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 simplifies the use of 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 plugin 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 plugin 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.

Library

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).

Application

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

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-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly gstreamer1.0-libav libgstrtspserver-1.0-0 gstreamer1.0-doc gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-x gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-gl gstreamer1.0-gtk3 gstreamer1.0-qt5 gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgstrtspserver-1.0-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 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: