DEV Community: Murshidhq

Create Your Video-Chat room with Agora.io

Murshidhq — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 08:17:28 +0000

Ever wondered how video calls worked? Ever wanted to create your own chat room? Ever wished to include a video stream to your project and didn’t know where to start? Then you are at the right place.

I will explain a short method to do all of the above easily. Moreover all of this can be done by any beginner without things going way over your head! Yeah, you've got it right. Whether you are a beginner or a pro developer , this here is the perfect solution for you!

Think of it this way, if you have a perfect working solution for your problem in front of you, would you try to create another solution that you are not even sure of? Nope! Just like that, we do have lots of solutions that are pre-built and ready to use available to us. It's all about having to find which one matches perfectly for our use. Technically speaking, nowadays lots and lots of API’s can be integrated into our projects in numerous ways to increase our productivity and ease our work.,and luckily most of tbem are free to use for a certain period.

So what do we have here? Imagine we need to create a video chat room for a project, and we are not wiling to want to start from scratch. There are a plenty of API’s available out there you could use. Which one should you use? Tough question right? Obviously, you wouldn't have the patience to try each one of them and get the results. This is where I introduce you to one of the easiest and powerful API by Agora.io

For starters, I'll give you a brief on Agora.io and why I chose Agora.io

What is Agora.io?

Agora.io provides building blocks for you to add real-time voice and video communications through a simple and powerful SDK. You can integrate the Agora SDK to enable real-time communications in your application quickly.

Agora’s Software-Defined Real-time Network (SD-RTN™) is a real-time transmission network built by Agora and is the only network infrastructure specifically designed for real-time communications in the world. All voice and video services provided by the Agora SDK are deployed and transmitted through the Agora SD-RTN™.

Agora deploys about 200 data centers worldwide that use intelligent dynamic routing algorithms to achieve millisecond latency and ensure high availability of Agora’s service.

In a single line, we can say that Agora is the single solution for all your Real-Time Communication Issues!

Why I opted agora?

There are of course plenty of features and reasons I opted agora. But here l I'll just point out a few that I liked the most.

The first 10,000 minutes free each month.
The Developer Center provides documentation for developers to integrate and use Agora SDKs, and for SDK and sample code downloads.
Easy to Implement.
24x7 reliable.
Highly customizable. Pick and choose the calling or interactive broadcast features you need.
Includes all the development tools and cloud infrastructure needed for mobile, web, and desktop applications.
Easy to adopt SDKs, APIs and code samples for every popular language and framework.
Compatibility and Interoperability
High-fidelity, 3D surround sound experience
UDP (User Datagram Protocol) optimization
Only RTC service provider in the world using self-developed audio and video codecs. This allows Agora to have unique advantages in audio and video qualities.
Anti-packet-loss optimization

What agora.io provides?

Voice SDK
Video SDK
Interactive Gaming SDK
Real-Time Messaging SDK (Beta)
Recording SDK
Agora Cloud Recording SDK
Community SDKs
Agora MediaPlayer Kit

Want to learn more about the above? Then head on here .

And much much more! Let’s stop the talk and come to the point. Try out to create your Video-chat room and see for it yourself!

How to create your Video-Chat room with agora.io

Follow these steps :

Create your first project in agora.io

Step 1: Go to agora.io

Step 2: Click on Sign Up on the top right corner and create your account.

Now login to get access to your dashboard. Just like tbat you have successfully created an agora.io developer account.

Step 3: Now Click on the Create New Project button to create a new project with a name of your choice.

Dashboard

Now you can get a screen similar to above with your project name and APP-ID which we shall be using later.

So yay! Your first project in agora.io is created! Now what?

Downloads

Click here to download the latest Agora.io SDK for Web.
Click here to download Video-Chat room demo.

Now you have all the necessary files need to run the first trial!

Let’s begin

Step 1: Copy the AgoraRTCSDK-x.x.x..js file from the Agora-Web-SDK folder to the Videochat-web-agora/scripts folder.

Step 2: Open call.html page in an editor.

Step 3: Replace x.x.x in with the SDK version you have just downloaded as shown in the below screenshots.

Before Replacing

After Replacing

Step 4: Open script.js file inside videochat-web-agora/scripts folder.

Step 5: Replace <-Your App-ID Here> with your App-ID which we got from agora.io dashboard earlier.

Replace <-Your App-ID Here> with your App-ID

Hurray! that’s it! yeah you got a working Video-Chat room with agora.io

How it works

Step 1: Open the index.html file in any of your browsers.

Step 2: You will get a home page with a Join Button. Just click on that.

Step 3: You might be prompted to give video and microphone access. Click allow and wait 5–10 secs.

Step 4: You will see yourself on the top right corner of the screen!

Why can't you see anyone else? Because no one else is there! So just to check if it is working, open another tab with the same index page and click on login.

Step 4: Now you can see the feed from another tab in the middle.

Now you got it working , just host the whole files in your hosting provider and send off the link to your friends to get it on!

Note: If you gave the camera access and you are still unable to see your feed then wait for 1 minute or try refreshing the page or try another browser.

How to modify?

What’s the fun in anything if you cant modify it right! You can see a complete video tutorial from the scratch through this link or just go to this link for the scratch GitHub tutorial.

Now to modify this chatroom, it is as simple as modifying any website!

index.html page is just a simple landing page where you can add a login page if you need or anything you like.

call.html is where you place the calling. There you can tweak to adjust the footage places and add further actions if needed.

script.js is the place where the main action takes place. Tweak it carefully to add further features in your room.

All tweaks can be done easily with the comments that are inside each file that easily understandable. Just go through it and let me know if further clarifications are needed!

Not enough?

Want to do more? Then here is the link to the agora official documentations for all your queries.

SDK Downloads
Sample Apps

Try out different sample apps or create your own.

Go through them and you can try to build whatever you need according to your use case. Also, there are more tutorials on the way. What do you think about using Agora.io in some AI/ML applications? Let’s try to dig into that next time!

Feel free to comment on your thoughts! Cheers!

Getting Started With Intel DevCloud

Murshidhq — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 21:49:52 +0000

What is Intel DevCloud?

As the title implies, intel DevCloud is a cloud service provided by Intel! But yeah most of y'all might already know that. Yet here I'm gonna explain a little brief on the advantages of DevCloud and how to set up your DevCloud account and how you can get most of it.

System Environment setting is one of the most uninteresting parts of a project! no matter how much you set up you will definitely have a couple of errors on that account. But why do you have to worry if you can get something that is already set up and you don't have to do all those stuff for no use!

It’s really frustrating when you start to work on something and you Every Single geek who has been rising to work on an AI/ML project will have at least one encounter where he/she might be stuck due to the packages missing issues or else inadequate hardware support issues!

With DevCloud you can just forget that and push your limits.

What do you get?

Latest Intel® hardware
Intel® optimized frameworks
Tools and libraries
200 GB of file storage
192 GB RAM
Latest Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with built-in AI acceleration
Intel® FPGAs
Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory
TensorFlow*
Intel® Optimization for Caffe*
Intel® Optimization for PyTorch*
MXNet*
PaddlePaddle*
Intel® Parallel Studio XE Cluster Edition
Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit
Intel® Deep Learning Deployment Tool
30 days of free access (extensions available)

What do I like the most?

Let me just point out some of the Devcloud uses that I found really helpful when I work!

Linux as OS

Yeah, I do like to work with Linux and as most of you guys yeah Ubuntu is my favorite. So yeah I can really play really inside the DevCloud as I am already familiarised with ubuntu and whatever I can do in my system I can boost it up with the DevCloud!

Preloaded DataSets

Intel DevCloud comes preloaded with a variety of free public datasets as shown below

City U
Smart Meter
BoxCar Dataset
Udacity Self-Driving Car
Object Detection Recognition
UK Smart Meter

Working from my Terminal

you heard it right! I can work with my own terminal. With a good internet connection, I almost forget that I am using DevCloud.

It's one of the main reason I prefer DevlCloud. you can easily connect to DevCloud through your native terminal with the help of ssh and just boost up your system.

If you are thinking about copying data it's just easy as it can get..so nothing to worry about that!

its a total control from your terminal. The only thing I get irritated is that terminal disconnecting if keep on the terminal idle for a long time! but yet I can retrieve my works as my system on the cloud doesn't sleep!

Easy to get access and easy to extend!

Everything is simpler as it gets! no unwanted steps to get you mad. If you have a good project then get started with DevCloud with no tension.

Portability of work

I do work on multiple systems and with DevCloud, I can easily continue my work in any of my systems! Whether I am using the Desktop system from college lab or if I am at my home with my favorite lap, I can easily connect to my Devcloud account and just continue my work from where I left!

Showcasing my work

It's a real trouble to carry your lap all the time to show your works! You never know when you have to implement or show your work to someone! Even if I have my code in my Github Repo it is not practical to get a system that has all my environment requirement and setting it up running is a mess. With DevCloud, I can easily get going.

Now let me just give the simple step by step process to get you started with the DevCloud.

How to get DevCloud access?

Step 1: Go to this_ [_link](https://software.intel.com/en-us/devcloud/datacenter)_._

Step 2: Click on sign up

Step 3: Fill up your details.

Now have a break and wait for the mail with the happy news! Normally it takes a 24hrs max to get your access! Yeah, its basically a 3 step process!

Tip:- Create a Devmesh profile and upload your project details in Devmesh to get your Devcloud faster and easier!

How do I connect to DevCloud?

Step 1:- Now you have got the mail with your access key and links to your cloud it's just as it is. Click on the personal login Url in your mail id and you will get a screen as shown below:-

Your DevCloud Portal will look something similar to this

Step 2:- Want to get deep into the documentation, then just browse the documentation(Recommended) or else just click on the connection options to explore!

Step 3:- Once you click on the Connection Options you will get the below screen:-

connection options

Now you have your choice! As I mentioned earlier connect with the terminal or else the Jupyter notebook!

For Connection with Terminal:- Click on the link as per your os and just follow the onscreen instructions!

For Connection with Jupyter Notebook:- Don't bother the URL just click on the One-Click Login to get your Notebook running!

Hurray! Yeah, it's another 3 steps and yeah you are connected to your DevCloud.

What do I do with DevCloud?

Now the stage is set what is next? Just explore and do what you are capable of and find out the limits of DevCloud!

Got an error or stuck somewhere? Then most probably you have the solution in the error itself. Just read it twice and do as it says; Troubleshooting tips are really great! or else just jump to this Forum to get your answers!