📌 Web Video Server - A C++ and ROS 2 Based Web Video Streaming Server

🚀 Supports H.264 / VP8 / VP9 / MJPEG / PNG, Ideal for Robots, Drones, and Remote Monitoring Applications

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📌 Project Overview

Web Video Server is a high-performance C++ and ROS 2-based video streaming server that enables real-time video transmission over HTTP. It supports multiple video encoding formats (H.264, VP8, VP9, MJPEG, PNG) and integrates FFmpeg (Libav) for optimized video compression. Designed for robotics, drones, and embedded systems, it provides low-latency video streaming and real-time snapshot capabilities, making it ideal for remote monitoring applications.

🔹 Key Features

✅ Multi-Format Video Streaming: Supports MJPEG, H.264, VP8, VP9, and PNG
✅ Optimized for Low-Latency Streaming: Uses FFmpeg (Libav) for efficient encoding
✅ Seamless Web Compatibility: Streams can be accessed using HTML5 <video> tags
✅ Multi-Client Support: Handles multiple concurrent HTTP connections
✅ Dynamic ROS 2 Image Topic Subscription: Automatically detects available camera topics
✅ QoS Optimization: Adjustable settings to suit different network conditions
✅ Asynchronous HTTP Server: Powered by Boost.Asio for high-concurrency handling
✅ Lightweight & Portable: Runs on embedded systems, edge devices, and cloud servers

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📌 Supported Video Formats

Format	Encoding Library	Use Case
MJPEG	OpenCV	High compatibility, suitable for browser-based streaming
H.264	FFmpeg (libx264)	High compression, good for low-bandwidth streaming
VP8	FFmpeg (libvpx)	Low-latency, optimized for HTML5 <video>
VP9	FFmpeg (libvpx-vp9)	Higher compression, better quality than H.264
PNG	OpenCV	Lossless compression, ideal for snapshots

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📌 Installation & Setup

🔹 Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following dependencies installed:

• C++17 or later
• ROS 2 (Humble, Foxy, Galactic, or Rolling)
• FFmpeg (Libav)
• Boost.Asio
• OpenCV
• CMake 3.10+

🔹 Clone & Build

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/web_video_server.git
cd web_video_server

# Build using colcon
colcon build --symlink-install

🔹 Run the Web Video Server

source install/setup.bash
ros2 run web_video_server web_video_server_node

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📌 Usage

🔹 Streaming Video

Once the server is running, you can access the video stream using a web browser:

<video src="http://localhost:8080/stream?topic=/camera/image&type=h264" autoplay></video>

Or use curl to fetch a snapshot:

curl http://localhost:8080/snapshot?topic=/camera/image -o snapshot.jpg

🔹 Available Endpoints

Endpoint	Description
/	List all available ROS image topics
/stream?topic=<ros_topic>&type=<format>	Stream video in the specified format
/snapshot?topic=<ros_topic>	Capture a snapshot of the current video frame
/stream_viewer?topic=<ros_topic>	Open an HTML5-based viewer for the stream

Example:

# View available topics
curl http://localhost:8080/

# Stream an H.264 encoded video from /camera/image
curl http://localhost:8080/stream?topic=/camera/image&type=h264

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📌 Configuration

Modify web_video_server parameters in ROS 2:

ros2 param set /web_video_server port 9090  # Change HTTP port
ros2 param set /web_video_server default_stream_type mjpeg  # Set default encoding
ros2 param set /web_video_server server_threads 4  # Increase concurrency

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📌 System Architecture

• web_video_server.cpp: Core HTTP server logic, handles requests and manages video streams
• h264_streamer.cpp: H.264 encoding using FFmpeg (libx264)
• vp8_streamer.cpp: VP8 streaming, optimized for low-latency WebM playback
• vp9_streamer.cpp: VP9 encoding for high compression and better quality
• jpeg_streamers.cpp: MJPEG encoding for high-compatibility streaming
• png_streamers.cpp: PNG image snapshots for high-fidelity captures
• ros_compressed_streamer.cpp: Directly streams ROS-compressed image messages

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📌 Performance Optimizations

✅ Low-Latency Video Processing: Uses Boost.Asio for async HTTP handling
✅ Real-Time Encoding: libx264, libvpx, and OpenCV for fast frame processing
✅ QoS Optimization: Supports sensor_data QoS profile for real-time applications
✅ Multi-Threaded Execution: Uses ROS 2 MultiThreadedExecutor for concurrent handling

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📌 Applications

🎯 Robotics & Autonomous Systems: Real-time monitoring for robots and drones
🎯 Remote Surveillance: Low-latency video streaming for security applications
🎯 Embedded Systems: Runs on Jetson Nano, Raspberry Pi, Intel NUC
🎯 Industrial IoT: Edge computing solutions for remote video analytics
🎯 Automated Warehouses: Video streaming for robotic fleet monitoring

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📌 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Feel free to:

• Report issues and request features via GitHub Issues
• Fork the repo and submit pull requests
• Enhance video encoding optimizations and add new features

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📌 License

This project is released under the BSD-3 License.
See the LICENSE file for more details.

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