Using the Pan Tilt Zoom Camera API

Selene Blok — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 12:32:10 +0000

What is the PTZ API?

The PTZ Api is an expansion of the Camera API and was added in Chrome version 87, it allows developers to access the pan, tilt and zoom functionality of a webcam.

That sounds great how do I use it?

Because this API is pretty new you should first check if the browser supports this API.

const supports = navigator.mediaDevices.getSupportedConstraints();

if (supports.pan && supports.tilt && supports.zoom) {
  // Browser supports camera PTZ.
}

If the browser does support it we should request a user's permission to "Use & move" the camera. You can do this by calling navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia().

async function requestPTZ() {
  try {
  // First we request permission from the user, if they accept it will yield a MediaStream object
  const opts = {video: {pan: true, tilt: true, zoom: true}};
  const stream = await navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia(opts);
  // Secondly we can bind this stream to a <video> element on the page.
  document.querySelector("#video").srcObject = stream;

  // Lastly we want to get the capabilities of our webcam, the current settings of it and the videotrack itself.
  const [videoTrack] = stream.getVideoTracks();
  const capabilities = videoTrack.getCapabilities();
  const settings = videoTrack.getSettings();

  // ...
 } catch (error) {
  throw new Error(error)
  // User denies prompt, or
  // matching media is not available.
 }
}

So we now have the ability to view and control a user's webcam, we can now pass arguments to videoTrack.aplyConstraints to change the pan tilt or zoom like this

async function changeZoom(capabilities, settings, videoTrack) {
  await videoTrack.applyConstraints({
   advanced: [{ zoom: capabilities.zoom.max }]
  })
}

if ('zoom' in settings) {
  changeZoom();
}

Demo

I wrote a short interactive demo on codepen, please note that the embed doesn't work since it required a user to confirm a browser API dialog so please click on the link to view it on codepen or view it on ObservableHQ.

DEV Community: Selene Blok

Using the Pan Tilt Zoom Camera API

What is the PTZ API?

That sounds great how do I use it?

Demo