Overview

The name motmot

Where does the name motmot come from? In short, it grew out of a previous project named “kookaburra”, and motmot is a bird related to the kookaburra (both are related to the kingfisher). See wikipedia on motmots for more information.

Packages within motmot

High level GUI app

• fview - Application with plugin architecture to enable writing new realtime analyses by creating your own process_frame() function.

Core camera infrastructure

• libcamiface - camera interface C API
• cam_iface - Python wrapper of libcamiface
• fview_ext_trig - software and firmware for precisely timed trigger generation with synchronized analog input

Core display infrastructure

• motmot.wxglvideo - wxPython OpenGL interface for video
• pygarrayimage - transfer Python objects supporting the array interface to OpenGL textures
• motmot.wxvideo - wxPython interface for video
• motmot.imops - manipulate image codings

Analysis infrastructure

• FastImage - Pyrex based wrapper of Intel’s Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP) Library
• motmot.FlyMovieFormat - Code for manipulating .fmf movies. Includes Python (read/write) and MATLAB® (read-only) bindings.
• realtime_image_analysis - Implements background subtraction and 2D feature extraction using FastImage

FView plugins

• fview_ext_trig - software and firmware for precisely timed trigger generation with synchronized analog input
• flytrax - fview plugin for tracking 2D points in realtime and saving data and small images
• fview_periodic_trigger - example fview plugin to trigger an external device at a fixed interval
• fview_change_trigger - example fview plugin to trigger an external device based on image change
• fview_c_callback - example fview plugin that calls pure C code
• fview_live_histogram - example fview plugin that calls pure Python code
• trackem - multiple point realtime tracker

Miscellaneous

• motmot_utils - Facilitate versioning and configuring of motmot packages
• posix_sched - Python extension module to boost priority in POSIX systems
• pygxinput - use XInput devices with pyglet

Deprecated packages

• wxvalidatedtext - validated integer/float text entry field for wxPython
• wxwrap - wrapper to allow use of multiple wxPython versions

Mailing list

To stay up to date, ask questions, and share information, join the motmot email list. The archives are also online.

Related Software

Similar open source libraries

See the Augmented Reality Toolkit, http://muonics.net/, unicap, OpenCV, pyvision, camunits (formerly libcam), and Micro Manager for lots of interesting and fun stuff.

GenICam™ and GigEVision™

Another project with similar goals to motmot/camiface is GenICam™ http://www.genicam.com/ . Primary differences between camiface and GenICam™ include the following: 1) camiface has been developed by a single individual to support a limited number of camera features from a limited number of cameras and is necessarily narrower in scope than an API meant to encompass every available feature on every available camera. 2) camiface operates using existing drivers rather than creating a new implementation of the driver layer.

One implementation of GenICam™ appears to be Basler’s Pylon. http://www.baslerweb.com/beitraege/beitrag_en_53074.html

For a description of GigEVision™ see http://www.machinevisiononline.org/public/articles/index.cfm?cat=167

For an discussion of these libraries from an open source perspective, see this thread on the libdc1394-devel mailing list.

Similar closed source libraries/applications

• Streams 5 by IO Industries
• StreamPix and the Hermes API by Norpix
• The MATLAB Image Acquisition Toolbox.