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webcam-filters

Add filters (background blur, etc) to your webcam on Linux.

Video conferencing applications tend to either lack video effects altogether or support only a limited set of capabilities on Linux (e.g. Zoom [#], Google Meets [#]).

Goal here is to provide a virtual webcam via v4l2loopback with a common set of filters that can be used everywhere.

.. contents:: :local:

Usage

Passthrough (no-op)::

$ webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3

Blur background::

$ webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3 --background-blur 150

Hardware acceleration (via VAAPI)::

$ webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3 --background-blur 150 --hw-accel-api vaapi

Using docker::

$ docker run -it
--device=/dev/video0:/input-dev
--device=/dev/video3:/output-dev
ghcr.io/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters:master --background-blur 50

Dependencies

Other than the Python dependencies that can be automatically installed by Pip, there are a few system dependencies that require manual attention.

v4l2loopback

v4l2loopback kernel module is required to emulate a virtual webcam. See your distro's docs or v4l2loopback_ on how to install and set it up (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/v4l2loopback-dkms/).

You'll probably want to create at least one loopback device (that's persistent on boot)::

$ sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2loopback.conf << "EOF"

/dev/video3

options v4l2loopback video_nr=3 options v4l2loopback card_label="Virtual Webcam" options v4l2loopback exclusive_caps=1 EOF $ sudo modprobe v4l2loopback $ v4l2-ctl --device /dev/video3 --info

Gstreamer

• gstreamer-1.0 (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gstreamer/)

• gst-python (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-python/)

• gst-plugins-base (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-plugins-base/)

• gst-plugins-good (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gst-plugins-good/)

• Optional:

  • gstreamer-vaapi for hardware acceleration (e.g. https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/gstreamer-vaapi/)

Installation

Nix

The provided Nix_ package bundles all the necessary GStreamer dependencies and should "just work" on any distro.

Install a specific release version/tag::

$ nix --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes'
profile install github:jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters/vx.x.x

Install a specific branch (e.g. master)::

$ nix --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes'
profile install github:jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters/master

Hardware Acceleration ..................... For VAAPI support with Nix on non-NixOS systems use nixGL_::

$ nix-env
--file https://github.com/guibou/nixGL/archive/main.tar.gz
--install
--attr auto.nixGLDefault
--arg enable32bits false $ export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD # Or whatever works with your GPU $ nixGL webcam-filters --input-dev /dev/video0 --output-dev /dev/video3 --hw-accel-api vaapi

On NixOS follow https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Accelerated_Video_Playback

Pipx/Pip

You can also use pipx or pip. Pipx_ is recommend to keep Python dependencies isolated. Keep in mind this will not install gst-python or any of the other GStreamer dependencies, so you'll have to install that yourself.

Latest stable::

$ pipx install --system-site-packages webcam-filters $ # Or $ pip install --user webcam-filters

Latest pre-release::

$ pipx install --system-site-packages --pip-args='--pre' webcam-filters $ # Or $ pip install --user --pre webcam-filters

Git::

$ url="git+https://github.com/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters.git" $ pipx install --system-site-packages "$url" $ # Or $ pip install --user "$url"

Docker

The docker container wraps a Nix installation for those who prefer to have it dockerized.

You can retag the image locally if you don't want to refer to the long name::

$ docker tag ghcr.io/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters:master webcam-filters

You may also build the image locally::

$ nix --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' run .#container.copyToDockerDaemon

.. [#] Zoom desktop client supports background blur as of version 5.7.6. Zoom on web does not.

.. [#] Google Meets supports background blur only on Chrome.

.. _Pipx: https://github.com/pypa/pipx

.. _Nix: https://nixos.org/download.html

.. _nixGL: https://github.com/guibou/nixGL

.. _v4l2loopback: https://github.com/umlaeute/v4l2loopback

.. |pypi-badge| image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/webcam-filters :alt: PyPI :target: https://pypi.org/project/webcam-filters/

.. |nix-ci-badge| image:: https://github.com/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters/actions/workflows/update-nix-cache.yaml/badge.svg :alt: Update Nix Cache :target: https://github.com/jashandeep-sohi/webcam-filters/actions/workflows/update-nix-cache.yaml