Using libcamera in New Open Source Wildlife Camera System :-)

[Jacopo Mondi]

Hi Will

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 10:53:58PM +0000, w.robertson at cairnwater.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It's wonderful to learn about your work and I've enormous respect for the
> way you've brought a brilliantly structured solution to the technically and
> commercially extremely difficult and complex problem of bringing camera
> support to Linux!
>

Thank you so much for your kind words :)

> I'm hoping to use libcamera to develop a new open source wildlife camera
> system that will be much better, much more flexible and much cheaper than
> anything available commercially at the moment.
>
> I was wondering if anyone could give me any pointers on what I should study
> to get started?
>
> I've got an RPi 4 and I've ordered a DEBIX Model A, DEBIX I/O Board
> EMB-AS-E01, 3 variants of the RPi Camera V3 (standard, NoIR, wide) and some
> of the new connector leads for the RPi Camera. Is there anything else that I
> should order for prototyping (maybe a DEBIX Camera 200A, 500A or 1300A)?

A few notes: The debix I/O Board camera connector is compatible with the RPi
cameras cables. The RPi cameras are the defintely the best supported
ones in the libcamera ecosystem and I suggest you to use those (the v3
camera is an excellenct choice, but if you have very specific needs in
terms of optical performances or specific lighting conditions, you
could consider alternatives).

Now, that's only the "camera sensor", the part of the system that
produces RAW (==unusable) frames that gets processed by libcamera
using the ISP hardware accellerator. The algorithms that control the
image processing are called "IPA" in libcamera lingo. Those algorithms
are platform-specific (becase ISPs are different on each platform) and
here as well the RPi implementation is the most complete and
performing one we have in our ecosystem. Debix-A is an NXP iMX8MP
platform, controlled by the 'rkisp1' (historical reasons for the name)
algorithms, which are catching up with RPi but aren't as complete and
performing yet.

RPi in addition has an incredible amount of documentation about the
setup process, tuning and algorithms control, and a huge use base that
plays with cameras and interact on forums. rkisp1/imx8mp is catching
up there as well on the documentation part, specifically about the tuning
guides.

If you already have both platforms, I suggest you play with both.

When it comes to documentation as said RPi has lenghty docs about the
setup and configuration of cameras on their platforms (you can start
from here https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/camera.html)

Our website has guides for both applications and system developers
which could provide you details on the libcamera stack, most of those
are probably not necessary to you but might help better framing the
architecture.

>
> My work is as a climbing arborist and my research is mostly unfunded
> research into new minimally invasive techniques to carve precision nest
> holes and roosting spaces for endangered dormouse, squirrel and bat species.

Amazing!

>
> This is a short summary that I wrote in English and German:
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jkFA-PgDr-O9-nGSgODCUFkukj63F4fc/view?usp=sharing
>
> This is an article with some videos of Garden Dormice exploring our carved
> nest holes published in Flemish yesterday by Goedele Verbeylen (I'll try to
> get it translated soon):
>
> https://www.natuurpunt.be/nieuws/boomholtes-kerven-voor-bedreigde-eikelmuizen
>
> We have a small website at:
>
> new-homes-for-old-friends.cairnwater.com

This is all very nice! I wish you all the best and I'm happy to know
libcamera is helpful to you!

>
> Will