Python OpenCV convert image to byte string?

Question

I'm working with PyOpenCV. How to convert cv2 image (numpy) to binary string for writing to MySQL db without a temporary file and imwrite?

I googled it but found nothing...

I'm trying imencode, but it doesn't work.

capture = cv2.VideoCapture(url.path)
capture.set(cv2.cv.CV_CAP_PROP_POS_MSEC, float(url.query))
self.wfile.write(cv2.imencode('png', capture.read()))

Error:

  File "server.py", line 16, in do_GET
  self.wfile.write(cv2.imencode('png', capture.read()))
  TypeError: img is not a numerical tuple

Help somebody!

Answer 1

If you have an image img (which is a numpy array) you can convert it into string using:

>>> img_str = cv2.imencode('.jpg', img)[1].tostring()
>>> type(img_str)
 'str'

Now you can easily store the image inside your database, and then recover it by using:

>>> nparr = np.fromstring(STRING_FROM_DATABASE, np.uint8)
>>> img = cv2.imdecode(nparr, cv2.CV_LOAD_IMAGE_COLOR)

where you need to replace STRING_FROM_DATABASE with the variable that contains the result of your query to the database containing the image.

Answer 2

It works in 2020 with numpy==1.19.4 and opencv==4.4.0:

import cv2

cam = cv2.VideoCapture(0)

# get image from web camera
ret, frame = cam.read()

# convert to jpeg and save in variable
image_bytes = cv2.imencode('.jpg', frame)[1].tobytes()

Answer 3

Here is an example:

def image_to_bts(frame):
    '''
    :param frame: WxHx3 ndarray
    '''
    _, bts = cv2.imencode('.webp', frame)
    bts = bts.tostring()
    return bts

def bts_to_img(bts):
    '''
    :param bts: results from image_to_bts
    '''
    buff = np.fromstring(bts, np.uint8)
    buff = buff.reshape(1, -1)
    img = cv2.imdecode(buff, cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
    return img