| 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/ |