As far as I know, this still isn’t officially supported, but I’ve cobbled together a workaround if you don’t mind messing around in the command line a bit. You need two pieces, mjpeg-streamer on the Pi and OBS on the Mac. This should work pretty much identically on Windows or Linux. The basic overview is this:
Quick disclaimer, I have this working through lens calibration. I haven’t managed to do the camera alignment, but not due to a camera problem. I am able to use the camera connected to the pi in LightBurn on my Mac. I believe that once I can burn the alignment image I’ll be able to use the camera fully, but I haven’t actually done so yet. Also, there is some lag with the camera view, but that may be due to the poor wifi connectivity in my garage.
MJPEG-Streamer
First piece is to install mjpeg-streamer on the Pi you’re using for LightBurn Bridge. If you open up the Mac terminal app, you should be able to connect by running the command:
ssh pi@lightburnbridge.local
Not every network will support connecting to the device as lightburnbridge.local. If yours doesn’t you’ll need to connect to your router’s admin interface and find the IP address of the Pi (which should be called lightburnbridge). Once you have the IP you’ll connect to:
ssh pi@<ip address>
It should ask you if you want to connect to the unknown device, say yes, then it will ask for a password. The default password is raspberry. You won’t be able to see the password as you type, you just have to trust that it’s working. After you enter the password, you should see a black screen that gives some LightBurn Bridge details. At this point hit Ctrl+C to clear out of this interface. In my tests this doesn’t seem to disable lightburn bridge, it just lets you operate on the command line.
Next you’ll need to get git and then download and build mjpeg-streamer:
sudo apt install git cmake libjpeg8-dev nano
git clone https://github.com/jacksonliam/mjpg-streamer.git
cd mjpg-streamer/mjpg-streamer-experimental/
make
sudo make install
I don’t believe I needed to install any dependencies other than the ones in the first apt install line. If you run into any trouble with the commands above try:
sudo apt-get install gcc g++ build-essential
Next add two files to make the streamer run at startup.
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/start-mjpeg-streamer.sh
Copy and paste this content into the file:
#!/bin/bash
cd /home/pi/mjpg-streamer/mjpg-streamer-experimental
mjpg_streamer -o "output_http.so -w ./www" -i "input_uvc.so -r 3840x2160"
Hit Ctrl+x to quit, it should prompt you to save. My camera is a 4K camera, if yours is not you’ll need to change the resolution. For the regular LightBurn Camera you’ll want 2592 x 1944.
Next create the second file:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/streamer.service
And paste in the contents:
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/start-mjpeg-streamer.sh
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
Again hit Ctrl+x to quit and save when prompted.
Now run the command:
sudo systemctl enable streamer
Now you should be able to direct your browser to http://lightburnbridge.local:8080/ or http://:8080/. Click the “Stream” menu item. In the box where you can see the stream, right click and select “Copy Image Address”.
OBS
Setting up OBS is much easier. Just download and install on your computer to start from here: https://obsproject.com/.
Open up OBS. In the sources box (bottom-left) hit the +. Name your media source whatever you want (“LightBurn Bridge Camera” perhaps) and hit OK. In the input box paste the image address you copied up above. Alternatively you can try: http://lightburnbridge.local:8080/?action=stream. Your camera stream should show up in the preview area. If you right click on the image you can do all sorts of things to the view. I needed to do “Transform → Rotate 180 degrees” since my camera is upside down so that the wires route more easily.
Hit the “Start Virtual Camera” button. Your remote camera should now be available in LightBurn as OBS Virtual Camera.
You might be able to find something lighter-weight than OBS for the “Virtual Webcam” piece, but OBS works well for me. I tested something call IP Cam Driver (ipcamdriver.com) but it capped the stream at 720P. It might support higher resolutions in the full version, but with an open source alternative I didn’t see the need to shell out money to find out. I believe on Windows and Linux there are more options.
Hope this helps!