Using Basler cameras with CVEDIA-RT

This guide shows how to setup basler cameras using their native pylon plugin within a GStreamer pipeline

Requirements

• GStreamer 1.16.3
• CVEDIA-RT 2023.2 or newer
• Ninja

Step 1: Install Pylon SDK

Download and install Pylon SDK

You can use the deb packages Basler provides.

In this tutorial we assume you will be installing at the default /opt/pylon path.

Step 2: Build GST-Plugin-Pylon

1. Check out and build gst-plugin-pylon
2. Install it in a isolated folder to avoid conflicting with other plugins

Building example:

export PYLON_ROOT=/opt/pylon
meson setup builddir --prefix /opt/gst-pylon -Dpython-bindings=enabled
ninja -C builddir && ninja -C builddir install

Step 3: Run CVEDIA-RT with pylon dependencies and gst-plugin-pylon

Using docker

./run.sh -g /opt/gst-pylon/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/ -l /opt/pylon/lib/

Where: - -l allows you to specify arbitrary paths to additional userspace libraries - -g allows you to specify arbitrary paths to additional gstreamer plugins

You can confirm that GST can load the plugin by running the docker in interactive mode:

./run.sh -g /opt/gst-pylon/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/ -l /opt/pylon/lib/ -I

then:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$CUSTOM_LIB_PATH gst-inspect-1.0 pylon

Native install

• Add /opt/gst-pylon/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu to GST_PLUGIN_PATH env variable
• Add /opt/pylon/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH

You can confirm GST can load the plugin by running:

gst-inspect-1.0 pylon

Using it

Now that you've installed the pylon plugin you can use it as source in a gstreamer pipeline within CVEDIA-RT, eg:

gstreamer:///pylonsrc ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw,format=BGR ! appsink drop=true name=cvdsink