tatolab-virtualcamera

A virtual camera for Tatolab streams, built the way a third party builds a node: an extension wheel that depends on tatolab-stream and on no engine crate, its native half reaching the engine's PipeWire camera door through the module host table. Linux only.

• VirtualCameraSink presents each frame on video as the picture of a camera any Linux application can select. Each instance is one camera, created at setup and removed at teardown, like a USB camera plugged in and pulled out.
  • Config: name, the camera's name in every picker, at most 31 bytes; absent, StreamLib Camera plus four characters stable across runs of the same stream and node. door: v4l2loopback, a /dev/video* camera every application sees; pipewire, a PipeWire camera portal-based applications select, with no kernel module and no grant; auto (the default), the loopback camera where it is permitted and PipeWire otherwise.
  • The engine converts each RGBA frame into YUYV on the GPU; the camera's format follows the first frame's extent and colour, and an extent change re-negotiates it. A frame of odd width drops every later frame.
  • Without write access to /dev/v4l2loopback the loopback door refuses, naming tatolab enable-virtual-camera, the one-time command that loads the module and grants it behind your desktop's password prompt. Without a PipeWire daemon the PipeWire door refuses naming why.

from tatolab.virtualcamera import VirtualCameraSink

camera = stream_builder.add(VirtualCameraSink, config={"name": "Desk Camera"})

Check it

uv venv --python 3.12 .venv && VIRTUAL_ENV=.venv uv pip install ../../sdk/tatolab-stream pytest mypy
VIRTUAL_ENV=.venv uvx maturin@1.9.6 develop
.venv/bin/python -m mypy.stubtest tatolab.virtualcamera._native
.venv/bin/pytest tests && uvx pyright@1.1.411

The camera tests run on a runtime with the module loaded, in the integration suite's test_virtual_camera_sink.py.