# Developers guide to libcamera

The Linux kernel handles multimedia devices through the ‘Linux media’ subsystem and provides a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) known collectively as V4L2 (Video for Linux 2) and the Media Controller API which provide an interface to interact and control media devices.

Included in this subsystem are drivers for camera sensors, CSI2 (Camera Serial Interface) receivers, and ISPs (Image Signal Processors)

The usage of these drivers to provide a functioning camera stack is a responsibility that lies in userspace which is commonly implemented separately by vendors without a common architecture or API for application developers.

libcamera provides a complete camera stack for Linux based systems to abstract functionality desired by camera application developers and process the configuration of hardware and image control algorithms required to obtain desirable results from the camera.

In this developers guide, we will explore the Camera Stack and how it is can be visualised at a high level, and explore the internal Architecture of the libcamera library with its components. The current Platform Support is detailed, as well as an overview of the Licensing requirements of the project.

This introduction is followed by a walkthrough tutorial to newcomers wishing to support a new platform with the Pipeline Handler Writers Guide and for those looking to make use of the libcamera native API an Application Writers Guide provides a tutorial of the key APIs exposed by libcamera.

## Camera Stack

The libcamera library is implemented in userspace, and makes use of underlying kernel drivers that directly interact with hardware.

Applications can make use of libcamera through the native libcamera API’s or through an adaptation layer integrating libcamera into a larger framework.

     Application Layer
      /    +--------------+  +--------------+  +--------------+  +--------------+
      |    |    Native    |  |   Framework  |  |    Native    |  |   Android    |
      |    |     V4L2     |  |  Application |  |   libcamera  |  |   Camera     |
      |    |  Application |  |  (gstreamer) |  |  Application |  |  Framework   |
      \    +--------------+  +--------------+  +--------------+  +--------------+

                  ^                 ^                 ^                 ^
                  |                 |                 |                 |
                  |                 |                 |                 |
                  v                 v                 |                 v
     Adaptation Layer                                 |
      /    +--------------+  +--------------+         |          +--------------+
      |    |    V4L2      |  |  gstreamer   |         |          |   Android    |
      |    | Compatibility|  |   element    |         |          |   Camera     |
      |    |  (preload)   |  |(libcamerasrc)|         |          |     HAL      |
      \    +--------------+  +--------------+         |          +--------------+
                                                      |
                  ^                 ^                 |                 ^
                  |                 |                 |                 |
                  |                 |                 |                 |
                  v                 v                 v                 v
     libcamera Framework
      /    +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
      |    |                                                                    |
      |    |                             libcamera                              |
      |    |                                                                    |
      \    +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

                          ^                  ^                  ^
     Userspace            |                  |                  |
    --------------------- | ---------------- | ---------------- | ---------------
     Kernel               |                  |                  |
                          v                  v                  v

                    +-----------+      +-----------+      +-----------+
                    |   Media   | <--> |   Video   | <--> |   V4L2    |
                    |  Device   |      |  Device   |      |  Subdev   |
                    +-----------+      +-----------+      +-----------+

The camera stack comprises of four software layers. From bottom to top:

- The kernel drivers control the camera hardware and expose a low-level interface to userspace through the Linux kernel V4L2 family of APIs (Media Controller API, V4L2 Video Device API and V4L2 Subdev API).

- The libcamera framework is the core part of the stack. It handles all control of the camera devices in its core component, libcamera, and exposes a native C++ API to upper layers.

- The libcamera adaptation layer is an umbrella term designating the components that interface to libcamera in other frameworks. Notable examples are the V4L2 compatibility layer, the gstreamer libcamera element, and the Android camera HAL implementation based on libcamera which are provided as a part of the libcamera project.

- The applications and upper level frameworks are based on the libcamera framework or libcamera adaptation, and are outside of the scope of the libcamera project, however example native applications (cam, qcam) are provided for testing.

V4L2 Compatibility Layer

  V4L2 compatibility is achieved through a shared library that traps all accesses to camera devices and routes them to libcamera to emulate high-level V4L2 camera devices. It is injected in a process address space through `LD_PRELOAD` and is completely transparent for applications.

  The compatibility layer exposes camera device features on a best-effort basis, and aims for the level of features traditionally available from a UVC camera designed for video conferencing.

Android Camera HAL

  Camera support for Android is achieved through a generic Android camera HAL implementation on top of libcamera. The HAL implements features required by Android and out of scope from libcamera, such as JPEG encoding support.

  This component is used to provide support for ChromeOS platforms

GStreamer element (gstlibcamerasrc)

  A GStreamer element is provided to allow capture from libcamera supported devices through GStreamer pipelines, and connect to other elements for further processing.

  Development of this element is ongoing and is limited to a single stream.

Native libcamera API

  Applications can make use of the libcamera API directly using the C++ API. An example application and walkthrough using the libcamera API can be followed in the Application Writers Guide

## Architecture

While offering a unified API towards upper layers, and presenting itself as a single library, libcamera isn’t monolithic. It exposes multiple components through its public API and is built around a set of separate helpers internally. Hardware abstractions are handled through the use of device-specific components where required and dynamically loadable plugins are used to separate image processing algorithms from the core libcamera codebase.

    --------------------------< libcamera Public API >---------------------------
                  ^                                          ^
                  |                                          |
                  v                                          v
           +-------------+  +---------------------------------------------------+
           |   Camera    |  |  Camera Device                                    |
           |   Manager   |  | +-----------------------------------------------+ |
           +-------------+  | | Device-Agnostic                               | |
                  ^         | |                                               | |
                  |         | |                    +--------------------------+ |
                  |         | |                    |   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  |
                  |         | |                    |  {  +-----------------+  } |
                  |         | |                    |  }  | //// Image //// |  { |
                  |         | |                    | <-> | / Processing // |  } |
                  |         | |                    |  }  | / Algorithms // |  { |
                  |         | |                    |  {  +-----------------+  } |
                  |         | |                    |   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  |
                  |         | |                    | ========================== |
                  |         | |                    |     +-----------------+    |
                  |         | |                    |     | // Pipeline /// |    |
                  |         | |                    | <-> | /// Handler /// |    |
                  |         | |                    |     | /////////////// |    |
                  |         | +--------------------+     +-----------------+    |
                  |         |                                   Device-Specific |
                  |         +---------------------------------------------------+
                  |                          ^                         ^
                  |                          |                         |
                  v                          v                         v
           +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
           | Helpers and Support Classes                                        |
           | +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+ |
           | |  MC & V4L2  |  |   Buffers   |  | Sandboxing  |  |   Plugins   | |
           | |   Support   |  |  Allocator  |  |     IPC     |  |   Manager   | |
           | +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+  +-------------+ |
           | +-------------+  +-------------+                                   |
           | |  Pipeline   |  |     ...     |                                   |
           | |   Runner    |  |             |                                   |
           | +-------------+  +-------------+                                   |
           +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

             /// Device-Specific Components
             ~~~ Sandboxing

Camera Manager

  The Camera Manager enumerates cameras and instantiates Pipeline Handlers to manage each Camera that libcamera supports. The Camera Manager supports hotplug detection and notification events when supported by the underlying kernel devices.

  There is only ever one instance of the Camera Manager running per application. Each application’s instance of the Camera Manager ensures that only a single application can take control of a camera device at once.

  Read the Camera Manager API documentation for more details.

Camera Device

  The Camera class represents a single item of camera hardware that is capable of producing one or more image streams, and provides the API to interact with the underlying device.

  If a system has multiple instances of the same hardware attached, each has its own instance of the camera class.

  The API exposes full control of the device to upper layers of libcamera through the public API, making it the highest level object libcamera exposes, and the object that all other API operations interact with from configuration to capture.

  Read the Camera API documentation for more details.

Pipeline Handler

  The Pipeline Handler manages the complex pipelines exposed by the kernel drivers through the Media Controller and V4L2 APIs. It abstracts pipeline handling to hide device-specific details from the rest of the library, and implements both pipeline configuration based on stream configuration, and pipeline runtime execution and scheduling when needed by the device.

  The Pipeline Handler lives in the same process as the rest of the library, and has access to all helpers and kernel camera-related devices.

  Hardware abstraction is handled by device specific Pipeline Handlers which are derived from the Pipeline Handler base class allowing commonality to be shared among the implementations.

  Derived pipeline handlers create Camera device instances based on the devices they detect and support on the running system, and are responsible for managing the interactions with a camera device.

  More details can be found in the PipelineHandler API documentation, and the Pipeline Handler Writers Guide.

Image Processing Algorithms

  An image processing algorithm (IPA) component is a loadable plugin that implements 3A (Auto-Exposure, Auto-White Balance, and Auto-Focus) and other algorithms.

  The algorithms run on the CPU and interact with the camera devices through the Pipeline Handler to control hardware image processing based on the parameters supplied by upper layers, maintaining state and closing the control loop of the ISP.

  The component is sandboxed and can only interact with libcamera through the API provided by the Pipeline Handler and an IPA has no direct access to kernel camera devices.

  Open source IPA modules built with libcamera can be run in the same process space as libcamera, however external IPA modules are run in a separate process from the main libcamera process. IPA modules have a restricted view of the system, including no access to networking APIs and limited access to file systems.

  IPA modules are only required for platforms and devices with an ISP controlled by the host CPU. Camera sensors which have an integrated ISP are not controlled through the IPA module.

## Platform Support

The library currently supports the following hardware platforms specifically with dedicated pipeline handlers:

> - Intel IPU3 (ipu3)

> - Rockchip RK3399 (rkisp1)

> - RaspberryPi 3 and 4 (rpi/vc4)

Furthermore, generic platform support is provided for the following:

> - USB video device class cameras (uvcvideo)

> - iMX7, Allwinner Sun6i (simple)

> - Virtual media controller driver for test use cases (vimc)

## Licensing

The libcamera core, is covered by the LGPL-2.1-or-later license. Pipeline Handlers are a part of the libcamera code base and need to be contributed upstream by device vendors. IPA modules included in libcamera are covered by a free software license, however third-parties may develop IPA modules outside of libcamera and distribute them under a closed-source license, provided they do not include source code from the libcamera project.

The libcamera project itself contains multiple libraries, applications and utilities. Licenses are expressed through SPDX tags in text-based files that support comments, and through the .reuse/dep5 file otherwise. A copy of all licenses are stored in the LICENSES directory, and a full summary of the licensing used throughout the project can be found in the COPYING.rst document.

Applications which link dynamically against libcamera and use only the public API are an independent work of the authors and have no license restrictions imposed upon them from libcamera.