From JPG to b64encode to cv2.imread()

Question

For a program I am writing, I am transferring an image from one computer - using base64.b64encode(f.read(image)) - and trying to read it in the receiving script without saving it to hard drive (in an effort to minimize process time). I'm having a hard time figuring out how to read the image into OpenCV without saving it locally.

Here is what my code for sending the image looks like:

f = open(image.jpg)
sendthis = f.read()
f.close()
databeingsent = base64.b64encode(sendthis)
client.publish('/image',databeingsent,0) 
# this is an MQTT publish, details for SO shouldn't be relevant

Meanwhile, here is the code receiving it. (This is in an on_message function, since I'm using MQTT for the transfer.)

def on_message(client, userdata, msg): # msg.payload is incoming data
    img = base64.b64decode(msg.payload)
    source = cv2.imread(img)
    cv2.imshow("image", source)

After the message decodes, I have the error: "TypeError: Your input type is not a numpy array".

I've done some searching, and I can't seem to find a relevant solution - some exist regarding converting from text files to numpy using b64, but none really relate to using an image and immediately reading that decoded data into OpenCV without the intermediary step of saving it to the harddrive (using the inverse process used to read the file in the "send" script).

I'm still pretty new to Python and OpenCV, so if there's a better encoding method to send the image - whatever solves the problem. How the image is sent is irrelevant, so long as I can read it in on the receiving end without saving it as a .jpg to disk.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can get a numpy array from you decoded data using:

import numpy as np
...
img = base64.b64decode(msg.payload)
npimg = np.fromstring(img, dtype=np.uint8)

Then you need imdecode to read the image from a buffer in memory. imread is meant to load an image from a file.

So:

import numpy as np
...
def on_message(client, userdata, msg): # msg.payload is incoming data
    img = base64.b64decode(msg.payload); 
    npimg = np.fromstring(img, dtype=np.uint8); 
    source = cv2.imdecode(npimg, 1)