Getting Started with GStreamer and ZED

GStreamer is a popular framework used to create custom media pipelines by combining modular plugins. The ZED GStreamer plugins greatly simplify the use of the ZED camera and SDK in a GStreamer media pipeline.

The ZED GStreamer package is composed of five plugins providing five elements, a metadata library and a Linux RTSP Server application.

Plugins #

Name	Classification	Source Code	Description
zedsrc	Source	GitHub	acquires camera color image, depth map, sensors data and object detection information and pushes them in a GStreamer pipeline.
zeddemux	Stream Demuxer	GitHub	receives a composite `zedsrc` stream (`color left + color right + metadata` or `color left + depth map + metadata`), processes the eventual depth data and pushes them in two separated new streams named `src_left` and `src_aux`. A third source pad is optionally created for metadata to be externally processed.
zeddatamux	Metadata Muxer	GitHub	receives a video stream compatible with ZED caps and a ZED Data Stream generated by the `zeddemux` and adds metadata to the video stream. This is useful if metadata are removed by a filter that does not automatically propagate them.
zeddatacsvsink	File Sink	GitHub	sink element that receives ZED metadata, extracts the Positional Tracking and the Sensors Data information and save them in a CSV file. Demonstrates how to retrieve and parse Positional Tracking and the Sensors metadata.
zedodoverlay	Filter Effect Video	GitHub	transform filter element that receives ZED combined stream with metadata, extracts object detection information and draws the overlays on the oncoming image frames. Demonstrates how to retrieve and parse Object Detection metadata.
zedxonesrc^*	Source	GitHub	acquires ZED X One monocular camera color images and pushes them in a GStreamer pipeline.

^* Only available on NVIDIA Jetson devices with GMSL2 capabilities

Libraries #

Name	Classification	Source Code	Description
zedmeta	Metadata Library	GitHub	GStreamer library to define and handle the ZED metadata (Positional Tracking data, Sensors data, Detected Object data, Detected Skeletons data).

Applications #

Name	Classification	Source Code	Description
RTSP Server	Server application	GitHub	Linux application that instantiates an RTSP server from a text launch pipeline “gst-launch” like.Detected Skeletons data).

Installation #

Prerequisites #

Stereo camera: ZED X / ZED X Mini, ZED 2i, ZED 2, ZED Mini, ZED X One
CMake (v3.1+)
GStreamer 1.0

Windows installation #

Install the latest ZED SDK from the official download page [Optional to compile the zedsrc plugin to acquire data from a ZED camera device]
Install Git
Install CMake
Install a GStreamer distribution (both runtime and development installers).
The installer should set the installation path via the GSTREAMER_1_0_ROOT_X86_64 environment variable.
Add the path %GSTREAMER_1_0_ROOT_X86_64%\bin to the system variable PATH
[Optional] Install OpenCV to build the zedodverlay filter
Run the following commands from a terminal or command prompt, assuming CMake and Git are in your PATH.

git clone https://github.com/stereolabs/zed-gstreamer.git
cd zed-gstreamer
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" ..
cmake --build . --target INSTALL --config Release

Linux installation #

Install prerequisites #

Install the latest ZED SDK from the official download page
Update list of apt available packages
sudo apt update
Install GCC compiler and build tools
sudo apt install build-essential
Install CMake build system
sudo apt install cmake
Install GStreamer, the development packages and useful tools:

     $ sudo apt install \
     libgstreamer1.0-0 \
     gstreamer1.0-libav \
     libgstrtspserver-1.0-0 \
     gstreamer1.0-tools \
     gstreamer1.0-x \
     gstreamer1.0-alsa \
     gstreamer1.0-gl \
     gstreamer1.0-gtk3 \
     gstreamer1.0-qt5 \
     gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio \
     libgstreamer1.0-dev \
     libgstrtspserver-1.0-dev \
     libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0 \
     libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev \
     libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-0 \
     libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-dev \
     libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 \
     libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-dev

[Optional] Install OpenCV to build the zedodverlay filter

     sudo apt install libopencv-dev libopencv-contrib-dev

Clone the repository #

    git clone https://github.com/stereolabs/zed-gstreamer.git
    cd zed-gstreamer

Build #

    mkdir build
    cd build
    cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
    make # Note: do not use the `-j` flag because parallel build is not supported
    sudo make install

Installation test #

Open a command line console and try the following commands to verify that everything is correctly installed:

Check ZED Video Source Plugin installation inspecting its properties:

     gst-inspect-1.0 zedsrc

Check ZED X One Video Source Plugin installation inspecting its properties (only Jetson):

     gst-inspect-1.0 zedxonesrc

Check ZED Video Demuxer installation inspecting its properties:

     gst-inspect-1.0 zeddemux

Check ZED Data Mux Plugin installation inspecting its properties:

     gst-inspect-1.0 zeddatamux

Check ZED CSV Sink Plugin installation inspecting its properties:

     gst-inspect-1.0 zeddatacsvsink

Check ZED Object Detection Overlay Plugin installation inspecting its properties:

     gst-inspect-1.0 zedodoverlay

Use cases #

Following a list of use case examples, linked to the relative documentation page: