| This is a driver for the CPiA PPC2 driven parallel connected |
| Camera. For example the Creative WebcamII is CPiA driven. |
| |
| ) [1]Peter Pregler, Linz 2000, published under the [2]GNU GPL |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| USAGE: |
| |
| General: |
| ======== |
| |
| 1) Make sure you have created the video devices (/dev/video*): |
| |
| - if you have a recent MAKEDEV do a 'cd /dev;./MAKEDEV video' |
| - otherwise do a: |
| |
| cd /dev |
| mknod video0 c 81 0 |
| ln -s video0 video |
| |
| 2) Compile the kernel (see below for the list of options to use), |
| configure your parport and reboot. |
| |
| 3) If all worked well you should get messages similar |
| to the following (your versions may be different) on the console: |
| |
| V4L-Driver for Vision CPiA based cameras v0.7.4 |
| parport0: read2 timeout. |
| parport0: Multimedia device, VLSI Vision Ltd PPC2 |
| Parallel port driver for Vision CPiA based camera |
| CPIA Version: 1.20 (2.0) |
| CPIA PnP-ID: 0553:0002:0100 |
| VP-Version: 1.0 0100 |
| 1 camera(s) found |
| |
| |
| As modules: |
| =========== |
| |
| Make sure you have selected the following kernel options (you can |
| select all stuff as modules): |
| |
| The cpia-stuff is in the section 'Character devices -> Video For Linux'. |
| |
| CONFIG_PARPORT=m |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=m |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_FIFO=y |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_1284=y |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=m |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_CPIA=m |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_CPIA_PP=m |
| |
| For autoloading of all those modules you need to tell module-init-tools |
| some stuff. Add the following line to your module-init-tools config-file |
| (e.g. /etc/modprobe.conf or wherever your distribution does store that |
| stuff): |
| |
| options parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7 dma=3 |
| alias char-major-81 cpia_pp |
| |
| The first line tells the dma/irq channels to use. Those _must_ match |
| the settings of your BIOS. Do NOT simply use the values above. See |
| Documentation/parport.txt for more information about this. The second |
| line associates the video-device file with the driver. Of cause you |
| can also load the modules once upon boot (usually done in /etc/modules). |
| |
| Linked into the kernel: |
| ======================= |
| |
| Make sure you have selected the following kernel options. Note that |
| you cannot compile the parport-stuff as modules and the cpia-driver |
| statically (the other way round is okay though). |
| |
| The cpia-stuff is in the section 'Character devices -> Video For Linux'. |
| |
| CONFIG_PARPORT=y |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_PC=y |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_PC_FIFO=y |
| CONFIG_PARPORT_1284=y |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=y |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_CPIA=y |
| CONFIG_VIDEO_CPIA_PP=y |
| |
| To use DMA/irq you will need to tell the kernel upon boot time the |
| hardware configuration of the parport. You can give the boot-parameter |
| at the LILO-prompt or specify it in lilo.conf. I use the following |
| append-line in lilo.conf: |
| |
| append="parport=0x378,7,3" |
| |
| See Documentation/parport.txt for more information about the |
| configuration of the parport and the values given above. Do not simply |
| use the values given above. |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| FEATURES: |
| |
| - mmap/read v4l-interface (but no overlay) |
| - image formats: CIF/QCIF, SIF/QSIF, various others used by isabel; |
| note: all sizes except CIF/QCIF are implemented by clipping, i.e. |
| pixels are not uploaded from the camera |
| - palettes: VIDEO_PALETTE_GRAY, VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB565, VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB555, |
| VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB24, VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB32, VIDEO_PALETTE_YUYV, |
| VIDEO_PALETTE_UYVY, VIDEO_PALETTE_YUV422 |
| - state information (color balance, exposure, ...) is preserved between |
| device opens |
| - complete control over camera via proc-interface (_all_ camera settings are |
| supported), there is also a python-gtk application available for this [3] |
| - works under SMP (but the driver is completely serialized and synchronous) |
| so you get no benefit from SMP, but at least it does not crash your box |
| - might work for non-Intel architecture, let us know about this |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| TESTED APPLICATIONS: |
| |
| - a simple test application based on Xt is available at [3] |
| - another test-application based on gqcam-0.4 (uses GTK) |
| - gqcam-0.6 should work |
| - xawtv-3.x (also the webcam software) |
| - xawtv-2.46 |
| - w3cam (cgi-interface and vidcat, e.g. you may try out 'vidcat |xv |
| -maxpect -root -quit +noresetroot -rmode 5 -') |
| - vic, the MBONE video conferencing tool (version 2.8ucl4-1) |
| - isabel 3R4beta (barely working, but AFAICT all the problems are on |
| their side) |
| - camserv-0.40 |
| |
| See [3] for pointers to v4l-applications. |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| KNOWN PROBLEMS: |
| |
| - some applications do not handle the image format correctly, you will |
| see strange horizontal stripes instead of a nice picture -> make sure |
| your application does use a supported image size or queries the driver |
| for the actually used size (reason behind this: the camera cannot |
| provide any image format, so if size NxM is requested the driver will |
| use a format to the closest fitting N1xM1, the application should now |
| query for this granted size, most applications do not). |
| - all the todo ;) |
| - if there is not enough light and the picture is too dark try to |
| adjust the SetSensorFPS setting, automatic frame rate adjustment |
| has its price |
| - do not try out isabel 3R4beta (built 135), you will be disappointed |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| TODO: |
| |
| - multiple camera support (struct camera or something) - This should work, |
| but hasn't been tested yet. |
| - architecture independence? |
| - SMP-safe asynchronous mmap interface |
| - nibble mode for old parport interfaces |
| - streaming capture, this should give a performance gain |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| IMPLEMENTATION NOTES: |
| |
| The camera can act in two modes, streaming or grabbing. Right now a |
| polling grab-scheme is used. Maybe interrupt driven streaming will be |
| used for a asynchronous mmap interface in the next major release of the |
| driver. This might give a better frame rate. |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| THANKS (in no particular order): |
| |
| - Scott J. Bertin <sbertin@mindspring.com> for cleanups, the proc-filesystem |
| and much more |
| - Henry Bruce <whb@vvl.co.uk> for providing developers information about |
| the CPiA chip, I wish all companies would treat Linux as seriously |
| - Karoly Erdei <Karoly.Erdei@risc.uni-linz.ac.at> and RISC-Linz for being |
| my boss ;) resp. my employer and for providing me the hardware and |
| allow me to devote some working time to this project |
| - Manuel J. Petit de Gabriel <mpetit@dit.upm.es> for providing help |
| with Isabel (http://isabel.dit.upm.es/) |
| - Bas Huisman <bhuism@cs.utwente.nl> for writing the initial parport code |
| - Jarl Totland <Jarl.Totland@bdc.no> for setting up the mailing list |
| and maintaining the web-server[3] |
| - Chris Whiteford <Chris@informinteractive.com> for fixes related to the |
| 1.02 firmware |
| - special kudos to all the tester whose machines crashed and/or |
| will crash. :) |
| |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| REFERENCES |
| |
| 1. http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/people/ppregler |
| mailto:Peter_Pregler@email.com |
| 2. see the file COPYING in the top directory of the kernel tree |
| 3. http://webcam.sourceforge.net/ |