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Get the Device USB Camera Source Code

  1. Change into the edgex directory:

    cd ~/edgex
    

  2. Clone the device-usb-camera repository:

    git clone https://github.com/edgexfoundry/device-usb-camera.git
    

  3. Checkout the latest release (v3.1):

    git checkout v3.1
    

Define the device profile

Each device resource should have a mandatory attribute named command to indicate what action the device service should take for it.

Commands can be one of two types:

  • Commands starting with METADATA_ prefix are used to get camera metadata.

Snippet from general.usb.device.yaml

deviceResources:
- name: "CameraInfo"
    description: >-
    Camera information including driver name, device name, bus info, and capabilities.
    See https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/media/v4l/vidioc-querycap.html.
    attributes:
    { command: "METADATA_DEVICE_CAPABILITY" }
    properties:
    valueType: "Object"
    readWrite: "R"
  • Commands starting with VIDEO_ prefix are related to video stream.

Snippet from general.usb.device.yaml

deviceResources:
- name: "StreamURI"
    description: "Get video-streaming URI."
    attributes:
    { command: "VIDEO_STREAM_URI" }
    properties:
    valueType: "String"
    readWrite: "R"

For all supported commands, refer to the sample at cmd/res/profiles/general.usb.camera.yaml.

Note

In general, this sample should be applicable to all types of USB cameras.

Note

You don't need to define device profile yourself unless you want to modify resource names or set default values for video options.

Define the device

The device's protocol properties contain: * Path is a file descriptor of camera created by OS. You can find the path of the connected USB camera through v4l2-ctl utility. * AutoStreaming indicates whether the device service should automatically start video streaming for cameras. Default value is false.

Snippet from general.usb.camera.yaml.example

deviceList:
- name: "example-camera"
profileName: "USB-Camera-General"
description: "Example Camera"
labels: [ "device-usb-camera-example", ]
protocols:
    USB:
    Path: "/dev/video0"
    AutoStreaming: "false"

See the examples at cmd/res/devices

Note

When a new device is created in Core Metadata, a callback function of the device service will be called to add the device card name and serial number to protocol properties for identification purposes. These two pieces of information are obtained through V4L2 API and udev utility.

Configure RTSP server mode, hostname, and port

Set the RTSP server hostname and port in the Driver section of configuration.yaml file. The default values can be used in this guide.

  • RtspServerMode: Starting in version 3.1, the RTSP Server mode is configurable via RtspServerMode. The values can be "internal", "external", or "none". The default is internal if the field is missing or left blank in order to preserve backwards compatibility with version 3.0.

    • internal: Use this mode when you want an all-in-one package. This mode runs the RTSP server binary, runs the authentication server, and enables the Streaming REST APIs.
    • external: Use this mode when you want to use an external rtsp server on another machine or in a different container. This mode does not run the RTSP server, however it still runs the authentication server, and enables the streaming REST APIs.
    • none: Use this mode when you have no use for the RTSP server functionality (i.e. you want to work directly with the /dev/video paths). RTSP and authentication servers are not run, and the streaming REST APIs are disabled.
  • RtspServerHostName: Configures the external hostname for the RTSP server. This value will be used both internally for setting the destination of the ffmpeg transcoding, and externally for the StreamUri REST API. When running in internal mode, this should be localhost or the hostname of the machine running the device service. In external mode, this should point to the ip address or hostname of the machine/container running the RTSP server.

  • RtspTcpPort: Configures the port number of the RTSP server. Used in conjunction with the RtspServerHostName.

  • RtspAuthenticationServer: indicates the internal hostname and port on which the device service will listen for RTSP authentication requests on. If this value is changed, you will have to also change the mediamtx configuration to point to the new hostname/port as well.

Snippet from configuration.yaml

Driver:
    RtspServerMode: "internal"
    RTSPServerExecutable: "./rtsp-simple-server"
    RtspServerHostName: "localhost"
    RtspTcpPort: "8554"
    RtspAuthenticationServer: "localhost:8000"

Configure RTSP authentication

Set the username and password

Snippet from configuration.yaml

...
Writable:
    LogLevel: "INFO"
    InsecureSecrets:
        rtspauth:
        SecretName: rtspauth
        SecretData:
            username: "<set-username>"
            password: "<set-password>"

For more information on rtsp authentication, including how to disable it, see here

Building the docker image

  1. Change into newly created directory:

    cd ~/edgex/device-usb-camera
    

  2. Build the docker image of the device-usb-camera service:

    make docker
    
    [Optional] Build with NATS Messaging Currently, the NATS Messaging capability (NATS MessageBus) is opt-in at build time. This means that the published Docker image does not include the NATS messaging capability. To build the docker image using NATS, run make docker-nats:
    make docker-nats
    
    See Compose Builder nat-bus option to generate compose file for NATS and local dev images.

  3. Navigate to the Edgex compose directory.

cd ~/edgex/edgex-compose/compose-builder
  1. Update .env file to add the registry and image version variable for device-usb-camera:

Add the following registry and version information:

DEVICE_USBCAM_VERSION=0.0.0-dev

  1. Update the add-device-usb-camera.yml to point to the local image:
services:
device-usb-camera:
   image: edgexfoundry/device-usb-camera${ARCH}:${DEVICE_USBCAM_VERSION}

Deploy the device service>