkv video files will be saved in the recordings/ directory.

Extract Metadata from a Video File

If you have a pre-recorded video, you can extract its frame metadata using this script:

python ./examples/extract_video_metadata.py "path/to/your/video.mkv"

Record and Immediately Extract Metadata

This script provides a complete end-to-end example of recording a short video and then immediately parsing it to display its metadata.

python ./examples/record_and_extract.py

API Documentation

For complete API documentation, visit: https://kontex-neuro.github.io/pythorvision/