eb4030f6c0
The FrameBuffer interface is based on the idea that all buffers are allocated externally to libcamera and are only used by it. This is meant to create a simpler API centered around usage of buffers, regardless of where they come from. Linux however lacks a centralized allocator at the moment, and not all users of libcamera are expected to use another device that could provide suitable buffers for the camera. This patch thus adds a helper class to allocate buffers internally in libcamera, in a way that matches the needs of the FrameBuffer-based API. Signed-off-by: Niklas Söderlund <niklas.soderlund@ragnatech.se> Reviewed-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>
.. section-begin-libcamera
===========
libcamera
===========
**A complex camera support library for Linux, Android, and ChromeOS**
Cameras are complex devices that need heavy hardware image processing
operations. Control of the processing is based on advanced algorithms that must
run on a programmable processor. This has traditionally been implemented in a
dedicated MCU in the camera, but in embedded devices algorithms have been moved
to the main CPU to save cost. Blurring the boundary between camera devices and
Linux often left the user with no other option than a vendor-specific
closed-source solution.
To address this problem the Linux media community has very recently started
collaboration with the industry to develop a camera stack that will be
open-source-friendly while still protecting vendor core IP. libcamera was born
out of that collaboration and will offer modern camera support to Linux-based
systems, including traditional Linux distributions, ChromeOS and Android.
.. section-end-libcamera
.. section-begin-getting-started
Getting Started
---------------
To fetch the sources, build and install:
::
git clone git://linuxtv.org/libcamera.git
cd libcamera
meson build
ninja -C build install
Dependencies
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following Debian/Ubuntu packages are required for building libcamera.
Other distributions may have differing package names:
A C++ toolchain: [required]
Either {g++, clang}
for libcamera: [required]
meson ninja-build python3-yaml
for device hotplug enumeration: [optional]
pkg-config libudev-dev
for qcam: [optional]
qtbase5-dev libqt5core5a libqt5gui5 libqt5widgets5
for documentation: [optional]
python3-sphinx doxygen
.. section-end-getting-started