Introduction

The Raspberry Pi camera module is a special add-on of the Raspberry Pi that makes use of the Camera Serial Interface (CSI) connector. This connects directly to the GPU core of the Raspberry Pi processor, allowing images to be captured directly on the unit.

We shall create a basic graphical user interface (GUI) using the tkinter library we used in Chapter 3, Using Python for Automation and Productivity, and Chapter 4, Creating Games and Graphics. This will form the basis of the following three examples where we extend the GUI with additional controls so that we can put the camera to various uses for a range of different projects.

Finally, we set up the powerful Open Computer Vision (OpenCV) library to perform some advanced image processing. We will learn the basics of OpenCV and use it to track objects based on their color or detect movement.

Tip

This chapter uses the Raspberry Pi camera module, which is available from most retailers listed in the Makers, hobbyists, and Raspberry...