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-rw-r--r--Documentation/meson.build1
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+*************
+Documentation
+*************
+
+Feature Requirements
+====================
+
+Device enumeration
+------------------
+
+The library shall support enumerating all camera devices available in the
+system, including both fixed cameras and hotpluggable cameras. It shall
+support cameras plugged and unplugged after the initialization of the
+library, and shall offer a mechanism to notify applications of camera plug
+and unplug.
+
+The following types of cameras shall be supported:
+
+* Internal cameras designed for point-and-shoot still image and video
+ capture usage, either controlled directly by the CPU, or exposed through
+ an internal USB bus as a UVC device.
+
+* External UVC cameras designed for video conferencing usage.
+
+Other types of camera, including analog cameras, depth cameras, thermal
+cameras, external digital picture or movie cameras, are out of scope for
+this project.
+
+A hardware device that includes independent camera sensors, such as front
+and back sensors in a phone, shall be considered as multiple camera devices
+for the purpose of this library.
+
+Independent Camera Devices
+--------------------------
+
+When multiple cameras are present in the system and are able to operate
+independently from each other, the library shall expose them as multiple
+camera devices and support parallel operation without any additional usage
+restriction apart from the limitations inherent to the hardware (such as
+memory bandwidth, CPU usage or number of CSI-2 receivers for instance).
+
+Independent processes shall be able to use independent cameras devices
+without interfering with each other. A single camera device shall be
+usable by a single process at a time.
+
+Multiple streams support
+------------------------
+
+The library shall support multiple video streams running in parallel
+for each camera device, within the limits imposed by the system.
+
+Per frame controls
+------------------
+
+The library shall support controlling capture parameters for each stream
+on a per-frame basis, on a best effort basis based on the capabilities of the
+hardware and underlying software stack (including kernel drivers and
+firmware). It shall apply capture parameters to the frame they target, and
+report the value of the parameters that have effectively been used for each
+captured frame.
+
+When a camera device supports multiple streams, the library shall allow both
+control of each stream independently, and control of multiple streams
+together. Streams that are controlled together shall be synchronized. No
+synchronization is required for streams controlled independently.
+
+Capability Enumeration
+----------------------
+
+The library shall expose capabilities of each camera device in a way that
+allows applications to discover those capabilities dynamically. Applications
+shall be allowed to cache capabilities for as long as they are using the
+library. If capabilities can change at runtime, the library shall offer a
+mechanism to notify applications of such changes. Applications shall not
+cache capabilities in long term storage between runs.
+
+Capabilities shall be discovered dynamically at runtime from the device when
+possible, and may come, in part or in full, from platform configuration
+data.
+
+Device Profiles
+---------------
+
+The library may define different camera device profiles, each with a minimum
+set of required capabilities. Applications may use those profiles to quickly
+determine the level of features exposed by a device without parsing the full
+list of capabilities. Camera devices may implement additional capabilities
+on top of the minimum required set for the profile they expose.
+
+3A and Image Enhancement Algorithms
+-----------------------------------
+
+The camera devices shall implement auto exposure, auto gain and auto white
+balance. Camera devices that include a focus lens shall implement auto
+focus. Additional image enhancement algorithms, such as noise reduction or
+video stabilization, may be implemented.
+
+All algorithms may be implemented in hardware or firmware outside of the
+library, or in software in the library. They shall all be controllable by
+applications.
+
+The library shall be architectured to isolate the 3A and image enhancement
+algorithms in a component with a documented API, respectively called the 3A
+component and the 3A API. The 3A API shall be stable, and shall allow both
+open-source and closed-source implementations of the 3A component.
+
+The library may include statically-linked open-source 3A components, and
+shall support dynamically-linked open-source and closed-source 3A
+components.
+
+Closed-source 3A Component Sandboxing
+-------------------------------------
+
+For security purposes, it may be desired to run closed-source 3A components
+in a separate process. The 3A API would in such a case be transported over
+IPC. The 3A API shall make it possible to use any IPC mechanism that
+supports passing file descriptors.
+
+The library may implement an IPC mechanism, and shall support third-party
+platform-specific IPC mechanisms through the implementation of a
+platform-specific 3A API wrapper. No modification to the library shall be
+needed to use such third-party IPC mechanisms.
+
+The 3A component shall not directly access any device node on the system.
+Such accesses shall instead be performed through the 3A API. The library
+shall validate all accesses and restrict them to what is absolutely required
+by 3A components.
+
+V4L2 Compatibility Layer
+------------------------
+
+The project shall support traditional V4L2 application through an additional
+libcamera wrapper library. The wrapper library shall trap all accesses to
+camera devices through LD_PRELOAD, and route them through libcamera to
+emulate a high-level V4L2 camera device. It shall expose camera device
+features on a best-effort basis, and aim for the level of features
+traditionally available from a UVC camera designed for video conferencing.
+
+Android Camera HAL v3 Compatibility
+-----------------------------------
+
+The library API shall expose all the features required to implement an
+Android Camera HAL v3 on top of libcamera. Some features of the HAL may be
+omitted as long as they can be implemented separately in the HAL, such as
+JPEG encoding, or YUV reprocessing.
+
+
+Camera Stack
+============
+
+::
+
+ | a c / +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
+ | p a | | Native | | Framework | | Native | | Android |
+ | p t | | V4L2 | | Application | | libcamera | | Camera |
+ | l i | | Application | | (gstreamer) | | Application | | Framework |
+ | i o \ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+
+ | n ^ ^ ^ ^
+ | | | | |
+ | l a | | | |
+ | i d v v | v
+ | b a / +-------------+ +-------------+ | +-------------+
+ | c p | | V4L2 | | Camera | | | Android |
+ | a t | | Compat. | | Framework | | | Camera |
+ | m a | | | | (gstreamer) | | | HAL |
+ | e t \ +-------------+ +-------------+ | +-------------+
+ | r i ^ ^ | ^
+ | a o | | | |
+ | n | | | |
+ | / | ,................................................
+ | | | ! : Language : !
+ | l f | | ! : Bindings : !
+ | i r | | ! : (optional) : !
+ | b a | | \...............................................'
+ | c m | | | | |
+ | a e | | | | |
+ | m w | v v v v
+ | e o | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | r r | | |
+ | a k | | libcamera |
+ | | | |
+ | \ +----------------------------------------------------------------+
+ | ^ ^ ^
+ | Userspace | | |
+ | ------------------------ | ---------------- | ---------------- | ---------------
+ | Kernel | | |
+ | v v v
+ | +-----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
+ | | Media | <--> | Video | <--> | V4L2 |
+ | | Device | | Device | | Subdev |
+ | +-----------+ +-----------+ +-----------+
+
+The camera stack comprises 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. Optional
+ language bindings allow interfacing to libcamera from other
+ programming languages.
+
+ Those components live in the same source code repository and
+ all together constitute the libcamera framework.
+
+* The libcamera adaptation is an umbrella term designating the
+ components that interface to libcamera in other frameworks.
+ Notable examples are a V4L2 compatibility layer, a gstreamer
+ libcamera element, and an Android camera HAL implementation based
+ on libcamera.
+
+ Those components can live in the libcamera project source code
+ in separate repositories, or move to their respective project's
+ repository (for instance the gstreamer libcamera element).</p>
+
+* 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.
+
+
+libcamera Architecture
+======================
+
+::
+
+ | ---------------------------< libcamera Public API >---------------------------
+ | ^ ^
+ | | |
+ | v v
+ | +-------------+ +-------------------------------------------------+
+ | | Camera | | Camera Device |
+ | | Devices | | +---------------------------------------------+ |
+ | | 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
+
+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, is built around a set of
+separate helpers internally, uses device-specific components and can
+load dynamic plugins.
+
+Camera Devices Manager
+ The Camera Devices Manager provides a view of available cameras
+ in the system. It performs cold enumeration and runtime camera
+ management, and supports a hotplug notification mechanism in its
+ public API.
+
+ To avoid the cost associated with cold enumeration of all devices
+ at application start, and to arbitrate concurrent access to camera
+ devices, the Camera Devices Manager could later be split to a
+ separate service, possibly with integration in platform-specific
+ device management.
+
+Camera Device
+ The Camera Device represents a camera device to upper layers. It
+ exposes full control of the device through the public API, and is
+ thus the highest level object exposed by libcamera.
+
+ Camera Device instances are created by the Camera Devices
+ Manager. An optional method to create new instances could be exposed
+ through the public API to speed up initialization when the upper
+ layer knows how to directly address camera devices present in the
+ system.
+
+Pipeline Handler
+ The Pipeline Handler manages complex pipelines exposed by the kernel drivers
+ through the Media Controller and V4L2 APIs. It abstracts pipeline handling to
+ hide device-specific details to 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.
+
+ This component is device-specific and is part of the libcamera code base. As
+ such it is covered by the same free software license as the rest of libcamera
+ and needs to be contributed upstream by device vendors. 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.</p>
+
+Image Processing Algorithms
+ Together with the hardware image processing and hardware statistics
+ collection, the Image Processing Algorithms implement 3A (Auto-Exposure,
+ Auto-White Balance and Auto-Focus) and other algorithms. They run on the CPU
+ and interact with the kernel camera devices to control hardware image
+ processing based on the parameters supplied by upper layers, closing the
+ control loop of the ISP.
+
+ This component is device-specific and is loaded as an external plugin. It can
+ be part of the libcamera code base, in which case it is covered by the same
+ license, or provided externally as an open-source or closed-source component.
+
+ The component is sandboxed and can only interact with libcamera through
+ internal APIs specifically marked as such. In particular it will have no
+ direct access to kernel camera devices, and all its accesses to image and
+ metadata will be mediated by dmabuf instances explicitly passed to the
+ component. The component must be prepared to run in a process separate from
+ the main libcamera process, and to have a very restricted view of the system,
+ including no access to networking APIs and limited access to file systems.
+
+ The sandboxing mechanism isn't defined by libcamera. One example
+ implementation will be provided as part of the project, and platforms vendors
+ will be able to provide their own sandboxing mechanism as a plugin.
+
+ libcamera should provide a basic implementation of Image Processing
+ Algorithms, to serve as a reference for the internal API. Device vendors are
+ expected to provide a full-fledged implementation compatible with their
+ Pipeline Handler. One goal of the libcamera project is to create an
+ environment in which the community will be able to compete with the
+ closed-source vendor binaries and develop a high quality open source
+ implementation.
+
+Helpers and Support Classes
+ While Pipeline Handlers are device-specific, implementations are expected to
+ share code due to usage of identical APIs towards the kernel camera drivers
+ and the Image Processing Algorithms. This includes without limitation handling
+ of the MC and V4L2 APIs, buffer management through dmabuf, and pipeline
+ discovery, configuration and scheduling. Such code will be factored out to
+ helpers when applicable.
+
+ Other parts of libcamera will also benefit from factoring code out to
+ self-contained support classes, even if such code is present only once in the
+ code base, in order to keep the source code clean and easy to read. This
+ should be the case for instance for plugin management.
+
+
+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 will implement internally
+features required by Android and missing from libcamera, such as JPEG encoding
+support.
+
+The Android camera HAL implementation will initially target the
+LIMITED harware level, with support for the FULL level then being gradually
+implemented.
diff --git a/Documentation/index.rst b/Documentation/index.rst
index ba6c6c6e..44176f23 100644
--- a/Documentation/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/index.rst
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ systems, including traditional Linux distributions, ChromeOS and Android.
:caption: Contents:
coding-style
+ docs
contributing
diff --git a/Documentation/meson.build b/Documentation/meson.build
index 8264b5e6..dd43b2cb 100644
--- a/Documentation/meson.build
+++ b/Documentation/meson.build
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ if sphinx.found()
'coding-style.rst',
'conf.py',
'contributing.rst',
+ 'docs.rst',
'index.rst',
]