[BUG] can't be used in virtual environment

[MazrimT]

Describe the bug
Can't use it since it's not usable in virtual environment
To even install it you need to jump through hoops I've never seen before with a python package from raspberry pi.

To Reproduce
make a virtual environment
install picamera2

Error message
import libcamera
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'libcamera'

Expected behaviour
you should be able to just run pip install picamera2 and the dependencies work.
Also I expect there to be an easy to follow instruction manual.

Hardware :
Raspberry Pi 4, 4gb

Additional context
upgraded to bullseye and tried to replace my simple ffmpeg-python with this package.
The difference between getting that to work and this (which can't work) is incredible.

[lurch]

Duplicate of several other issues e.g. #446

To even install it you need to jump through hoops

Or you could just install the latest Raspberry Pi OS image from https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ where Picamera2 is preinstalled?

[davidplowman]

Can you say what virtual environment you're using? For example, venv has a --system-site-packages option which others have used as a workaround.

To make this process easier I think we would need the libcamera python bindings to be installable via pip, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, we shall be looking into it.

[RolandasRazma]

--system-site-packages worked for me

[Kasperror]

Can you say what virtual environment you're using? For example, venv has a --system-site-packages option which others have used as a workaround.

To make this process easier I think we would need the libcamera python bindings to be installable via pip, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, we shall be looking into it.

Well this works as long as you stick to the virtualenv using system python (3.9 for current PiOS version) if you create a venv using ex. python3.10 -m venv myvenv --system-site-packages this will not load the python3.9's libcamera nor picamera2 so @davidplowman please don't close this as resolved instead close as duplicate to #446. I've quite precisely described the root of the problem there. Would be good for the Pi Foundation to solve this as using newer versions of python is quite a standard as well as using venv's for both development and production. All the solutions leading to "swapping" the system-wide python for the one you want 1. destroy the system functionalities most of the time 2. does not work well

[davidplowman]

Hi, thanks for the feedback. As far as I understand it, the main problem is that the libcamera python bindings can't be installed as a pip package, but I think everything else should be available. Once this is resolved then I hope that virtual environments will work better. I think it should also then be easier to support pip packages for different python versions, rather than trying to support multiple different apt versions.

[Kasperror]

Hi, thanks for the feedback. As far as I understand it, the main problem is that the libcamera python bindings can't be installed as a pip package, but I think everything else should be available. Once this is resolved then I hope that virtual environments will work better. I think it should also then be easier to support pip packages for different python versions, rather than trying to support multiple different apt versions.

I fully agree that it all should come as a pip-installable package. I'm not experienced enough to do it but I'm sure that packaging the bindings can be done though might require some time. Uploading libcamera to pip may have great impact on the community since afaik most mainstream packages are moving into python 3.10 and up versions support while dropping older versions - probably because of pattern matching and easier type-hinting possibilities

[kneave]

Just to add to this, I'm trying to use PiCamera2 in a conda environment, I'm using the RoboStack to facilitate robotics development. I'm seeing the same issue with the lack of bindings and it's astonishingly frustrating.

I've been running in circles trying to get a camera working, I've been trying to build libcamera manually out of desparation but it's proving incredibly tricky. If anyone has a fix or workaround this I'd massively appreciate it.

[lurch]

@will-v-pi Does https://github.com/raspberrypi/pylibcamera help with any of this? (I'm afraid I don't quite understand how all the different layers glue together)

[davidplowman]

Will can say more about this, but yes it will help. We are planning to roll this out with further instructions, but the basic problem is that libcamera does not have a stable API so it's very easy to end up with stuff that just doesn't work together at all.

[kneave]

Amazing! I'm kinda annoyed my search skills failed me and I didn't find that before, I was even searching the raspberrypi github repo's for libcamera and didn't spot this!

I can relate to the unstable API for sure, there was a new feature added to the Unity game engine years back that was almost forever in beta. Loads of the early tutorials were throwing errors when you followed them to a T, turns out they changed the API but only put deprecation warnings in for a few versions. With the rate they released updates that meant they didn't stick around long. I was a little bit salty when I figured that out 😅

I've had to revert to using the Buster 64bit beta OS as it's the only one I knew worked, this is for a "quick project that's a bit of fun" and this had my bloody pressure up a little!

I'm building a robot to go under my workshop to rescue a lost spanner, once I've got that working I'll have a go with bookworm again and let you know. :)

[will-v-pi]

Yes, so pylibcamera should help with this by compiling python bindings against the system version of libcamera, which lets you use python in an isolated virtual environment. I've made a forum post with details at https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=361758 which has installation instructions, so we now have a pip installable version of the libcamera python binding for use in virtual environments. Although the recommendation is still --system-site-packages if at all possible, as that is much simpler and should work for most people