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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0
+
+.. include:: documentation-contents.rst
+
+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.