This package provides a ROS Node that will encode a stream of images into an H264 video stream.
Keywords: ROS, AWS, Kinesis
The source code is released under LGPL 2.1. However, this package uses h264_encoder_core which incorporates several different encoding components which may further restrict the license. By default, x264 is used for software encoding, thereby applying GPL to all of h264_video_encoder.
Author: AWS RoboMaker
Affiliation: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Maintainer: AWS RoboMaker, ros-contributions@amazon.com
- Kinetic
- Melodic
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GitHub Action Status
- master:
- release-latest:
- master:
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ROS build farm:
- ROS Kinetic @ u16.04 Xenial
- ROS Melodic @ u18.04 Bionic
- ROS Kinetic @ u16.04 Xenial
On Ubuntu you can install the latest version of this package using the following command
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ros-$ROS_DISTRO-h264-video-encoder
To build from source you'll need to create a new workspace, clone and checkout the latest release branch of this repository, install all the dependencies, and compile. If you need the latest development features you can clone from the master branch instead of the latest release branch. While we guarantee the release branches are stable, the master should be considered to have an unstable build due to ongoing development.
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Install build tool: please refer to
colconinstallation guide -
Create a ROS workspace and a source directory
mkdir -p ~/ros-workspace/src -
Clone the package into the source directory .
cd ~/ros-workspace/src git clone https://github.com/aws-robotics/kinesisvideo-encoder-ros1.git -b release-latest -
Install dependencies
cd ~/ros-workspace sudo apt-get update && rosdep update rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
Note: If building the master branch instead of a release branch you may need to also checkout and build the master branches of the packages this package depends on.
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Build the packages
cd ~/ros-workspace && colcon build -
Configure ROS library Path
source ~/ros-workspace/install/setup.bash -
Build and run the unit tests
colcon build --packages-select h264_video_encoder --cmake-target tests colcon test --packages-select h264_video_encoder h264_encoder_core && colcon test-results --all
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In RoboMaker's Cloud9, start with an empty workspace and in the Cloud9 console:
# build docker image cd /opt/robomaker/cross-compilation-dockerfile/ sudo bin/build_image.bash # this step will take a while # create workspace mkdir -p ~/environment/robot_ws/src cd ~/environment/robot_ws/src git clone https://github.com/aws-robotics/kinesisvideo-encoder-common.git git clone https://github.com/aws-robotics/kinesisvideo-encoder-ros1.git # run docker image cd .. sudo docker run -v $(pwd):/ws -it ros-cross-compile:armhf -
Now you're inside the cross-compilation docker container
# build the workspace cd ws apt update rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y # this step will take a while colcon build --build-base armhf_build --install-base armhf_install colcon bundle --build-base armhf_build --install-base armhf_install --bundle-base armhf_bundle --apt-sources-list /opt/cross/apt-sources.yaml # this step will take a while exit -
Now you're oustide the cross-compilation docker container
# for more on copying s3 buckets see: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/reference/s3/cp.html aws s3 cp armhf_bundle/output.tar.gz s3://<bucket_name_in_your_robomaker_account>/h264_video_encoder.armhf.tar
A launch file called h264_video_encoder.launch is included in this package. The launch file uses the following arguments:
| Arg Name | Description |
|---|---|
| node_name | (optional) The name the H264 encoder node should be launched with. If not provided, the node name will default to h264_video_encoder |
| config_file | (optional) A path to a rosparam config file. |
An example launch file called sample_application.launch is included in this project that gives an example of how you can include this node in your project and provide it with arguments.
To launch the H264 encoder node, you can run the following command:
roslaunch h264_video_encoder sample_application.launch
An example configuration file called sample_configuration.yaml is provided for running the H264 encoder node on a Raspberry Pi based system.
When the parameters are absent in the ROS parameter server, default values are used, thus all parameters are optional. See table below for details.
| Parameter Name | Description | Type |
|---|---|---|
| queue_size | (optional) The maximum number of incoming and outgoing messages to be queued towards the subscribed and publishing topics. | integer |
| output_width | (optional) The desired width (in pixels) of each frame in the encoded video output. | integer |
| output_height | (optional) The desired height (in pixels) of each frame in the encoded video output. | integer |
| fps_numerator | (optional) The desired frames per second (the numerator portion when expressing FPS as a rational number) for the encoded video output. | integer |
| fps_denominator | (optional) The desired frames per second (the denominator portion when expressing FPS as a rational number) for the encoded video output. | integer |
| bitrate | (optional) The desired bitrate (in bits per second) of the encoded video output. | integer |
| Topic Name | Message Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Configurable (default="video/encoded") | kinesis_video_msgs/KinesisVideoFrame | The node will publish to a topic of a given name. Each message being published contains a chunk of the video stream, usually per video frame. |
| Topic Name | Message Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Configurable (default="/raspicam_node/image") | sensor_msgs/Image | The node will subscribe to a topic of a given name. The data is expected to be a stream of images from a source (such as a Raspberry Pi camera). |
Please contact the team directly if you would like to request a feature.
Please report bugs in Issue Tracker.