Accessing WebCam with NodeJS

Question

Does anyone have any experience with trying to access a webcam through node? I can\'t seem to find any prior attempts at this.

To expand a bit - I have a nodeJS serv

Answer 1

I don't think there's anything specific to Node.js when it comes to working with webcams, the concepts are generally the same no matter what language or server you're using. The hardware involved and the interfaces to that hardware is what should define your solution.

The simplest case would be to serve individual snapshots that are periodically saved to disk by the webcam's included software, or you can make a system call that invokes a local process or program to save a snapshot on demand. You can then serve a page using Node.js that periodically refreshes the latest snapshot.

Alternatively, you can interface directly with the webcam hardware using a controller tailored to the operating system (DirectShow, Windows Image Acquisition, IKPictureTaker, V4L2, etc.) and create a live video stream using Node.js as the transport mechanism.

If your webcam has a network interface and already offers a streaming server, you might want to look into a reverse proxy solution instead, using nginx or Apache for example. Here is a solution where nginx is being used to proxy a webcam stream formatted by VLC.

Here is a creative solution that captures a video stream by taking individual frames, encoding the image data, and using websockets to push the image data to a canvas element on a client page, using Node.js as the intermediate server.

Answer 2

It's possible to use OpenCV with Node to access your camera... this article will give you a basic overview. https://community.risingstack.com/opencv-tutorial-computer-vision-with-node-js/

Another way is to search by camera on npm repository, you will find a lot of modules that deal with webcams.

Answer 3

I'm working on my own library based on puppeteer (chrome headless browser) and so is 100% portable and works acceptably fine (40fps in my machine for video size 480x320) : https://www.npmjs.com/package/camera-capture. Has different ways of consuming the video stream and a command line API too. Very new project so feedback is very welcome.

Answer 4

It is also possible to use node.js library node-webcam

Webcam.capture( "test_picture", function( err, data ) {} );

But I suppose it is simple wrapper of fswebcam.

Answer 5

accessing web in node application is very simple we just need to use html5 getUserMedia() method to do that and reaming part is very easy here is complete code please node i am using express framework:

Step 1. My layout.jade file in which i am accessing web cam

extends layout
block content
  div(class="container" id="Cool" ng-app="mainApp" ng-controller="formController")
    h2.blue.red#header("property"="pValue") Capture your image from webcam
    div.row
     div.col-md-6
       video#video(autoplay='')
     div.col-md-6
       canvas#canvas(width='640', height='480')
    div
      button#snap Capture
      button#new New
      button(id="upload" ng-click="uploadImage()") Upload


  script(type="text/javascript").
   // Put event listeners into place
      window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
      // Grab elements, create settings, etc.
      var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas"),
      context = canvas.getContext("2d"),
      video = document.getElementById("video"),
      videoObj = { "video": true },
      errBack = function(error) {
      console.log("Video capture error: ", error.code);
      };
      // Put video listeners into place
      if(navigator.getUserMedia) { // Standard
      navigator.getUserMedia(videoObj, function(stream) {
      video.src = stream;
      video.play();
      }, errBack);
      } else if(navigator.webkitGetUserMedia) { // WebKit-prefixed
      navigator.webkitGetUserMedia(videoObj, function(stream){
      video.src = window.URL.createObjectURL(stream);
      video.play();
      }, errBack);
      } else if(navigator.mozGetUserMedia) { // WebKit-prefixed
      navigator.mozGetUserMedia(videoObj, function(stream){
      video.src = window.URL.createObjectURL(stream);
      video.play();
      }, errBack);
      }
      // Trigger photo take
      document.getElementById("snap").addEventListener("click", function() {
      context.drawImage(video, 0, 0, 640, 480);
      // Littel effects
      //$('#video').fadeOut('slow');
      $('#canvas').fadeIn('slow');
      //$('#snap').hide();
      //$('#new').show();
      // Allso show upload button
      //$('#upload').show();
      });
      // Capture New Photo
      document.getElementById("new").addEventListener("click", function() {
      //$('#video').fadeIn('slow');
      //$('#canvas').fadeOut('slow');
      //$('#snap').show();
      //$('#new').hide();
      });
      // Upload image to sever
      document.getElementById("upload").addEventListener("click", function(){
      var dataUrl = canvas.toDataURL();
       console.log(dataUrl);

      });
      }, false);   
   var mainApp = angular.module("mainApp", []);
   mainApp.controller("formController", function($scope, $http) {
       $scope.uploadImage = function () {
         var request = $http({
            method: "post",
            url:  "/captureImage",
            data: {
               base64: document.getElementById("canvas").toDataURL()
            },
            headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }
          });
        request.success(function (data) {
          console.log(data);
        });
        request.error(function(serverResponse, status, headers, config) {
           alert("failure");
        });
      };
   });

Step 2. my routes file in which i hand or save my uploaded image

router.get('/captureImage', function(req, res, next) {
    res.render('captureImage', { title: 'Capture Image and upload' });
});

router.post('/captureImage', function(req, res, next) {
    //console.log("FormData "+ req.body.base64);
    var base64Data = req.body.base64.replace(/^data:image\/png;base64,/, "");
    fs.writeFile("uploads/out.png", base64Data, 'base64', function(err) {
        if(err){
            console.log(err);
            }else{
            res.send(JSON.stringify({'status': 1, 'msg': 'Image Uploaded'}));
        }
    });
});

For complete tutorial please follow link Accessing WebCam with NodeJS and save click image - TrinityTuts