Imgstore is a container for video frames and metadata. It allows efficient storage and seeking through recordings from hours to weeks in duration. It supports compressed and uncompressed formats.
Imgstore allows reading (and writing) videos recorded with loopbio's Motif recording system.
Video data is broken into chunks, which can be individual video files VideoImgStore
, or
a directory full of images DirectoryImgStore
. The format of the chunks determines if the store is
compressed, uncompressed, lossless or lossy.
There are only a few public API entry points exposed (most operations are
done on ImgStore
objects (see writing and reading examples below).
new_for_filename(path)
- Open a store for readingnew_for_format(format, path, **kwargs)
- Open a store for writing
- You also need to pass
imgshape=
andimgdtype
- Note:
imgshape
is the array shape, i.e.(h,w,d)
and not(w,h)
get_supported_formats()
- list supports formats (remember to test after install)extract_only_frame(path, frame_index)
- extract a single frame at given index from file
import imgstore
import numpy as np
import cv2
import time
height = width = 500
blank_image = np.zeros((height,width,3), np.uint8)
store = imgstore.new_for_format('npy', # numpy format (uncompressed raw image frames)
mode='w', basedir='mystore',
imgshape=blank_image.shape, imgdtype=blank_image.dtype,
chunksize=1000) # 1000 files per chunk (directory)
for i in range(40):
img = blank_image.copy()
cv2.putText(img,str(i),(0,300), cv2.FONT_HERSHEY_SIMPLEX, 4, 255)
store.add_image(img, i, time.time())
store.close()
You can also add additional (JSON serialable) data at any time, and this will be stored
with a reference to the current frame_number
so that it can be retrieved
and easily combined later.
store.add_extra_data(temperature=42.5, humidity=12.4)
from imgstore import new_for_filename
store = new_for_filename('mystore/metadata.yaml')
print 'frames in store:', store.frame_count
print 'min frame number:', store.frame_min
print 'max frame number:', store.frame_max
# read first frame
img, (frame_number, frame_timestamp) = store.get_next_image()
print 'framenumber:', frame_number, 'timestamp:', frame_timestamp
# read last frame
img, (frame_number, frame_timestamp) = store.get_image(store.frame_max)
print 'framenumber:', frame_number, 'timestamp:', frame_timestamp
Stores maintain two separate and distinct concepts, 'frame number', which is any integer value associated with a single frame, and 'frame index', which is numbered from 0 to the number of frames in the store. This difference is visible in the API with
class ImgStore
def get_image(self, frame_number, exact_only=True, frame_index=None):
pass
where 'frame index' OR 'frame number' can be passed.
To get all the image metadata at once you can call ImgStore.get_frame_metadata()
which will return a dictionary containing all frame_number
and frame_time
stamps.
To retrieve a pandas DataFrame of all extra data and associated frame_number
and frame_time
stamps call ImgStore.get_extra_data()
Some simple tools for creating, converting and viewing imgstores are provided
imgstore-view /path/to/store
- view an imgstore
imgstore-save --format 'avc1/mp4' --source /path/to/input.mp4 /path/to/store/to/save
--source
if omitted will be the first webcam
imgstore-test
- run extensive tests to check opencv build has mp4 support and trustworthy encoding/decoding
IMGStore depends on reliable OpenCV builds, and built with mp4/h264 support for writing mp4s. Loopbio provides reliable conda OpenCV builds in our conda channel, and we recommend using these.
Once you have a conda environment with a recent and reliable OpenCV build, you can install IMGStore from pip
$ pip install imgstore
After installing imgstore from any location, you should check it's tests pass to guarantee that you have a trustworthy OpenCV version
- git clone this repository
- Linux:
conda env create -f environment.yml
- MacOSX / Windows
conda env create -f environment-mac-windows.yml
Note: conda will install Python3 by default. If you wish to install Python2 add python=2
to the command, e.g. conda env create -f environment-mac-windows.yml python=2
We recommend installing IMGStore dependencies using the conda package manager, however it is possible to create a virtual env which uses your system OpenCV install.
# generate virtual env
virtualenv ~/.envs/imgstore --system-site-packages
# activate the virtual env
source ~/.envs/imgstore/bin/activate
# install imgstore
pip install imgstore
Note: If you install in this manner you have to ensure that opencv is correct
and has the required functionality (such as mp4 write support if required). Remember
to run the tests imgstore-test
after installing.
You should always run the command imgstore-test
after installing imgstore. If your
environment is working correctly you should see a lot of text printed, followed by the
text ==== 66 passed, ..... ======
- test with GPL opencv/ffmpeg
- test with LGPL opencv/ffmpeg
- test with Python2.7 and Python3
git clean -dfx
python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
twine upload --repository-url https://test.pypi.org/legacy/ dist/*
- (test with pip, new env)
pip install --index-url https://test.pypi.org/simple/ imgstore