Webcam capture for python - Pops up a preview from your webcam and snaps a picture when you press 'q'

camera.py

import cv2

# Windows dependencies
# - Python 2.7.6: http://www.python.org/download/
# - OpenCV: http://opencv.org/
# - Numpy -- get numpy from here because the official builds don't support x64:
#   http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#numpy

# Mac Dependencies
# - brew install python
# - pip install numpy
# - brew tap homebrew/science
# - brew install opencv

cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0)

while(True):
    ret, frame = cap.read()
    rgb = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2BGRA)

    cv2.imshow('frame', rgb)
    if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
        out = cv2.imwrite('capture.jpg', frame)
        break

cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

I'm having below issue and program terminated. Do you know any solutions for that?

Process finished with exit code 134 (interrupted by signal 6: SIGABRT)

@BathiyaSeneviratne I saw on Stack Overflow that you're using MacOS. I don't recognize this error code but I suspect it may have to do with recent-ish changes to MacOS webcam security policy. You'll probably need to whitelist python or opencv to access the webcam. System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Camera.

@cbednarski thanks for the reply. Yes it's happening because of apple's security policy. is there any other ways to overcome this issue. because when I'm using Pycharm with OpenCV there are no apps that requesting the permission to access the camera in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Camera.

I just had the same problem and instead of running the script on an iDE I opened up Terminal on Mac and cd 'd into the folder that contained .py file and ran it and it worked
python 3 face-det-cam.py

If you run this for the first time it may ask for a permission. I have not tried it for a 3rd party terminal i.e. iTerm2 but process must be the same

Yes! I did the same thing. But it is much easier to run it with the visual studio code. Because it has access to the Mac native terminal

I just had the same problem and instead of running the script on an iDE I opened up Terminal on Mac and cd 'd into the folder that contained .py file and ran it and it worked
python 3 face-det-cam.py

If you run this for the first time it may ask for a permission. I have not tried it for a 3rd party terminal i.e. iTerm2 but process must be the same

Thanks man it helped a lot

How could you change this to not need the 'q' key pressed to take the photo? I tried doing this but was unsuccessful:

import time

while(True):
    ret, frame = cap.read()
    rgb = cv2.cvtColor(frame, cv2.COLOR_BGR2BGRA)

    cv2.imshow('frame', rgb)
    time.sleep(3)
    out = cv2.imwrite('capture.jpg', frame)
    break

hi, how can I turn off the camera indicator