Webcam IP

A simple server application for Streaming Webcam Image via WebSocket.

Motivation

As WSL2 still doesn't have simplified native support for using a Webcam, I decided to create this very basic C++ application for Windows and capture the Webcam signal via WebSocket in my OpenCV applications running on WSL2.

Now Mac (Apple Silicon) is also supported.

Windows

Pre-Requisites

• Windows 7 or newer
• Git
• Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 or newer

Build

The easiest way to build C and C++ applications on Windows is by using Visual Studio Community and VcPkg to manage the extensions.

• Install Visual Studio Community with C++ features.
• Clone VcPkg GitHub repository in a short path directory like 'C:\tools\vcpkg':

  git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git C:\tools\vcpkg

• Run the VcPkg bootstrapping process:

  cd C:\tools\vcpkg
  .\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat

• Make all installed packages available to all VS projects:

  vcpkg integrate install

Project Requirements

vcpkg install opencv crow boost-program-options

There is no need for any additional configuration. Just build the application.

Run Server

Go to the built application folder using the terminal then run the camera server:

.\webcam-ip.exe

It will use the default options.

Options:
--help: Show help
--port arg: Server port [default: 8080]
--camera arg: Windows Camera Index [default: 0]

Example:

.\webcam-ip.exe --port 8081 --camera 1

Accessing Windows Networking Apps from Linux WSL2 (SERVER IP)

Obtain the IP address of your host machine by running this command from your Linux distribution:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

Copy the IP address following the term: nameserver.
Connect to any Windows server using the copied IP address.
The picture below shows an example of this by connecting to a Node.js server running in Windows via curl.

Mac (Apple Silicon)

Pre-Requisites

• macOS (Apple Silicon) - Tested with Sonoma and M1 Pro Chip
• Git
• Homebrew

Project Requirements

brew install cmake opencv boost

Build

From this project's root path:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Run Server

Go to the built application folder using the terminal then run the camera server:

./webcam-ip

It will use the default options.

Options:
--help: Show help
--port arg: Server port [default: 8080]
--camera arg: Camera Index [default: 0]

Example:

./webcam-ip --port 8081 --camera 1

Client Example

With the server running, you can use the test clients to preview. In the folder examples there are application examples for the client in:

• HTML/JavaScript for an easy test (just open index.html)
• Python to run inside WSL2/Docker/another Linux machine in the same network.

The Python example applies a Grayscale filter to the received image from the server.
Change the SERVER_IP value in get_camera_streaming.py before running.
Change the port in the client if you change the default when running the server.
You will need the server running to test the client.