webcam-filters 0.2.1a0

Add filters (background blur, etc) to your webcam on Linux

webcam-filters

Add filters (background blur, etc) to your webcam on Linux.

Video conferencing applications tend to either lack video effects altogether or support only a limited set of capabilities on Linux (e.g. Zoom, Google Meets).

Goal here is to provide a virtual webcam via v4l2loopback with a common set of filters that can be used everywhere.

Usage

Passthrough (no-op):

$ webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3

Blur background:

$ webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3 --background-blur 150

Dependencies

Other than the Python dependencies that can be automatically installed by Pip, there are a few system dependencies that require manual attention.

v4l2loopback

v4l2loopback kernel module is required to emulate a virtual webcam. See your distro’s docs or v4l2loopback on how to install and set it up (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/community/any/v4l2loopback-dkms/).

You’ll probably want to create at least one loopback device (that’s persistent on boot):

$ sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2loopback.conf << "EOF"
# /dev/video3
options v4l2loopback video_nr=3
options v4l2loopback card_label="Virtual Webcam"
options v4l2loopback exclusive_caps=1
EOF
$ sudo modprobe v4l2loopback
$ v4l2-ctl --device /dev/video3 --info

Gstreamer

• gstreamer-1.0 (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gstreamer/)

• gst-plugins-base (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-plugins-base/)

• gst-python (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-python/)

• gst-plugins-good (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-plugins-good/)

Installation

You can either use pipx or pip. Pipx is recommend to keep dependencies isolated.

Latest stable:

$ pipx install --system-site-packages webcam-filters
$ pip install --user webcam-filters

Latest pre-release:

$ pipx install --system-site-packages --pip-args='--pre' webcam-filters
$ pip install --user --pre webcam-filters

Git:

$ url="git+https://github.com/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters.git"
$ pipx install --system-site-packages "$url"
$ pip install --user "$url"