An advanced virtual camera for macOS. Control your video feed with intuitive hand gestures and AI-powered auto-framing.

Experience professional-grade camera control through hand gestures, automatic face tracking, and real-time video processing—all powered by Apple's Vision framework and built natively for macOS.

A macOS camera built with SwiftUI, AVFoundation, and Vision framework that offers advanced features like:

• 🎥 Virtual Camera Output

  • 📹 OBS Integration: Stream your processed video to OBS Studio via NDI
  • 🌐 Universal Compatibility: Works with Zoom, Teams, Discord, Google Meet, and any app that accepts virtual cameras
  • 🎬 Professional Broadcasting: Leverage OBS's Virtual Camera for system-wide video output
  • ⚡ Low Latency: Near-real-time streaming using NDI technology (<33ms)
  • 🔌 Automatic Setup: One-click connection that creates and configures OBS scenes automatically

• 🖐️ Hand Tracking & Gestures

  • Hand Pose Detection: Real-time hand skeleton tracking and visualization
  • 🤏 Pinch Gesture Recognition: Zoom control via pinch gestures

• 🔒 Privacy & Security

  • Privacy Mode: Real-time face blurring (Gaussian or pixelation)

• 🎨 Video Processing

  • Flip Camera: Horizontally flip the camera feed
  • Face Follow Mode: Automatic pan/zoom to keep faces centered
  • Manual Camera Controls: Tap to focus, scroll to zoom, drag to pan
  • Aspect Ratio Options: Crop modes (4:3, 16:9, 1:1, Original)
  • Color Filters: Apply filters (Sepia, Noir, Chrome, Fade, Instant, Mono, Process, Tonal, Transfer)
  • Color Correction: Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, exposure, temperature, tint, highlights, shadows, and vibrance

• 🛠️ Developer Tools

  • Debug Mode: Overlay information for development and testing
  • Hand Skeleton Visualization: Display the hand bone structure

Want to get up and running fast? Follow our Quick Start Guide!

• macOS 13.0+
• Xcode 14.0+
• OBS Studio (for Virtual Camera output)
• NDI Runtime (bundled with project)

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/pedrol2b/virtual-camera.git
   cd virtual-camera

2. Install OBS Studio:

   brew install --cask obs

   Or download from obsproject.com

3. Install OBS NDI Plugin:

   brew install obs-ndi

   See docs/OBS_SETUP.md for detailed instructions.

4. Open in Xcode:

   open VirtualCamera.xcodeproj

5. Build and run (⌘R)

The app requires camera access. On first launch, you'll be prompted to grant permission. If denied, enable it in:

System Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera

Once installed, you can stream your processed video to any application:

1. Launch VirtualCamera and build/run in Xcode (⌘R)
2. Click the Settings gear (⚙️) in the top-right
3. Open the Output section (in settings)
4. Click "Launch & Connect OBS" - Wait for green checkmark ✓
5. Toggle "Virtual Camera" ON - OBS Virtual Camera starts automatically
6. Open your video app (Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc.)
7. Select "OBS Virtual Camera" as your camera device
8. Enjoy! 🎉 Your video feed now includes all VirtualCamera effects

VirtualCamera uses a unique approach to provide system-wide camera output without requiring an Apple Developer Program subscription ($99/year).

macOS Camera Extensions (via CoreMediaIO/CMIO) require:

• ❌ Paid Apple Developer Program membership ($99/year)
• ❌ Complex code signing and provisioning
• ❌ System extension installation (security prompts, SIP considerations)

Instead, we leverage two industry-standard technologies:

┌─────────────────────┐
│  VirtualCamera App  │ ← Captures video, applies effects
│  (Your Camera)      │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
           │ NDI Stream (Network Device Interface)
           │ • Low latency (~16-33ms)
           │ • High quality (1920x1080 @ 30fps)
           │ • Native ARM64 support
           ↓
┌─────────────────────┐
│    OBS Studio       │ ← Receives NDI stream
│  + NDI Plugin       │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
           │ Virtual Camera
           │ (System-wide camera device)
           ↓
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Zoom / Teams       │ ← Uses "OBS Virtual Camera"
│  Discord / etc      │
└─────────────────────┘

• ✅ No subscription required - Free and open-source
• ✅ Universal compatibility - Works with all video apps
• ✅ Professional features - OBS provides advanced streaming capabilities
• ✅ Better performance - NDI is optimized for low-latency video
• ✅ Easier development - No system extensions to debug

1. VirtualCamera App - Captures and processes video with all effects
2. NDI (Network Device Interface) - Streams video over IP (even localhost)
3. OBS Studio - Receives NDI stream and provides Virtual Camera output
4. OBS NDI Plugin - Enables NDI source input in OBS

• SwiftUI - Modern, declarative UI framework
• AVFoundation - Professional camera session management
• Vision Framework - Advanced hand pose and face detection
• Combine - Reactive programming for data flow
• NDI SDK - High-performance video streaming
• OBS WebSocket - Remote control of OBS Studio
• Clean Architecture - Maintainable, testable code structure

• Quick Start Guide – Get started in just a few steps! ⚡
• OBS Setup - Install and configure OBS Studio
• NDI Setup - Understand NDI streaming technology

• ARCHITECTURE.md - Complete architecture and design patterns
• CONTRIBUTING.md - Contribution guidelines and workflow
• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md - Community guidelines

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide to get started.

This project follows Clean Architecture principles—see ARCHITECTURE.md for detailed documentation on project structure and design patterns.