Speaker
Description
While cameras have been ubiquitous in Linux systems for more than a decade, vendors have historically been very reluctant to disclose any information about Image Signal Processors (ISP), leading to the proliferation of out-of-tree kernel drivers and closed-source userspace stacks. The situation started to change with the launch of the libcamera project at the end of 2018, and progress has accelerated over the past couple of years with more and more vendors jumping on board. Even Qualcomm recently posted an initial ISP driver in a timid but very real first step, a move that was unthinkable just a couple of years ago.
There is plenty of work left to do, as the increased interest from vendors lays bare the lack of investment of the previous decade that leaves many technical issues unsolved. This BoF brings representatives of kernel subsystems (mainly V4L2, but also DRM), userspace frameworks (libcamera, GStreamer, PipeWire, ...), image sensor vendors and ISP vendors in the same room to discuss and solve open issues.
Discussion Topics
Two discussion topics have been scheduled for the BoF. Additional topics may be discussed if time permits.
RGB-IR Support in V4L2 and libcamera
by Rishikesh Donadkar and Devarsh Thakkar, Texas Instruments
The Linux kernel V4L2 API does not support RGB-IR image sensors. While building blocks necessary to handle those devices are slowly being merged, RGB-IR support itself hasn't been tackled yet.
Rishikesh has posted an API RFC. Along with Devarsh, he will also present this topic at the OSS Europe conference.
Camera Module Identification
by Stefan Klug, Ideas on Board
Camera tuning and calibration depend not only on the image sensor, but also on the lens and other characteristics of camera modules. While Linux supports identifying image sensors, it completely lacks the concept of camera modules.
Identification of camera modules requires coordination between platform firmware (DT or ACPI), the kernel and userspace. Discussions will benefit from the presence of DT maintainers.
Stefan has detailed the issue and started a public dicussion on the linux-media mailing list.
Additional Topics
The following additional topic has been proposed.
Advanced Camera Use Cases
Gjorgji Rosikopulos proposed discussing advanced camera use cases found in proprietary camera stacks that lack upstream kernel and userspace support.