This directory contains a selection of example programs demonstrating the use of the IC Imaging Control 4 Python API.

Most of the examples focus on a particular aspect of writing software to control a camera. Others, like qt6/demoapp are small complete application programs.

To download all examples in a .zip file, move to the root of the repository, click the green Code button and select Download ZIP.

You can also use git from the command line to clone the examples.

After downloading, please make sure to keep the per-language directory structure intact so that relative file references can work.

Warning: Be careful when cloning/extracting to a directory with a long path name; many tools are still limited by Windows' legacy 260-character path length limit and can raise obscure error messages in case a file path exceeds it.

All examples assume you have access to an industrial camera from The Imaging Source.

Make sure a GenTL Producer matching your camera is installed.

All Python examples assume that the imagingcontrol4 package is installed in the active environment. The Qt/PySide6 examples also require the imagingcontrol4pyside6 package.

Some example programs use third-party packages like numpy, opencv-python and PySide6.

It is recommended (sometimes even enforced) to use virtual environments to separate different library installations from each other when working on multiple Python projects. For more information on how to create a virtual environment, see Create a new Virtual Environment.

After activating the environment, install the packages:

$ python3 -m pip install imagingcontrol4 imagingcontrol4pyside6
$ python3 -m pip install numpy opencv-python PySide6

With the prerequisites installed in the active environment, just run the example's main Python file.

The example programs are grouped by topic for clarity.

These examples show how to

• enumerate devices and interfaces
• Get device-list-changed notifications
• Handle device-lost events

This section contains example programs showing how to capture and

• Save images as JPEG files
• Record videos as H264-encoded MP4 files
• Save BMP files on trigger

Some cameras provide advanced features that can be utilized to solve specific application requirements. This section showcases

• Triggering multiple cameras simultaneously by broadcasting an action command
• Reading camera-provided metadata from image buffers using chunkdata
• Using EventExposureEnd to synchronize camera operation to real-world movement
• Get notified about I/O activity using EventLine1*Edge events

This section contains example programs showing camera specific functions

• DoLP Segmentation shows how to visualize the degree of polarized light with polarisation cameras.

This section contains

• A simple application showing how to display live video in a Qt6/PySide6 application (first steps)
• A Python implementation of ic4-demoapp
• An application showcasing the use of zoom and focus features (zoom-focus-demo)
• A demo application for fullscreen display for multiple cameras
• A demo application for composing HDR images

This section contains programs showing how to use data captured in ImageBuffer objects with third-party image processing libraries:

• OpenCV Snap shows how to pass images grabbed using ic4 to OpenCV.
• OpenCV Live shows how to manipulate images grabbed using ic4 using OpenCV, and displaying the result in an ic4 display.

This is a Python implementation of the ic4-ctrl utility distributed with the IC Imaging Control4 SDK.