How to Stream Video from Raspberry Pi to Local - USB Camera

Discover how to stream video from a USB-based camera to your local computer via the local network using Python 3 and Flask with the Picamera2 library. This tutorial builds upon Part 1, where we demonstrated the same process using a Raspberry Pi camera module. Here, we leverage PiCamera2, supported by the Raspberry Pi community, to achieve seamless streaming with your USB-based camera.

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1-) Install the Required Libraries

We need to install flask, opencv, and picamera2 using the apt installer on our raspberry pi. Go into a terminal and run the following commands

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-opencv python3-flask python3-picamera2

If you are still having issues with packages later down the line, try using pip to install these packages.

2-) Code and Walkthrough

Now that you have the packages installed you can go ahead and create a python script on your device, name it however you like. Also be sure to have your USB camera plugged in at this point.

The code is as follows:

from flask import Flask, Response
from picamera2 import Picamera2
import cv2

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app = Flask(__name__)

camera = Picamera2()
camera.configure(camera.create_preview_configuration(main={"format": 'XRGB8888', "size": (640, 480)}))
camera.start()

def generate_frames():
    while True:
        frame = camera.capture_array()
        ret, buffer = cv2.imencode('.jpg', frame)
        frame = buffer.tobytes()
        yield (b'--frame\r\n'
               b'Content-Type: image/jpeg\r\n\r\n' + frame + b'\r\n')

@app.route('/video_feed')
def video_feed():
    return Response(generate_frames(), mimetype='multipart/x-mixed-replace; boundary=frame')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=5000)

This code is a Flask web application that streams video frames from a Raspberry Pi camera module (Picamera2) to a web page. Here's a concise explanation of what the code does:

• It imports the necessary libraries: Flask for creating the web application, Picamera2 for interacting with the camera module, and cv2 (OpenCV) for image processing.
• It creates a Flask application instance and initializes the Picamera2 object.
• It configures the camera settings, specifying the format and size of the preview frames.
• The generate_frames() function continuously captures frames from the camera, encodes them as JPEG images, and yields them as byte strings with appropriate headers for streaming.
• The /video_feed route is defined, which calls the generate_frames() function and returns a Response object with the appropriate MIME type for streaming the video frames.
• Finally, the Flask application is run on the host '0.0.0.0' (accessible from any IP address) and port 5000.

When this code is run on a Raspberry Pi with a camera module, it starts a web server that streams the live video feed from the camera. The video feed can be accessed by visiting the /video_feed endpoint in a web browser.

You can access the webstream from your local computer if you go to a browser and type in the following:

http://<Your Raspberry Pi IP>:5000/video_feed

You can get your IP address of your Raspberry Pi by entering a terminal on the Raspberry Pi and typing the command ifconfig. You can then find the IP address in the inet section.

Once this is done you will see a video stream in your chrome browser!

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we've explored how to stream video from a USB-based camera to your local computer using Python 3, Flask, and the Picamera2 library on a Raspberry Pi. By leveraging the power of these tools, you can easily set up a seamless video streaming solution for your projects.

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