Python offers various modules for creating GUI applications, out of which, Tkinter lets users do various tasks inside their app. Thus, while creating a GUI app, have you ever felt the need to let the user open the camera on a specific condition? Don’t know, how to achieve that. Continue reading this article further to know about how to open the camera in Tkinter.
Modules Required:
- Tkinter: As the GUI application is created in Python, then you surely need the Tkinter module. It is one of the easiest and fastest ways of creating GUI applications. You can download the module Tkinter using the following command:
pip install tkinter
- OpenCV: The Python module which is used for image and video processing is known as OpenCV. The video capture objects can also be captured through this module. The OpenCV module can be installed using the following command:
pip install opencv-python
- Pillow: The module which uses histograms to extract some statistical data out of images is known as the Pillow module. The pillow module can be installed using the following command:
pip install pillow
Stepwise Implementation
Step 1: First of all, import the libraries, Tkinter, OpenCV, and PIL.Image and PIL.ImageTk. These are the libraries needed for opening the camera in your app.
Python3
from tkinter import *import cv2 from PIL import Image, ImageTk |
Step 2: In this step, we will get a video capture object for the camera.
Python3
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0) |
Step 3: Now, define the width and height in the variables and set it for the video capture object.
Python3
width, height = # Width of camera, #Height of Camera cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, width) cap.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, height) |
Step 4: Then, create a GUI app and bind the GUI app with the Escape button, such that whenever the escape button is pressed, the app is closed.
Python3
app = Tk() app.bind('<Escape>', lambda e: app.quit()) |
Step 5: Next, create a label to display on the app. This is the label on which the camera will be opened.
Python3
label_widget = Label(app) label_widget.pack() |
Step 6: Moreover, create a button that when pressed will open the camera on the app.
Python3
button1 = Button(app, text="Open Camera", command=open_camera) button1.pack() |
Step 7: This is the final and main step which will open the camera. In this function first, we will capture the video frame by frame. Now, we need to set up the color space for the video. It can be achieved using the cvtColor() function and we will capture the latest frame and transform it into an image. And then we will convert the captured image to a photo image for displaying on the label on the GUI app.
Python3
def open_camera(): # Capture the video frame by frame _, frame = vid.read() # Convert image from one color space to other opencv_image = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGBA) # Capture the latest frame and transform to image captured_image = Image.fromarray(opencv_image) # Convert captured image to photoimage photo_image = ImageTk.PhotoImage(image=captured_image) # Displaying photoimage in the label label_widget.photo_image = photo_image # Configure image in the label label_widget.configure(image=photo_image) # Repeat the same process after every 10 seconds label_widget.after(10, open_camera) |
Example of How to Open Camera in Tkinter
In this example, we have placed a button ‘Open Camera’ on the GUI app. Whenever that button is clicked, the camera will be opened, while whenever the escape button is pressed, the camera will shut down. Below is the complete code in one place for the reader’s ease so, that they can run the code and have some fun.
Python3
# Python program to open the # camera in Tkinter # Import the libraries, # tkinter, cv2, Image and ImageTk from tkinter import *import cv2 from PIL import Image, ImageTk # Define a video capture object vid = cv2.VideoCapture(0) # Declare the width and height in variables width, height = 800, 600 # Set the width and height vid.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_WIDTH, width) vid.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FRAME_HEIGHT, height) # Create a GUI app app = Tk() # Bind the app with Escape keyboard to # quit app whenever pressed app.bind('<Escape>', lambda e: app.quit()) # Create a label and display it on app label_widget = Label(app) label_widget.pack() # Create a function to open camera and # display it in the label_widget on app def open_camera(): # Capture the video frame by frame _, frame = vid.read() # Convert image from one color space to other opencv_image = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGBA) # Capture the latest frame and transform to image captured_image = Image.fromarray(opencv_image) # Convert captured image to photoimage photo_image = ImageTk.PhotoImage(image=captured_image) # Displaying photoimage in the label label_widget.photo_image = photo_image # Configure image in the label label_widget.configure(image=photo_image) # Repeat the same process after every 10 seconds label_widget.after(10, open_camera) # Create a button to open the camera in GUI app button1 = Button(app, text="Open Camera", command=open_camera) button1.pack() # Create an infinite loop for displaying app on screen app.mainloop() |
Output:
