Adding Webcam support to MainsailOS

Mainsail is a beautiful, responsive and modern interface for Klipper Firmware and in this guide I will show you how to add webcam support (usb/pi webcam) to allow you to keep an eye on your 3D printer remotely!

This guide will assume that you already have a working Raspberry Pi with Klipper and Mainsail installed.

If you don’t, please check the 3DPrintBeginner tutorial on how to install Klipper and MainsailOS.

 

To add webcam support to Mainsail, we'll use mjpg-streamer—a command line application that copies JPEG frames from your camera input and combines them into a video stream that can be picked up by Mainsail's interface. 

 

Installing dependencies

Before we install mjpg-streamer we need to be sure that our host system has all the dependencies installed.

To do this, we need to open a SSH instance with our Raspberry Pi:

ssh pi@mainsailos.local

 

If you didn’t change the password at install of after the install, the pass should be: “raspberry”

 

After that we need to install the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libjpeg8-dev imagemagick libv4l-dev cmake git -y

 

Installing mjpeg-streamer

Now, we need to create a clone of mjpg-streamer (to checkout the sources so we can install it):

For that, just run the below commands in the terminal:

mkdir ~/mjpg-streamer cd ~/mjpg-streamer git clone https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer.git cd mjpg-streamer/mjpg-streamer-experimental make sudo make install

 

Testing the webcam stream

Now we need to test the stream of the webcam.

You can use either a USB Webcam or a Raspberry Pi camera module attached via ribbon cable.

The commands are a bit different for a USB webcam or a Pi camera

USB Camera:

/usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -i "input_uvc.so -f 15 -r 1280x720" \ -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www"

Pi camera:

/usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -i "input_raspicam.so -fps 15 -x 1640 -y 922" \ -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www"

 

If you are using a Pi camera and the command above is not working, please make sure you have enabled pi cam support:

sudo raspi-config

 

In both cases we're telling mjpg-streamer to start a stream using your camera (USB, or Raspi), to output the stream at a framerate of 15fps and a resolution of 1280 horizontal by 720 vertical pixels (720P), and to enable http access to the stream. 

 

Test the stream

You can access(test) the webcam stream by accessing via your webbrowser the url

http://<raspberry-pi-IP>:8080?action=stream

 

If all has gone well your camera should be streaming. Congratulations! You can now stop the stream by entering CTRL+C in your terminal window. 

 

Run MJPEG-streamer on startup

First thing we need is to create a shell script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/mainsail-stream.sh

 

This will open nano editor. Paste the following into the editor (credits for the script to Jacob) :

This is for the Pi Camera:

#!/bin/sh # /etc/init.d/mainsail-stream.sh ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: mainsail-stream.sh # Required-Start: $network # Required-Stop: $network # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 # Default-Stop: 0 1 6 # Short-Description: mjpg_streamer for webcam # Description: Streams /dev/video0 to http://IP/?action=stream ### END INIT INFO f_message(){ echo "[+] $1" } # Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system case "$1" in start) f_message "Starting mjpg_streamer" /usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_raspicam.so -fps 15 -x 1640 -y 922" -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www"-b sleep 2 f_message "mjpg_streamer started" ;; stop) f_message "Stopping mjpg_streamer..." killall mjpg_streamer f_message "mjpg_streamer stopped" ;; restart) f_message "Restarting daemon: mjpg_streamer" killall mjpg_streamer /usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_raspicam.so -fps 15 -x 1640 -y 922" -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www" sleep 2 f_message "Restarted daemon: mjpg_streamer" ;; status) pid=`ps -A | grep mjpg_streamer | grep -v "grep" | grep -v mjpg_streamer. | awk '{print $1}' | head -n 1` if [ -n "$pid" ]; then f_message "mjpg_streamer is running with pid ${pid}" f_message "mjpg_streamer was started with the following command line" cat /proc/${pid}/cmdline ; echo "" else f_message "Could not find mjpg_streamer running" fi ;; *) f_message "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0

 

And this one is for the USB Camera:

 

#!/bin/sh

# /etc/init.d/mainsail-stream.sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides:          mainsail-stream.sh

# Required-Start:    $network

# Required-Stop:     $network

# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5

# Default-Stop:      0 1 6

# Short-Description: mjpg_streamer for webcam

# Description:       Streams /dev/video0 to http://IP/?action=stream

### END INIT INFO

f_message(){

        echo "[+] $1"

}

 

# Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system

case "$1" in

        start)

                f_message "Starting mjpg_streamer"

                /usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_uvc.so -fps 15 -x 1640 -y 922" -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www"-b 

                sleep 2

                f_message "mjpg_streamer started"

                ;;

        stop)

                f_message "Stopping mjpg_streamer…"

                killall mjpg_streamer

                f_message "mjpg_streamer stopped"

                ;;

        restart)

                f_message "Restarting daemon: mjpg_streamer"

                killall mjpg_streamer

                /usr/local/bin/mjpg_streamer -b -i "input_uvc.so -fps 15 -x 1640 -y 922" -o "output_http.so -w /usr/local/share/mjpg-streamer/www"

                sleep 2

                f_message "Restarted daemon: mjpg_streamer"

                ;;

        status)

                pid=`ps -A | grep mjpg_streamer | grep -v "grep" | grep -v mjpg_streamer. | awk ‘{print $1}’ | head -n 1`

                if [ -n "$pid" ];

                then

                        f_message "mjpg_streamer is running with pid ${pid}"

                        f_message "mjpg_streamer was started with the following command line"

                        cat /proc/${pid}/cmdline ; echo ""

                else

                        f_message "Could not find mjpg_streamer running"

                fi

                ;;

        *)

                f_message "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart}"

                exit 1

                ;;

esac

exit 0

Once you have your script pasted and any changes configured, press CTRL+X to exit the editor. The editor will ask Save modified buffer? Press Y and hit Enter/Return.

 

Enable MJPEG to run at startup

So now we need to enable the script to run at startup, if somehow Pi shutdowns/restarts, we need to start the MJPEG script also:

 

sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/mainsail-stream.sh sudo update-rc.d mainsail-stream.sh defaults

 

Now we need to start the service:

sudo service mainsail-stream start

 

And also, test to see if the service is running and working as expected:

sudo service mainsail-stream status

 

Press CTRL+C to exit the above command.

Adding your webcam to Mainsail

Head over to your web browser, open Mainsail, and navigate to Settings > Interface. Here we can configure several different options related to your webcam:

1. Access Mainsail's interface options

2. Webcam URL: enter webcam/?action=stream in this field.

3. Toggle this option to enable the webcam menu item on the left.

4. Toggle this option to display your webcam in the dashboard menu item. 

 

That’s all folks :) !

 

Hope you enjoyed it!