ONVIFViewer, view and control network cameras using the ONVIF protocol

about ONVIF Viewer

In the next article we are going to take a look at ONVIFViewer. It is an open source application that will allow us view our network cameras using the ONVIF protocol. This application will allow us to connect to our network cameras and view their video from the Ubuntu desktop. If the camera is controllable, we can also move it.

ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) is a global and open industry forum that seeks to facilitate the development and use of a global open standard for the interface of security products based on a physical IP. Creates a standard on how IP products within video surveillance and other security areas physics that can communicate with each other. ONVIF is an organization started in 2008 by Axis Communications, Bosch Security Systems, and Sony.

The goal of ONVIFViewer is to replace the proprietary application that was needed to configure and view IP cameras. The ONVIF protocol can be used to view and configure many types of cameras. It is an open standard that can be implemented using standard SOAP libraries. Using Qt5 for the backend and framework Kirigami UI makes this application a multiplatform solution.

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Before this project started, there was no open source application for viewing ONVIF cameras from Plasma Mobile and Gnu / Linux desktops. There is also no easy-to-use open source C ++ library to communicate with ONVIF cameras.

ONVIFViewer General Features

zurich camera ONVIFViewer

  • ONVIFViewer is a desktop ONVIF camera viewer from Android, Plasma Mobile and Gnu / Linux. The purpose of this application is nothing more than to replace the application that is required to configure and view the video of the IP cameras.
  • The ONVIF protocol can be used to view many types of cameras. It is also an open standard that can be implemented using standard SOAP libraries.
  • Using Qt5 for the backend and Kirigami UI framework make this app a solution multi platform. The main focus is Plasma Mobile and the Linux desktop, but portability for Android and Windows is also possible.
  • Communication with the camera is implemented from scratch using KDSoap. It is also modular so that it can be separated into a reusable library at a later stage.
  • This project started as part of ONVIF Open Source Spotlight Challenge.

Install ONVIFViewer on Ubuntu via Flatpak

For install ONVIFViewer IP camera viewer on our Ubuntu system, in this example I will use version 18.04 LTS, we will be able to do it using Flatpak. In order to carry it out correctly, we must first have the support for this technology installed in the system. If you still do not have it enabled, you can use the tutorial offered to users from the flatpak page.

norway camera ONVIFViewer

At this point, we can proceed to install the ONVIFViewer IP camera viewer in Ubuntu through Flatpak by doing the following. To begin, we will have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and then we will only have to use the following command to install the program. In some cases, we must be patient, as Flatpak can often take several minutes to download everything it needs to our system:

flatpak install --user https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/net.meijn.onvifviewer.flatpakref

After the installation is finished, we can test update the program. Especially when there is a new version available. We will do this by executing the following command in the same terminal:

flatpak --user update net.meijn.onvifviewer

When everything is ready and we want start the program, we can do it by writing:

flatpak run net.meijn.onvifviewer

We can also start the program by searching for the launcher in our system.

ONVIFViewer launcher

uninstall

In case we need to uninstall the program, we must execute the following command in a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T):

flatpak --user uninstall net.meijn.onvifviewer

Or we can also use this other command:

flatpak uninstall net.meijn.onvifviewer

It can get more information about this tool at their gitlab page.


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