ruiqimao / octoprint-libcamera

libcamera with OctoPrint using Docker

octoprint-libcamera

This repository is a demonstration of how I was able to use a libcamera Raspberry Pi camera (ArduCam 16MP Autofocus Camera) with OctoPrint.

Why Not Official Instructions?

https://www.arducam.com/docs/cameras-for-raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-libcamera-guide/autofocus-camera-solution-using-on-octopi/

The official instructions from ArduCam for using libcamera with OctoPrint involve:

• Downloading a nightly build of OctoPi
• Installing the IMX519 kernel driver
• Replacing the system version of mjpg_streamer with a custom version
• Replacing the system version of webcamd with a custom version

I did not like this approach for several reasons:

• I would rather use a stable build of OctoPi for controlling something as sensitive and potentially dangerous as a 3D printer
• The changes made to the OctoPi image are not trivially reversible
• Upgrading OctoPi can lead to undefined behavior (e.g. mjpg_streamer is replaced during an upgrade)

Raspbian Bullseye

Instead of starting with an OctoPi image, I opted to use the official 64-bit version of Raspbian Buster and run mjpg_streamer and OctoPrint in separate containers.

mjpg_streamer

mjpg_streamer was the most difficult part of this project to get working. The Dockerfile used to get mjpg_streamer running is under mjpg_streamer/Dockerfile.

The key components to note about this Dockerfile are:

• The raspbian package repository is added so that libcamera-dev can be installed, which is needed to compile mjpg_streamer
• All inputs and outputs other than input_libcamera and output_http are removed.
  • This is partially to reduce compile time, but mostly to remove the OpenCV dependency. Installing libopencv-dev involves downloading almost an entire gigabyte of dependencies!
• I was lazy and used --privileged to pass all devices through to the container in docker-compose.yaml. This is not safe and probably not what you want to do.
  • Do as I say, not as I do.
• I also mounted /run/udev to the container in read-only mode. This was based on comments in kbingham/libcamera#35

octoprint

I used the official OctoPrint image here. Things to note:

• I used --privileged here again to pass through devices to OctoPrint. Again, don't do this.
• I mounted a couple of other volumes to get the NavbarTemp plugin to recognize and read the Pi's SoC temperature.
  • /proc/cpuinfo:/proc/cpuinfo:ro
  • /usr/bin/vcgencmd:/usr/bin/vcgencmd:ro
  • /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvcos.so.0:/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvcos.so.0:ro
  • /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvchiq_arm.so.0:/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvchiq_arm.so.0:ro