Documentation: Remove libcamera architecture from introduction.rst

The libcamera Architecture section of the introduction is largely a
duplicate of the section broken out from docs.rst. Remove it from the
introduction.rst file and consolidate anything that wasn't duplicated
into libcamera_architecture.rst and feature_requirements.rst. Take the
opportunity to also expand the list of Platform Support which is now a
bit out of date.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Scally <dan.scally@ideasonboard.com>
Reviewed-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>
Signed-off-by: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@ideasonboard.com>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 154 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/guides/introduction.rst b/Documentation/guides/introduction.rst
index d1e67654..12d1b7d4 100644
--- a/Documentation/guides/introduction.rst
+++ b/Documentation/guides/introduction.rst
@@ -26,10 +26,8 @@ desirable results from the camera.
 .. _Media Controller: https://www.linuxtv.org/downloads/v4l-dvb-apis-new/userspace-api/mediactl/media-controller.html
 
 
-In this developers guide, we will 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.
+In this developers guide the `Licensing`_ requirements of the project are
+detailed.
 
 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
@@ -41,156 +39,6 @@ provides a tutorial of the key APIs exposed by libcamera.
 
 .. TODO: Correctly link to the other articles of the 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 Manager API: https://libcamera.org/api-html/classlibcamera_1_1CameraManager.html
-
-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.
-
-.. _Camera API: https://libcamera.org/api-html/classlibcamera_1_1Camera.html
-
-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`_.
-
-.. _PipelineHandler API: https://libcamera.org/api-html/classlibcamera_1_1PipelineHandler.html
-
-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
 ---------