From Zero to Image

This guide will get you all set up for Python-based image processing on your Raspberry Pi 3! You can also use this guide with other hardware if you apply some slight tweaks (e.g. pick another architecture when downloading software). You should also be familiar with basic usage of your system's terminal. Let's get started!

Prerequisites

1. This guide assumes that you're running Debian Jessie or a similar derivate (think Ubuntu) on your machine
2. Ensure your system's software is up-to-date by running the following commands from your terminal:

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
• sudo raspi-update

pylon

Pylon contains all the software we need for interacting with Basler cameras. Builds are provided for multiple platforms.

1. Download the latest pylon version from here, pick the hardfloat ARM version for Linux
2. Unpack the file to a directory of your choice
3. Follow the instructions in the INSTALL file. Do not attempt to run the pylon viewer as it is not bundled with ARM releases
4. After successful installation plug in e.g. your Basler USB camera
5. Now we will check if everything works. In your terminal move to pylon's Samples/Grab directory and execute make, then run ./Grab, you should see some text scrolling with information about pictures being grabbed

OpenCV and Python 3

In this step we'll set up Python 3 and the OpenCV image processing library. Just follow the instructions over here. 

PyPylon

The only missing part is connecting Python to your camera now. PyPylon takes care of this task.

1. First, ensure you're using the cv virtualenv you created while installing OpenCV
2. Get your exact python version by running python --version from within your virtualenv
3. Using this information, pick the corresponding PyPylon version from here (e.g. Python 3.4 → ..cp34-cp34m-linux_armv7l.whl)
4. Install the whl file with pip via pip3 install *path-to-whl*
5. Open a Python REPL with python and check that running import pypylon.pylon does not yield any errors

Done! You can either try out our example projects now or create some cool stuff of your own. Have fun!