Install & hello-camera

Install from PyPI

pip install viva-genicam

Wheels ship for:

libusb is statically linked into the extension module — no need to apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev or brew install libusb on the install side.

If you are on a platform without a pre-built wheel, pip falls back to the sdist; you will need a Rust toolchain (rustup) and a C compiler installed.

Verify the install

import viva_genicam as vg
print(vg.__version__)
print(vg.discover(timeout_ms=300))

If no cameras are physically connected, you should see an empty list — not an exception.

Hello camera — no hardware needed

The wheel ships an in-process fake GigE Vision camera. Just run:

import viva_genicam as vg
from viva_genicam.testing import FakeGigeCamera

with FakeGigeCamera(width=640, height=480, fps=10) as fake:
    cam = vg.connect_gige(fake.device_info())
    print(cam.get("DeviceModelName"))
    with cam.stream() as frames:
        frame = frames.next_frame(timeout_ms=5000)
        print(frame.width, frame.height, frame.pixel_format)

No clone, no cargo build, no subprocess — the fake camera lives inside the same process as your script.

For a fuller end-to-end walkthrough, the repo ships a runnable example:

python crates/viva-pygenicam/examples/demo_fake_camera.py

Expected output:

1. Starting in-process fake GigE camera ...
   bound to 127.0.0.1:3956
2. Discovering ...
   found FakeGigE @ 127.0.0.1
3. Connecting ...
   connected; XML is 16115 bytes, 53 features
4. Reading features:
   Width          = 640
   Height         = 480
   ...
6. Streaming 5 frames ...
   frame 1: 640x480 Mono8  numpy shape=(480, 640) dtype=uint8
   ...
Demo complete — everything ran without any real hardware.

This covers discovery, connection, feature read/write, and streaming — the full surface you will use with a real camera.

Next

→ Discovery — enumerate cameras with interface control.