Sending image data via network somehow

[krambriw]

Hello,

I have since long been thinking about a feature that would be nice to have; being able to send the image data (pictures) via the network to one or more subscribers

Reason for this is if you imagine Motion as one core component in a system setup comprising also system parts providing additional features and functions

Like in my case; Motion runs on several Raspberry Pi's and takes video from cameras, process them and on motion detected, saves plenty of images to file on a local usb stick. Once the event ended, a Python script is transfering all those images via MQTT to another machine on my network (Jetson Nano Orin). Images are received by a YOLOv11 object detection Python process. If certain objects are detected, notifications are sent via Telegram. The complete event sequence including images with bounding boxes are added to a current on-going recording for eventual later reviewing purposes

All this works perfectly well since several years back (well, the Jetson Nano is in the mean time upgraded since a year back or so)

What I really would like to improve in this setup is the transferring of image data. If Motion would be able to send image data directly via a network protocol like MQTT all saving to and reading from disk could be avoided. Object detection could also start directly instead of waiting until "everything has settled", i.e. until the end of the event

I also think this would improve Motion a bit towards being"more friendly and modern" to integrate with other software components. Being able to directly send image data via MQTT would in addition allow for a rather easy setup of multiple remotely distributed locations, all communicating via a secure cloud based MQTT service

Something to consider for V5?

WIsh you all a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Best regards, Walter