Screen Capture with OpenCV and Python-2.7

Question

I\'m using Python 2.7 and OpenCV 2.4.9.

I need to capture the current frame that is being shown to the user and load it as an cv::Mat

Answer 1

I had frame rate problems with other solutions, mss solve them.

import numpy as np
import cv2
from mss import mss
from PIL import Image

mon = {'top': 160, 'left': 160, 'width': 200, 'height': 200}

sct = mss()

while 1:
    sct.get_pixels(mon)
    img = Image.frombytes('RGB', (sct.width, sct.height), sct.image)
    cv2.imshow('test', np.array(img))
    if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
        cv2.destroyAllWindows()
        break

Answer 2

This is the updated answer for the answer by @Neabfi

import time

import cv2
import numpy as np
from mss import mss

mon = {'top': 160, 'left': 160, 'width': 200, 'height': 200}
with mss() as sct:
    # mon = sct.monitors[0]
    while True:
        last_time = time.time()
        img = sct.grab(mon)
        print('fps: {0}'.format(1 / (time.time()-last_time)))
        cv2.imw('test', np.array(img))
        if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
            cv2.destroyAllWindows()
            break

And to save to a mp4 video

import time

import cv2
import numpy as np
from mss import mss


def record(name):
    with mss() as sct:
        # mon = {'top': 160, 'left': 160, 'width': 200, 'height': 200}
        mon = sct.monitors[0]
        name = name + '.mp4'
        fourcc = cv2.VideoWriter_fourcc(*'mp4v')
        desired_fps = 30.0
        out = cv2.VideoWriter(name, fourcc, desired_fps,
                              (mon['width'], mon['height']))
        last_time = 0
        while True:
            img = sct.grab(mon)
            # cv2.imshow('test', np.array(img))
            if time.time() - last_time > 1./desired_fps:
                last_time = time.time()
                destRGB = cv2.cvtColor(np.array(img), cv2.COLOR_BGRA2BGR)
                out.write(destRGB)
            if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
                cv2.destroyAllWindows()
                break


record("Video")

Answer 3

That's a solution code I've written using @Raoul tips.

I used PIL ImageGrab module to grab the printscreen frames.

import numpy as np
from PIL import ImageGrab
import cv2

while(True):
    printscreen_pil =  ImageGrab.grab()
    printscreen_numpy =   np.array(printscreen_pil.getdata(),dtype='uint8')\
    .reshape((printscreen_pil.size[1],printscreen_pil.size[0],3)) 
    cv2.imshow('window',printscreen_numpy)
    if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
        cv2.destroyAllWindows()
        break