Author SHA1 Message Date
cristhian 8c3b3aac92 rewrite the README
validate / validate (pull_request) Successful in 59m14s
It had drifted out of agreement with itself. The manifest section still said
`image` is std/core/v1/UInt8 and depth and camera_info are std/core/v1/Float32,
four lines above a table correctly saying both are std/media/v1/Image, and the
worked example for a producer showed the flat-buffer form the node moved away
from. Someone following it would have written a producer that fails validate.

It was also close to twice the length of the one next door, mostly rationale:
why a dataflow carries no strict_types, how a producer migrates, what a git:
node needs and why. That belongs in the file it explains or in the commit that
made the decision, not in front of someone trying to wire a node.

1007 words, from 1749. Every encoding, environment variable and CLI flag in it
was checked against the code.
2026-09-15 06:56:49 -03:00
cristhian a371bb07ba Merge pull request 'verify the webcam example, pin v0.1.1, and scope pytest' (#5) from webcam-example-verified into main
validate / validate (push) Successful in 59m10s
Reviewed-on: #5
2026-09-15 09:52:06 +00:00
cristhian 7eeb83bf6d scope pytest to this repository's tests
validate / validate (pull_request) Successful in 59m14s
`dora run` vendors a `git:` node's source into git/ inside the checkout, and
pytest collected that node's tests along with these: running the webcam example
and then the test suite reported 67 tests, 26 of them another project's. A
failure there would have gone red here, for a reason no one would find quickly.
2026-09-15 06:51:02 -03:00
cristhian 344a527097 record that the webcam example is verified, and pin v0.1.1
The example carried a caveat saying it validated but could not be run, because
a `git:` node could not be fetched. The organization is public now, so it can:
dora clones dora-webcam at the pinned tag, builds both nodes, and runs them
against a real camera to a clean exit.

The pin moves to v0.1.1, whose documentation shows the https URL. v0.1.0 points
at an ssh:// URL that dora cannot authenticate, so anyone copying the wiring out
of that tag would have hit the failure this example exists to demonstrate the
absence of.

What a `git:` node does require is still recorded, since it is not obvious:
anonymous read, which on Gitea means a public organization and not merely a
public repository.
2026-09-15 06:50:43 -03:00
cristhian c178afd58e add depth and camera intrinsics, and adopt the typed Arrow image (#4)
validate / validate (push) Successful in 59m16s
Adds a depth panel tiled beside the image, the camera_info input holding the
pinhole model, and std/media/v1/Image as the payload for both image and depth.
Builds with uv, lints markdown, keeps the workflow where act looks for it, and
carries a worked example wiring dora-webcam in.
2026-09-15 09:36:16 +00:00
cristhian 7eb00000ea make the node standalone and rename it to dora-image-view (#3)
validate / validate (push) Successful in 59m14s
The node was named opencv-plot everywhere, and the example dataflow could not
run without a webcam and two nodes fetched over the network.

Renames the node to dora-image-view, replaces the external example with a
synthetic source in this checkout, types that source inline rather than
shipping a second manifest, and merges the two CI jobs into one.
2026-09-15 09:33:11 +00:00
3 changed files with 94 additions and 172 deletions
+81 -167
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@@ -1,11 +1,12 @@
# dora-image-view
Dora node that displays a colour image and a depth map side by side in one OpenCV
window, with bounding box, text and camera intrinsics overlays. A display sink for debugging a
vision pipeline: it produces no outputs.
window, with bounding box, text and camera intrinsics overlays. A display sink for
debugging a vision pipeline: it consumes frames and produces no outputs.
Based on [`opencv-plot`](https://github.com/dora-rs/dora-hub/tree/main/node-hub/opencv-plot)
from dora-hub, brought up to the dora 1.0 node contract and packaged with `uv`.
from dora-hub, brought up to the dora 1.0 node contract, renamed, and changed to take
the typed Arrow image struct rather than a flat buffer plus metadata.
## Usage
@@ -15,123 +16,44 @@ Add to your dataflow:
nodes:
- id: view
git: https://gitea.liria.cl/liria/dora-image-view.git
tag: v0.1.0
tag: v0.1.1
build: uv pip install .
path: dora-image-view
inputs:
image: camera/image_bgr
image: camera/image
depth: camera/depth
camera_info: camera/camera_info
bbox: detector/bbox
text: detector/text
```
Run the dataflow with `--uv` (`dora run dataflow.yml --uv`) so the node gets its own
managed environment.
Run the dataflow with `--uv` (`dora run dataflow.yml --uv`): the build command is
`uv pip install .`, so the node gets its own managed environment and never installs into
an ambient one.
Every input is optional, and each of `image` and `depth` fills one panel of the window,
tiled left to right in that order. Wiring one of them is a plain viewer;
wiring several shows them side by side, scaled to a common height. `bbox`, `text` and `camera_info`
are overlays rather than panels — boxes are drawn on the `image` panel, in its own
pixels, and the caption on the composite.
Every input is optional. `image` and `depth` each fill a panel, tiled left to right and
scaled to a common height, so wiring one is a plain viewer and wiring both shows them
side by side. `bbox`, `text` and `camera_info` are overlays rather than panels: boxes on
the image panel in its own pixels, caption and camera model on the composite.
### End-to-end test
### Runnable dataflows
[`dataflow.yml`](dataflow.yml) is self-contained. [`tests/source.py`](tests/source.py)
is a synthetic source node that emits an animated frame, a depth map of the same scene,
the camera intrinsics, the box around the square moving in the frame, and a caption —
every input this node draws — so it needs no camera, no detector and no network. It is
a test fixture rather than a worked example; the realistic wiring is the block at the
top of this file. Run it to watch the node work:
Run either with `dora run <file> --uv`:
```bash
dora run dataflow.yml --uv
```
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
| [`dataflow.yml`](dataflow.yml) | A synthetic source driving every input. What CI runs. |
| [`dataflow_webcam.yml`](dataflow_webcam.yml) | A real camera, via [dora-webcam][webcam] |
A window opens with a square bouncing across a gradient, boxed and labelled. Press `q`
to quit.
[webcam]: https://gitea.liria.cl/liria/dora-webcam
It builds the viewer from this checkout (`path:` + `build:`) rather than from a tag,
which is what lets `dora validate` pick up the manifest described below.
`dataflow.yml` needs no camera, no detector and no network: a window opens with a square
bouncing across a gradient, boxed and labelled, beside its depth map. Press `q` to quit.
CI runs it headless on every push, which is what keeps it from rotting.
CI runs the same dataflow headless on every push, which is what makes it a gate rather
than a demo that rots.
Set `SOURCE_FRAMES` to stop the source after a fixed number of frames instead of running
until you quit; that plus `CI=true` is how the same dataflow runs headless as a test:
```bash
CI=true SOURCE_FRAMES=30 dora run dataflow.yml --uv
```
`SOURCE_WIDTH` and `SOURCE_HEIGHT` (default 640x480) set the frame size.
### With a real camera
[`dataflow_webcam.yml`](dataflow_webcam.yml) wires
[dora-webcam](https://gitea.liria.cl/liria/dora-webcam) into this node, and is the
worked example of consuming something that is not a test fixture:
```bash
dora run dataflow_webcam.yml --uv
```
The camera publishes `std/media/v1/Image` and this node draws it. `depth`,
`camera_info`, `text` and `bbox` are simply unwired — every input is optional, so a
plain viewer is the result.
It carries no `strict_types`, deliberately. A camera publishes an image and nothing
else, and `dora validate --strict` warns about every *typed* input this node declares
that a dataflow leaves unwired. The strictness belongs to `dataflow.yml`, which drives
all of them.
**A `git:` node needs anonymous read access.** dora-cli 1.0.1 fetches through libgit2
with no credential callback, so a repository that asks for credentials fails with
`remote authentication required but no callback set`, and `ssh://` cannot authenticate
at all. Note that marking a repository public is not sufficient on Gitea: a repository
inside a **private organization** is treated as internal and still answers anonymous
clones with `401`. The organization has to be public too.
### Node manifest
[`dora-node.yml`](dora-node.yml) declares the node's inputs with type URNs. No source
package is shared between node repositories, so it is the only contract a consumer has,
and it is what makes a wiring mistake fail at build time instead of at runtime. The
example source is typed inline in the dataflow with `output_types:`, so `dora validate`
checks the two against each other:
```text
$ dora validate dataflow.yml
node "view": injected 4 contract type(s) from .../dora-node.yml
All type annotations OK.
```
There is one manifest because this repository ships one node. The example source is a
test fixture rather than something anyone installs, so it has none, and runs through
the interpreter to keep `dora validate` from matching the viewer's manifest against it.
`image` is `std/core/v1/UInt8`, `depth` and `camera_info` are `std/core/v1/Float32` and
`text` is `std/core/v1/String`; the payloads are raw buffers described by their
metadata, so the URN names the element type rather than a struct. `bbox` is deliberately
left untyped — senders disagree on whether its numeric fields are 32- or 64-bit, and the
node reads either.
## Behavior
The node keeps a current frame, bbox set and text string. Each input updates its slice
of that state:
- An **`image`** event decodes the frame and immediately redraws: it draws every stored
bbox (green rectangle plus `label, conf` text), draws the stored text at the top left,
resizes to `VIEW_WIDTH`x`VIEW_HEIGHT` if both are set, and shows it in a window titled
`Dora Node: dora-image-view`. Press `q` in the window to quit.
- A **`depth`** event colour-maps the distances onto the depth panel and redraws.
- A **`camera_info`** event stores the pinhole model and draws it under the caption.
- A **`bbox`** or **`text`** event only updates stored state; it is drawn on the next
redraw.
Setting `CI=true` suppresses the display: the node still decodes every input but opens
no window. That is what makes it safe to run in a pipeline test.
`dataflow_webcam.yml` is the worked example of consuming a real producer. A `git:` node
needs **anonymous** read access to fetch — on Gitea that means a public organization, not
just a public repository.
## Inputs
@@ -139,59 +61,42 @@ no window. That is what makes it safe to run in a pipeline test.
|---|---|---|
| `image` | `std/media/v1/Image` struct | none — the struct describes itself |
| `depth` | `std/media/v1/Image` struct, one channel | `units` (defaults to `mm`) |
| `camera_info` | `[fx, fy, cx, cy]` or a 9-element K | `distortion`, `distortion_model` |
| `bbox` | Arrow struct array, element `[0]` with fields `bbox`, `conf`, `labels` | `format` |
| `camera_info` | `[fx, fy, cx, cy]` or a 9-element row-major `K` | `distortion` |
| `bbox` | Arrow struct `{bbox, conf, labels}` | `format`: `xyxy` or `xywh` |
| `text` | Arrow array of size 1 | — |
`image` and `depth` are both `std/media/v1/Image`: an Arrow struct of `width: UInt32`,
`height: UInt32`, `encoding: Utf8` and `data: LargeBinary`. The payload describes
itself, so nothing about its shape has to travel as message metadata.
`height: UInt32`, `encoding: Utf8` and `data: LargeBinary`. The payload describes itself,
so nothing about its shape travels as message metadata.
Depth is an image whose pixels are distances — dora's type registry has no depth type,
and this is how ROS spells it too. Its encodings are `32FC1`/`float32` and
`16UC1`/`mono16`/`uint16`, one channel per pixel, and `units` metadata still switches
millimetres to metres.
Image encodings: `bgr8`, `rgb8`, `yuv420`, `avif`, and `jpeg`/`jpg`/`jpe`/`bmp`/`webp`/
`png` as an encoded byte stream. Depth encodings: `32FC1`/`float32` and
`16UC1`/`mono16`/`uint16`, one channel per pixel — dora's registry has no depth type, and
a depth map is an image whose pixels are distances, as ROS also treats it. `0` and
non-finite values mean missing depth and draw black.
`camera_info` is also read from the metadata of any frame carrying `fx`, `fy`, `cx` and
`cy`, so **wiring it is optional even for a camera that publishes it** — which covers a
camera that publishes it once per session and a viewer started afterwards. The node needs
none of it to draw; it is held for whatever turns depth into 3D.
Older payloads are still decoded, so a producer can move at its own pace: a flat `UInt8`
buffer with `width`/`height`/`encoding` metadata for `image`, and a flat `Float32`
buffer with `shape`/`units` metadata for `depth`.
buffer with `width`/`height`/`encoding` metadata for `image`, and a flat `Float32` buffer
with `shape`/`units` for `depth`. Note that dora's type compatibility is directional, so
a producer still *declaring* `std/core/v1/UInt8` fails `dora validate` against an
`std/media/v1/Image` input whatever it sends — its manifest has to move too.
**Migrating a producer.** dora's type compatibility is directional — `Image` satisfies a
`Bytes` input, but a `std/core/v1/UInt8` output wired into an `std/media/v1/Image` input
is a `dora validate` error. A producer still declaring `std/core/v1/UInt8` or
`std/core/v1/Float32` therefore has to change its manifest as well as its payload.
Supported `image` `encoding` values: `bgr8`, `rgb8`, `jpeg`/`jpg`/`jpe`/`bmp`/`webp`/`png`
(encoded byte stream), `yuv420`, `avif`. `width` and `height` are only needed by the raw
encodings — the rest carry their own dimensions. An unsupported encoding raises.
Supported `format` values: `xyxy` and `xywh` (centre-based, converted to `xyxy`).
`depth` is in millimetres unless `units` is `m`. In a depth map, `0`
and any non-finite value mean missing depth and are drawn black. A payload sent as a
raw byte slice — which is what a C++ node does — arrives as `UInt8` despite the
`Float32` contract, and is reinterpreted rather than converted.
### Camera intrinsics
`camera_info` carries the pinhole model the depth map is interpreted through, either as
the four values `[fx, fy, cx, cy]` or as a nine-element row-major `K`, which is how ROS
spells the same model in `sensor_msgs/CameraInfo`. Distortion coefficients are read from
the `distortion` metadata.
The node displays the model and holds it. It needs none of it to draw a panel; it is
there for what reads it next — turning a depth map into a point cloud needs `fx`, `fy`,
`cx` and `cy` for every pixel, and nothing else in a dataflow carries them.
Intrinsics are also picked up from the metadata of any `image` or `depth` frame that
carries `fx`, `fy`, `cx` and `cy`, so **wiring `camera_info` is optional even for a
camera that publishes it**. That matters because a camera typically publishes
`camera_info` once per session: a viewer started after the camera would otherwise never
see it.
Publishing to it:
```python
node.send_output("image", pa.array(frame.ravel()),
{"width": 640, "height": 480, "encoding": "bgr8"})
image = pa.array(
[{"width": 640, "height": 480, "encoding": "bgr8", "data": frame.tobytes()}],
type=pa.struct([
("width", pa.uint32()), ("height", pa.uint32()),
("encoding", pa.utf8()), ("data", pa.large_binary()),
]),
)
node.send_output("image", image, {})
node.send_output("bbox", pa.array([{
"bbox": np.array([...]), # flattened, four values per box
@@ -206,7 +111,19 @@ node.send_output("text", pa.array(["hello"]))
None — it is a display sink.
## Environment variables
## Configuration
Settings are environment variables, which a dataflow can carry per node, keeping them
with the wiring rather than in whatever shell starts it:
```yaml
env:
VIEW_DEPTH_MIN_MM: 200
VIEW_DEPTH_MAX_MM: 600
```
A node's `env:` wins over the environment the dataflow was started in; variables it does
not set still pass through.
| Variable | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
@@ -215,18 +132,16 @@ None — it is a display sink.
| `VIEW_DEPTH_MIN_MM` | auto | Pin the near end of the depth colour range, in millimetres. |
| `VIEW_DEPTH_MAX_MM` | auto | Pin the far end of the depth colour range, in millimetres. |
Resizing only happens when both `VIEW_WIDTH` and `VIEW_HEIGHT` are set. Both are also
available as `--view-width` and `--view-height`; the environment variable wins when both
are given.
Resizing only happens when both `VIEW_WIDTH` and `VIEW_HEIGHT` are set; both are also
available as `--view-width` and `--view-height`, and the environment variable wins.
Each end of the depth range is auto-ranged over the valid pixels of the current frame
unless it is pinned, so pinning one end leaves the other automatic. Auto-ranging makes
an unconfigured sensor legible at the cost of colours that shift from frame to frame;
pin both ends to compare frames against each other. The range covers the full extent of
the valid pixels rather than a percentile of them, so a small near object against a
large wall stays visible.
Each end of the depth range is auto-ranged over the current frame's valid pixels unless
pinned, so pinning one end leaves the other automatic. Auto-ranging makes an
unconfigured sensor legible at the cost of colours that shift between frames; pin both
ends to compare frames against each other.
`CI=true` suppresses the display window; it is not a configuration knob.
`CI=true` suppresses the window while still decoding every input, which is what makes the
node safe inside a pipeline test. It is not a configuration knob.
## Build
@@ -235,13 +150,12 @@ uv sync
```
Every dependency ships prebuilt wheels for linux-x86_64, linux-aarch64 and macos-arm64,
so the node installs with no system packages and no compiler on any of them — including
AVIF support, which comes from `pillow-avif-plugin` rather than OpenCV.
so the node installs with no system packages and no compiler — including AVIF support,
which comes from `pillow-avif-plugin` rather than OpenCV.
**Requirements:** dora 1.0+ (verified with `dora-cli 1.0.1`), Python 3.11+, `uv`, and a
display to show the window on (or `CI=true` to run without one). On a bare Linux image
`opencv-python` also needs the libGL shared libraries (`libgl1`, `libglib2.0-0`), which
it links at import time.
display (or `CI=true` to run without one). On a bare Linux image `opencv-python` needs
the libGL shared libraries (`libgl1`, `libglib2.0-0`), which it links at import time.
## Test
@@ -249,6 +163,6 @@ it links at import time.
uv run pytest
```
Unit tests over decoding, the bbox format conversion and the headless draw path; they
need neither a camera, a dataflow nor a display. The headless dataflow run above covers
the rest — the manifest, the wiring and the event loop.
Unit tests over decoding, depth, intrinsics, the bbox conversion and the headless draw
path; they need neither a camera, a dataflow nor a display. The headless `dataflow.yml`
run covers the rest — the manifest, the wiring and the event loop.
+6 -5
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@@ -5,10 +5,11 @@
# dataflow.yml is the gate, and needs neither.
#
# This needs anonymous read access to the camera's repository. dora-cli 1.0.1
# fetches through libgit2 with no credential callback, so anything that asks for
# credentials fails with "remote authentication required but no callback set".
# On Gitea, marking the repository public is not enough: a repository inside a
# private organization is internal and still answers anonymous clones with 401.
# fetches through libgit2 with no credential callback, so ssh:// cannot
# authenticate at all and anything asking for credentials fails with "remote
# authentication required but no callback set". On Gitea, marking the repository
# public is not enough: a repository inside a private organization is internal
# and answers an anonymous clone with 401, so the organization must be public.
#
# `strict_types` is deliberately absent. A camera publishes an image and nothing
# else, and `dora validate --strict` warns about every *typed* input this node
@@ -19,7 +20,7 @@
nodes:
- id: camera
git: https://gitea.liria.cl/liria/dora-webcam.git
tag: v0.1.0
tag: v0.1.1
build: uv pip install .
path: dora-webcam
inputs:
+7
View File
@@ -37,6 +37,13 @@ build-backend = "hatchling.build"
[tool.hatch.build.targets.wheel]
packages = ["dora_image_view"]
[tool.pytest.ini_options]
# Only this repository's tests. `dora run` vendors a `git:` node's source into
# git/ inside the checkout, and pytest would otherwise collect that node's tests
# too -- reporting another project's results as this one's, and going red when
# they fail.
testpaths = ["tests"]
[tool.ruff.lint]
extend-select = ["D", "I", "N", "RET", "UP"]