GStreamer Pixelflut

OwO What's this?

This is a plugin for GStreamer 1.0 [1] which can be attached as a sink element to a pipeline in order to send the stream to a Pixelflut [2] server.

(CC) by Andreas Frisch fraxinas@schaffenburg.org

Disclaimer

This plugin isn't in any way optimized for high performance pixelfluting. It's meant for educational purpose in a GStreamer plugin programming workshop [3].

Building

• You need to have gstreamer-1.0 and plugins (and on some distros the corresponding -dev packages) plus gio-2.0 installed.
• after git clone $repo

cd gst-pixelflut
autoreconf --force --install
./configure
make

in order to run gstreamer with the newly built plugin, you need to install it or run export GST_PLUGIN_PATH=$PWD while in the $workdir

test with gst-inspect-1.0 pixelflutsink

Example 1

gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! videoconvert ! pixelflutsink host=10.42.23.69

This will flut the given pixelflut server with test a test video (320x240).

Example 2

gst-launch-1.0 uridecodebin uri=file:///home/user/testimage.jpg ! imagefreeze ! videoscale ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw, width=120, height=80 ! pixelflutsink host=127.0.0.1 -v

1. uridecodebin will read and decode a given uri or file (in this case an image file).
2. imagefreeze turns a single video/x-raw buffer (image) into a continuous video stream
3. videoscale can change the dimensions of the frames
4. videoconvert is needed to change the video format (colorspace), in this case from I420 to RGB as the pixelflutsink requires it
5. video/x-raw... is a capsfilter element with specified caps for setting a specific size

Remarks: the host property defaults to localhost, however this may not resolve correctly for IPv6, hence the explicit IPv4 localhost IP, usually you would have an external pixelflut server anyways.

Plugin Info

Factory Details:
  Rank                     none (0)
  Long-name                Pixelflut Sink
  Klass                    Sink/Video/Network
  Description              Sends raw video frames to a Pixelflut server
  Author                   Andreas Frisch <fraxinas@schaffenburg.org>

Plugin Details:
  Name                     pixelflut
  Description              Pixelflut plugins
  Filename                 /home/fraxinas/projects/gst-pixelflut/src/.libs/libgstpixelflut.so
  Version                  0.1
  License                  GPL
  Source module            gst-pixelflut
  Binary package           GST_PACKAGE_NAME
  Origin URL               http://github.com/fraxinas/pixelflut

GObject
 +----GInitiallyUnowned
       +----GstObject
             +----GstElement
                   +----GstBaseSink
                         +----GstVideoSink
                               +----GstPixelflutSink

Pad Templates:
  SINK template: 'sink'
    Availability: Always
    Capabilities:
      video/x-raw
                 format: { (string)ARGB, (string)BGRA, (string)ABGR, (string)RGBA, (string)xRGB, (string)RGBx, (string)xBGR, (string)BGRx, (string)RGB, (string)BGR }
                  width: [ 1, 2147483647 ]
                 height: [ 1, 2147483647 ]
              framerate: [ 0/1, 2147483647/1 ]

Pads:
  SINK: 'sink'
    Pad Template: 'sink'

Element Properties:
  ...GstVideoSink base properties omitted...
  host                : The host/IP to send the packets to
                        flags: readable, writable
                        String. Default: "localhost"
  port                : The port to send the packets to
                        flags: readable, writable
                        Integer. Range: 0 - 65535 Default: 1337
  offset-top          : Offset in pixel from the top of canvas
                        flags: readable, writable, changeable in NULL, READY, PAUSED or PLAYING state
                        Integer. Range: -2147483648 - 2147483647 Default: 0
  offset-left         : Offset in pixel from left side of the canvas
                        flags: readable, writable, changeable in NULL, READY, PAUSED or PLAYING state
                        Integer. Range: -2147483648 - 2147483647 Default: 0
  frames-sent         : Number of frames sent
                        flags: readable
                        Integer. Range: -2147483648 - 2147483647 Default: 0
  bytes-written       : Number of bytes written
                        flags: readable
                        Integer. Range: -2147483648 - 2147483647 Default: 0
  ppp                 : How many pixels to transmit at once
                        flags: readable, writable, changeable in NULL, READY, PAUSED or PLAYING state
                        Unsigned Integer. Range: 0 - 1000 Default: 10
  canvas-width        : Width of Pixelflut server's canvas in pixels
                        flags: readable
                        Unsigned Integer. Range: 0 - 9999 Default: 0
  canvas-height       : Height of Pixelflut server's canvas in pixels
                        flags: readable
                        Unsigned Integer. Range: 0 - 9999 Default: 0

Test Application

There's a little test application that will output a moving 320x240 videotestsrc to a pixelflut server on 127.0.0.1:1337 by default. It can also stream from images or videos.

Testapp Example

./gstpixelflutsinktest --uri https://download.blender.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_480p_h264.mov -i 1000 -x 480

Testapp Usage

Usage:
  gstpixelflutsinktest [OPTION?] - Gstreamer Pixelflutsink test application

Help Options:
  -?, --help                        Show help options
  --help-all                        Show all help options
  --help-gst                        Show GStreamer Options

Application Options:
  -u, --uri                         Source URI
  -h, --host                        Pixelflut server host
  -p, --port                        Pixelflut server port
  -i, --interval                    Interval between offset moves in ms
  -x, --width                       Painting width of input in px
  -y, --height                      Paiting height of input in px

References

• [1] Gstreamer: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
• [2] Pixelflut Server: https://github.com/defnull/pixelflut
• [3] Workshop: https://pads.schaffenburg.org/GstreamerWorkshop