This repo contains the instructions on how to build the mediapipe Python API for ARM based CPUs, since it is not officially supported. This is an experimental set of instructions so there are no warranties whatsoever that this will work in your case. This was inspired from the original instructions (which I tested and didn't work for me) that you can find here.

I will be more than happy to include the devices/OS that have successfully accomplished the mission using this set of instructions, so feel free to contact and I'll update the list.

NVIDIA Jetson Nano - Ubuntu 18.04

1. Clone the MediaPipe repo and checkout to the proper release. Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/google/mediapipe.git

Checkout to the 0.8.1 release branch:

cd mediapipe && git checkout 0.8.1

2. Install pre-requisites and build dependencies.

sudo apt install -y python3-dev
sudo apt install -y cmake
sudo apt install -y protobuf-compiler

If there are any.proto error later, it usually means that the protoc version is too old. Therefore, you can download the latest version from their GitHub releases page, making sure that you download the appropriate version (protoc-3.x.x-linux-aarch_64.zip). Then, you need to copy the files to the system directories. For example:

mkdir latest-protoc && cd latest-protoc
curl https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v3.17.3/protoc-3.17.3-linux-aarch_64.zip
unzip protoc-3.17.3-linux-aarch_64.zip
sudo cp -r include/google /usr/local/include
sudo cp bin/protoc /usr/local/bin

Finally, modify the mediapipe/setup.py with the protoc command (you can find the exact line of code using any code searching tool, e.g. ag "protoc_command" ./setup.py):

-      protoc_command = [self._protoc, '-I.', '--python_out=.', source]
+      protoc_command = [self._protoc, '-I.', '-I/usr/local/include', '--python_out=.', source]

Install Bazel:

npm install -g @bazel/bazelisk

For Bazel rules, the following change needs to be made in the WORKSPACE file, in the two lines bellow name = "rules_cc" (which you can find using any code search tool or grep -iRl):

-    strip_prefix = "rules_cc-master",
-    urls = ["https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_cc/archive/master.zip"],
+    strip_prefix = "rules_cc-main",
+    urls = ["https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_cc/archive/main.zip"],

3. Remove unnecessary OpenCV modules and linker flags: Move to the mediapipe dir:

cd mediapipe

Disable modules and flags:

sed -i -e "/\"imgcodecs\"/d;/\"calib3d\"/d;/\"features2d\"/d;/\"highgui\"/d;/\"video\"/d;/\"videoio\"/d" third_party/BUILD
sed -i -e "/-ljpeg/d;/-lpng/d;/-ltiff/d;/-lImath/d;/-lIlmImf/d;/-lHalf/d;/-lIex/d;/-lIlmThread/d;/-lrt/d;/-ldc1394/d;/-lavcodec/d;/-lavformat/d;/-lavutil/d;/-lswscale/d;/-lavresample/d" third_party/BUILD

4. Disable carotene_o4t in third_party/BUILD: Insert bellow the line containing "WITH_WEBP": "OFF", the following (as mentioned before, you can use any code searching tool or grep -iRl to know the exact line of code):

+	"ENABLE_NEON": "OFF",
+	"WITH_TENGINE": "OFF",

5. Build the package (in the repo local dir):

python3 setup.py gen_protos && python3 setup.py bdist_wheel

Note: If the building process fail, pay attention to the error message. Sometimes, it is just a matter of a missing dependency from Python, e.g. numpy.

In order to install the Python API, you need to make sure that the following dependencies are installed in your system:

python3 -m pip install cython
python3 -m pip install numpy
python3 -m pip install pillow

Then, install the API from the wheel file:

python3 -m pip install mediapipe/dist/mediapipe-0.8-cp37-cp37m-linux_aarch64.whl

Note: The filename may be different in your case. If the installation fails due to missing dependencies, append --no-deps to the previous command line.

In order to verify the installation, you can run the example script found in this repo (make sure you change to /path/to/pic.jpg and /path/to/pic2.jpg to your example files).