Video: Add local still image and video recording by ddd999 · Pull Request #295 · stephendade/Rpanion-server

ddd999 · 2025-06-10T05:22:03Z

This draft PR is a work in progress to address feature request #167 and continues where PR #229 left off. It's incomplete and some parts are likely still broken. Adding the PR now for visibility into the proposed changes and to solicit feedback if there is any.

This reorganizes the camera system into three distinct modes:

live streaming (i.e., what exists now)
still photo capture (saved locally on the companion computer)
local video recording (saved locally on the CC)

It adds a Python helper script to detect all of the camera devices available for still/video capture (get_camera_caps.py), and a backend/server script (photovideo.py) that listens for a SIGUSR1 from Rpanion to trigger it to either take a still photo, or to toggle video recording on and off.

By default, photovideo.py will use the first available camera supported by Picamera2(). If that's not available, or if a V4l2 device path is specified, it will use V4L2 instead.

To do list (for this PR):

~~Testing and bug fixes as required to make sure all of the above works correctly~~
~~Confirm that camera service still responds correctly to MAVLink commands~~
~~Add/update unit tests~~

To do list for future PR(s):

~~Add geotagging ability~~ Added in this PR
Implement MAVLink gimbal control
Implement more camera settings (exposure, white balance, etc.) ([Feature Request] Custom Camera Parameter Settings #228)
(Edit: moved to future PR to-do list) Investigate and implement measures to support Mission Planner stream auto-discovery (Add support for Mission Planner video view #282 and probably also Feature Request: send VIDEO_STREAM_INFO mavlink messages to GCS #169)

stephendade · 2025-06-10T10:41:20Z

Great! I'll take a look later in the week

stephendade · 2025-06-16T11:02:17Z

I've had a look through - looks good.

A few issues I came across during testing (on my laptop. Will try a Rpi tomorrow):

GUI: Connection strings for video stream are missing in RTSP mode
Still Photo mode: bugs out on "No module named 'picamera2'" for photomode.py
Camera RTSP address not being sent to MP. Appears cam_definition_uri or CAMERA_INFORMATION is blank. Same for model_name and vendor_name. Resolution is being sent through through
Still Photo mode: bugs out on "An error occurred creating directory: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/pi'"

stephendade · 2025-06-17T10:58:42Z

Testing on the RPI

Need to document that python3-opencv package is required
Video recording mode on CSI camera. Can't start a new recording. I get:
[API /togglevideorecording] Received request. Server state: vManager.active=false, vManager.cameraMode=video [API /togglevideorecording] Condition NOT met. Sending 400.

EDIT:
Tested taking still images from MP and worked quite well!

ddd999 · 2025-06-17T13:12:38Z

Thanks for reviewing/testing.

I also found that in streaming mode, streaming mode stopped in the UI, but the video stream didn't actually stop.

This might be a peculiarity (or intentional behaviour?) of Mission Planner: MP only recognizes the stream the first time the VideoStreamInformation message is sent. If you stop the stream, then restart it with the same device, it doesn't recognize the stream again unless you close and restart MP. Could also be related to the aforementioned issue.

Guess there are a few things to work on still!

stephendade · 2025-06-18T10:35:56Z

Yeah, could be an MP-specific thing.

Happy with the overall work on the PR. Keen to get it merged in once we've ironed out the final issues.

ddd999 · 2026-01-26T04:29:19Z

Great! I think something went a bit wrong with your rebasing - there's a number of not-applicable or odd whitespace changes.

VSCode auto-formatting strikes again, sorry about that. I think it's fixed now.

stephendade · 2026-01-27T21:56:36Z

Looking better. There's still some changes in package-lock.json that should be removed, as your PR didn't add/remove any npm packages. The ./src/video.jsx file needs to be cleaned up a bit more too.

stephendade · 2026-01-30T05:52:05Z

The merge issues look resolved now, so I'll run some tests on the PR early next week.

ddd999 · 2026-01-31T07:03:04Z

The merge issues look resolved now, so I'll run some tests on the PR early next week.

Thanks, I was going to double check the code before replying as I thought there were still some unnecessary formatting changes in src/video.jsx but if you're good with the current state I'll let it be for now.

I've tested on my Pi Zero 2W with the CSI camera and with a USB web cam and both seemed to work as expected.

stephendade

Looks really good!

A few small things to change:

Web GUI: Under photo mode, a CSI camera comes up as "Unnamed CSI camera" instead of it's actual model
Web GUI: Add a confirmation message when picture taken with "Take Photo" Same with stop video.
Web GUI: Add photo&video folder to "Flight Logs" page for easy download. Add a note to Photo&Video page about this
Add ./media folder to .gitignore

stephendade · 2026-02-04T09:30:11Z

src/video.jsx

+              onChange={this.handleCameraModeChange}
+              checked={isStreaming}
+            />
+            <Form.Check


Disable Photo/Video GUI elements if not running in RPi and picamera2 not installed

server/videostream.js

- Enables local still image and video recording by re-organizing the camera subsystem into three distinct modes: streaming video (default), still photo capture, and video capture - Adds Python helper scripts to detect and control cameras for local still/video capture - Now sends a VideoStreamInformation packet whenever video streaming is started - Captures a photo or starts/stops video recording either when the button is pressed on the web UI, or when a MavLink MAV_CMD_DO_DIGICAM_CONTROL message is received - Geotagging: Writes GPS position information (if available) to EXIF metadata of photos- - Adds media file management to the flight log browser page

ddd999 · 2026-02-10T08:06:01Z

~~Web GUI: Under photo mode, a CSI camera comes up as "Unnamed CSI camera" instead of it's actual model~~ Fixed, get_camera_caps.py now uses libcamera to get the actual device names
~~Web GUI: Add a confirmation message when picture taken with "Take Photo" Same with stop video.~~ Added notifications that show the filename as well as if video recording is in progress
~~Web GUI: Add photo&video folder to "Flight Logs" page for easy download. Add a note to Photo&Video page about this~~ Added
~~Add ./media folder to .gitignore~~ Done

Still need to add this:

Disable Photo/Video GUI elements if not running in RPi and picamera2 not installed
and look into/update the tests that are failing

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch from f21846d to 0633273 Compare June 10, 2025 05:23

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch 4 times, most recently from 1eed373 to 2459aac Compare June 14, 2025 22:39

stephendade force-pushed the master branch 15 times, most recently from 3ce7964 to c083bb7 Compare June 24, 2025 09:46

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch 2 times, most recently from 9dbb182 to fdc1d50 Compare January 11, 2026 05:18

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch 3 times, most recently from d582479 to b8b47dd Compare January 23, 2026 05:08

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch 16 times, most recently from e7bb842 to 9c0208e Compare January 26, 2026 04:28

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch 5 times, most recently from c6a09c7 to d39b375 Compare January 28, 2026 06:16

stephendade requested changes Feb 4, 2026

View reviewed changes

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch from 4527d5d to 2f59276 Compare February 10, 2026 07:41

ddd999 force-pushed the photovideo branch from 49e078b to 37df1b1 Compare February 10, 2026 08:01

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