dynamic-camera-mcp

Give AI agents access to real industrial cameras.

A Model Context Protocol server that lets Claude, Codex, Cursor and other AI agents discover, configure and capture from industrial machine-vision cameras (Hikrobot and GenICam-compatible).

Built for factory automation, quality control and real-world AI systems.

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Why?

Industrial cameras are the eyes of automated quality control — but today an AI agent cannot look through one. This project exposes cameras as MCP tools, so an agent can:

• list_cameras — what is connected, where, which model
• capture_frame — grab an image (returned as base64 or saved file)
• set_exposure / set_gain — tune acquisition like an engineer
• set_trigger_mode — switch line/hardware/software trigger
• camera_info — serial, model, interface, max resolution
• diagnose_camera — health check, stream state, error counters

# From Claude / Codex / any MCP client:
#   "Look at camera 0, grab a frame, save it, and tell me the mean brightness."

Under the hood it uses dynamic-hikrobot and ships with a simulator backend — so you can build and test agent workflows with zero hardware.

Architecture

┌─────────────┐   JSON-RPC (stdio)   ┌──────────────────────┐
│  MCP client │ ◄──────────────────► │  dynamic-camera-mcp  │
│ (Claude etc)│                      │  (this server)       │
└─────────────┘                      └──────────┬───────────┘
                                                │ dynamic-hikrobot API
                                        ┌───────▼────────┐
                                        │ CameraBackend  │
                                        │  • MVS (real)  │
                                        │  • Simulator   │
                                        └────────────────┘

Install

pip install "dynamic-camera-mcp[camera]"   # pulls dynamic-hikrobot
# or, for simulator-only development:
pip install dynamic-camera-mcp

Run

The server speaks MCP over stdio. Add it to your MCP client config, or run:

# With a real Hikrobot camera (MVS SDK installed):
dynamic-camera-mcp

# Simulator only (no hardware):
dynamic-camera-mcp --simulate

Example MCP client config (Claude Desktop / Claude Code)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "camera": {
      "command": "dynamic-camera-mcp",
      "args": ["--simulate"]
    }
  }
}

Tools exposed

Tool	Description
list_cameras	List connected cameras with index, model, serial, interface
camera_info	Detailed info for one camera
capture_frame	Capture a frame (base64 PNG or saved to disk)
set_exposure	Set exposure in microseconds
set_gain	Set gain in dB
set_trigger_mode	off, software, line0…line3
diagnose_camera	Health + streaming diagnostics

Ecosystem

Repo	What it does
dynamic-hikrobot	Pythonic Hikrobot camera SDK
dynamic-machinevision	One API for Hikrobot / Basler / GenICam
dynamic-inspection	Industrial QC engine: camera → model → PASS/FAIL
dynamic-camera-mcp	This repo — MCP server for cameras

Open-source infrastructure for industrial AI and machine vision. Built by Dynamic Industrial Power.

License

MIT © 2026 Dynamic Industrial Power. See LICENSE.