rockyourcode: Fake Webcam Background for Arch Linux With Docker (Using akvcam)
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Fake Webcam Background for Arch Linux With Docker (Using akvcam)
Published on: 2021-05-03
tags: Unix, Docker
Fake virtual backgrounds for your online meeting on Linux
I’ve been attending a lot of video conference calls lately — like so many of us.
Others had nice-looking virtual backgrounds. But there was no option to create those backgrounds on my Linux machine.
For example, the Zoom version for Linux only allows me to “touch up my appearance”. But there is no option to set a virtual background.
Luckily, I am not the only one with this problem.
In this blog post I’ll show you how to create a fake virtual background for your web cam using Docker (docker-compose) and akvcam.
Using this setup, you can use fake backgrounds with Google Chrome (e.g., Jitsi) or stand-alone applications like Zoom.
This article mirrors the Github repository for Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam. Some steps from the README were unclear to me. That’s why I listed the steps here.
In this article, we will do the following:
- Create a virtual camera
- Setup Docker-Compose to use the virtual camera
- Use the fake virtual background with Zoom or Chromium-based browsers
Install akvcam & Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam
akvcam is a virtual camera driver for Linux.
On Arch Linux/Manjaro Linux, install akvcam with yay or a different AUR helper:
yay -S akvcam-dkms
It seems that no pre-build images are available for Ubuntu, so you’ll need to follow the akvcam wiki.
We need a driver to create a virtual camera.
I prefer akvcam over the v4l2loopback-dkms driver as it works with Chrome/Chromium, too.
akvcam works with browser-based video conferencing software like Jitsi or Wonder.me.
Clone the Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam repository to your local machine.
Example commands using the terminal:
git clone https://github.com/fangfufu/Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam.git
cd Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam
Create a virtual camera.
Check for known video ports before loading the akvcam driver:
ls /dev/video*
Configure and load the driver:
sudo cp -r fakecam/akvcam /etc/
sudo modprobe videodev
You should now see additional video ports:
ls /dev/video*
Alternative command with example output:
v4l2-ctl --list-devices
>
akvcam (out) (platform:akvcam-2): /dev/video2
akvcam (platform:akvcam-3): /dev/video3
HD User Facing: HD User Facing (usb-0000:00:14.0-5):
/dev/video0
/dev/video1
/dev/media0
The virtual camera is available as /dev/video2 output.
dev/video0, dev/video1 and dev/media0 are the hardware ports.
Docker and Docker-Compose Setup
The repository has an example docker-compose.yml file that uses the v4l2loopback driver. We can fix that manually.
First, copy the environment file:
cp docker_defaults.env .env
You can change user settings in the .env file.
For example, I downloaded a living room image from unsplash and copied it to the fakecam folder as fake-living-room.jpg.
Example settings in .env:
# change images using a volume mapping
IMAGE_BACKGROUND=./fakecam/fake-living-room.jpg
Adjust docker-compose.yml. We need to adjust the command section for the fakecam service (at the end of the file):
# command: ["--bodypix-url", "http://bodypix:9000/",
# "-b", "background-custom", "-f", "foreground-custom" , "-m", "foreground-mask-custom",
# "--webcam-path", "/dev/video0", "--v4l2loopback-path", "/dev/video2"]
command: ["--bodypix-url", "http://bodypix:9000/",
"-b", "background-custom",
"--webcam-path", "/dev/video0", "--akvcam"]
The changes instruct Docker to use the akvcam driver and removes the foreground image. If you want to use the image (a fake podium), you can keep that part from the original command.
The hardware camera uses /dev/video0 as input. If your hardware port is different, don’t forget to change it!
Adjust the Dockerfile in fakecam/Dockerfile. I removed the images as we load them via docker-compose:
FROM python:3.8
RUN apt-get update && \
apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
python3-numpy \
python3-opencv \
python3-requests \
&& rm -rf /var/cache/apt/* /var/lib/apt/lists/*
WORKDIR /src
COPY fake.py \
akvcam.py \
requirements.txt \
/src/
RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
ENTRYPOINT ["python3", "-u", "fake.py"]
CMD ["--bodypix-url", "http://bodypix:9000/"]
Run the service with docker-compose:
docker-compose up --build
Or, if you want to run the service in the background:
docker-compose up --build -d
Use the virtual camera.
You can now open a video conferencing application and select akvcam as your video device.
Links
Thank you for reading my blog posts.