Take a screenshot via a python script. [Linux]
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09-06-2019 - |
Question
I want to take a screenshot via a python script and unobtrusively save it.
I'm only interested in the Linux solution, and should support any X based environment.
Solution
This works without having to use scrot or ImageMagick.
import gtk.gdk
w = gtk.gdk.get_default_root_window()
sz = w.get_size()
print "The size of the window is %d x %d" % sz
pb = gtk.gdk.Pixbuf(gtk.gdk.COLORSPACE_RGB,False,8,sz[0],sz[1])
pb = pb.get_from_drawable(w,w.get_colormap(),0,0,0,0,sz[0],sz[1])
if (pb != None):
pb.save("screenshot.png","png")
print "Screenshot saved to screenshot.png."
else:
print "Unable to get the screenshot."
Borrowed from http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2681009&postcount=5
OTHER TIPS
Compile all answers in one class. Outputs PIL image.
#!/usr/bin/env python
# encoding: utf-8
"""
screengrab.py
Created by Alex Snet on 2011-10-10.
Copyright (c) 2011 CodeTeam. All rights reserved.
"""
import sys
import os
import Image
class screengrab:
def __init__(self):
try:
import gtk
except ImportError:
pass
else:
self.screen = self.getScreenByGtk
try:
import PyQt4
except ImportError:
pass
else:
self.screen = self.getScreenByQt
try:
import wx
except ImportError:
pass
else:
self.screen = self.getScreenByWx
try:
import ImageGrab
except ImportError:
pass
else:
self.screen = self.getScreenByPIL
def getScreenByGtk(self):
import gtk.gdk
w = gtk.gdk.get_default_root_window()
sz = w.get_size()
pb = gtk.gdk.Pixbuf(gtk.gdk.COLORSPACE_RGB,False,8,sz[0],sz[1])
pb = pb.get_from_drawable(w,w.get_colormap(),0,0,0,0,sz[0],sz[1])
if pb is None:
return False
else:
width,height = pb.get_width(),pb.get_height()
return Image.fromstring("RGB",(width,height),pb.get_pixels() )
def getScreenByQt(self):
from PyQt4.QtGui import QPixmap, QApplication
from PyQt4.Qt import QBuffer, QIODevice
import StringIO
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
buffer = QBuffer()
buffer.open(QIODevice.ReadWrite)
QPixmap.grabWindow(QApplication.desktop().winId()).save(buffer, 'png')
strio = StringIO.StringIO()
strio.write(buffer.data())
buffer.close()
del app
strio.seek(0)
return Image.open(strio)
def getScreenByPIL(self):
import ImageGrab
img = ImageGrab.grab()
return img
def getScreenByWx(self):
import wx
wx.App() # Need to create an App instance before doing anything
screen = wx.ScreenDC()
size = screen.GetSize()
bmp = wx.EmptyBitmap(size[0], size[1])
mem = wx.MemoryDC(bmp)
mem.Blit(0, 0, size[0], size[1], screen, 0, 0)
del mem # Release bitmap
#bmp.SaveFile('screenshot.png', wx.BITMAP_TYPE_PNG)
myWxImage = wx.ImageFromBitmap( myBitmap )
PilImage = Image.new( 'RGB', (myWxImage.GetWidth(), myWxImage.GetHeight()) )
PilImage.fromstring( myWxImage.GetData() )
return PilImage
if __name__ == '__main__':
s = screengrab()
screen = s.screen()
screen.show()
Just for completeness: Xlib - But it's somewhat slow when capturing the whole screen:
from Xlib import display, X
import Image #PIL
W,H = 200,200
dsp = display.Display()
root = dsp.screen().root
raw = root.get_image(0, 0, W,H, X.ZPixmap, 0xffffffff)
image = Image.fromstring("RGB", (W, H), raw.data, "raw", "BGRX")
image.show()
One could try to trow some types in the bottleneck-files in PyXlib, and then compile it using Cython. That could increase the speed a bit.
Edit: We can write the core of the function in C, and then use it in python from ctypes, here is something I hacked together:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <X11/X.h>
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
//Compile hint: gcc -shared -O3 -lX11 -fPIC -Wl,-soname,prtscn -o prtscn.so prtscn.c
void getScreen(const int, const int, const int, const int, unsigned char *);
void getScreen(const int xx,const int yy,const int W, const int H, /*out*/ unsigned char * data)
{
Display *display = XOpenDisplay(NULL);
Window root = DefaultRootWindow(display);
XImage *image = XGetImage(display,root, xx,yy, W,H, AllPlanes, ZPixmap);
unsigned long red_mask = image->red_mask;
unsigned long green_mask = image->green_mask;
unsigned long blue_mask = image->blue_mask;
int x, y;
int ii = 0;
for (y = 0; y < H; y++) {
for (x = 0; x < W; x++) {
unsigned long pixel = XGetPixel(image,x,y);
unsigned char blue = (pixel & blue_mask);
unsigned char green = (pixel & green_mask) >> 8;
unsigned char red = (pixel & red_mask) >> 16;
data[ii + 2] = blue;
data[ii + 1] = green;
data[ii + 0] = red;
ii += 3;
}
}
XDestroyImage(image);
XDestroyWindow(display, root);
XCloseDisplay(display);
}
And then the python-file:
import ctypes
import os
from PIL import Image
LibName = 'prtscn.so'
AbsLibPath = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) + os.path.sep + LibName
grab = ctypes.CDLL(AbsLibPath)
def grab_screen(x1,y1,x2,y2):
w, h = x2-x1, y2-y1
size = w * h
objlength = size * 3
grab.getScreen.argtypes = []
result = (ctypes.c_ubyte*objlength)()
grab.getScreen(x1,y1, w, h, result)
return Image.frombuffer('RGB', (w, h), result, 'raw', 'RGB', 0, 1)
if __name__ == '__main__':
im = grab_screen(0,0,1440,900)
im.show()
This one works on X11, and perhaps on Windows too (someone, please check). Needs PyQt4:
import sys
from PyQt4.QtGui import QPixmap, QApplication
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
QPixmap.grabWindow(QApplication.desktop().winId()).save('test.png', 'png')
I have a wrapper project (pyscreenshot) for scrot, imagemagick, pyqt, wx and pygtk. If you have one of them, you can use it. All solutions are included from this discussion.
Install:
easy_install pyscreenshot
Example:
import pyscreenshot as ImageGrab
# fullscreen
im=ImageGrab.grab()
im.show()
# part of the screen
im=ImageGrab.grab(bbox=(10,10,500,500))
im.show()
# to file
ImageGrab.grab_to_file('im.png')
Cross platform solution using wxPython:
import wx
wx.App() # Need to create an App instance before doing anything
screen = wx.ScreenDC()
size = screen.GetSize()
bmp = wx.EmptyBitmap(size[0], size[1])
mem = wx.MemoryDC(bmp)
mem.Blit(0, 0, size[0], size[1], screen, 0, 0)
del mem # Release bitmap
bmp.SaveFile('screenshot.png', wx.BITMAP_TYPE_PNG)
import ImageGrab
img = ImageGrab.grab()
img.save('test.jpg','JPEG')
this requires Python Imaging Library
A short search turned up gtkShots looks like it might help you, as it's a GPLed python screenshot program, so should have what you need in it.
You can use this
import os
os.system("import -window root screen_shot.png")
There is a python package for this Autopy
The bitmap module can to screen grabbing (bitmap.capture_screen) It is multiplateform (Windows, Linux, Osx).
bit late but nevermind easy one is
import autopy
import time
time.sleep(2)
b = autopy.bitmap.capture_screen()
b.save("C:/Users/mak/Desktop/m.png")
From this thread:
import os
os.system("import -window root temp.png")
I couldn't take screenshot in Linux with pyscreenshot or scrot because output of pyscreenshot
was just a black screen png image file.
but thank god there was another very easy way for taking screenshot in Linux without installing anything. just put below code in your directory and run with python demo.py
import os
os.system("gnome-screenshot --file=this_directory.png")
also there is many available options for gnome-screenshot --help
Application Options:
-c, --clipboard Send the grab directly to the clipboard
-w, --window Grab a window instead of the entire screen
-a, --area Grab an area of the screen instead of the entire screen
-b, --include-border Include the window border with the screenshot
-B, --remove-border Remove the window border from the screenshot
-p, --include-pointer Include the pointer with the screenshot
-d, --delay=seconds Take screenshot after specified delay [in seconds]
-e, --border-effect=effect Effect to add to the border (shadow, border, vintage or none)
-i, --interactive Interactively set options
-f, --file=filename Save screenshot directly to this file
--version Print version information and exit
--display=DISPLAY X display to use
I recently wrote a package that takes a screenshot using the X11 library and returns the image as a numpy array. I actually used some suggestions that are mentioned in this thread and improved on them. A typical frame rate of 60+ fps for a 1080p resolution are possible on a modern machine. Actually on my development machine (that is ~3 years old) i managed to get 200 fps. here is the link to the project https://github.com/mherkazandjian/fastgrab
It's an old question. I would like to answer it using new tools.
Works with python 3 (should work with python 2, but I haven't test it) and PyQt5.
Minimal working example. Copy it to the python shell and get the result.
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication
app = QApplication([])
screen = app.primaryScreen()
screenshot = screen.grabWindow(QApplication.desktop().winId())
screenshot.save('/tmp/screenshot.png')
Try it:
#!/usr/bin/python
import gtk.gdk
import time
import random
import socket
import fcntl
import struct
import getpass
import os
import paramiko
while 1:
# generate a random time between 120 and 300 sec
random_time = random.randrange(20,25)
# wait between 120 and 300 seconds (or between 2 and 5 minutes)
print "Next picture in: %.2f minutes" % (float(random_time) / 60)
time.sleep(random_time)
w = gtk.gdk.get_default_root_window()
sz = w.get_size()
print "The size of the window is %d x %d" % sz
pb = gtk.gdk.Pixbuf(gtk.gdk.COLORSPACE_RGB,False,8,sz[0],sz[1])
pb = pb.get_from_drawable(w,w.get_colormap(),0,0,0,0,sz[0],sz[1])
ts = time.asctime( time.localtime(time.time()) )
date = time.strftime("%d-%m-%Y")
timer = time.strftime("%I:%M:%S%p")
filename = timer
filename += ".png"
if (pb != None):
username = getpass.getuser() #Get username
newpath = r'screenshots/'+username+'/'+date #screenshot save path
if not os.path.exists(newpath): os.makedirs(newpath)
saveas = os.path.join(newpath,filename)
print saveas
pb.save(saveas,"png")
else:
print "Unable to get the screenshot."