libcamera

A complex camera support library for Linux, Android, and ChromeOS

Cameras are complex devices that need heavy hardware image processing operations. Control of the processing is based on advanced algorithms that must run on a programmable processor. This has traditionally been implemented in a dedicated MCU in the camera, but in embedded devices algorithms have been moved to the main CPU to save cost. Blurring the boundary between camera devices and Linux often left the user with no other option than a vendor-specific closed-source solution.

To address this problem the Linux media community has very recently started collaboration with the industry to develop a camera stack that will be open-source-friendly while still protecting vendor core IP. libcamera was born out of that collaboration and will offer modern camera support to Linux-based systems, including traditional Linux distributions, ChromeOS and Android.

Getting Started

To fetch the sources, build and install:

git clone https://git.libcamera.org/libcamera/libcamera.git
cd libcamera
meson setup build
ninja -C build install

Dependencies

The following Debian/Ubuntu packages are required for building libcamera. Other distributions may have differing package names:

A C++ toolchain: [required]

Either {g++, clang}

Meson Build system: [required]

meson (>= 0.63) ninja-build pkg-config

for the libcamera core: [required]

libyaml-dev python3-yaml python3-ply python3-jinja2

for IPA module signing: [recommended]

Either libgnutls28-dev or libssl-dev, openssl

Without IPA module signing, all IPA modules will be isolated in a separate process. This adds an unnecessary extra overhead at runtime.

for improved debugging: [optional]

libdw-dev libunwind-dev

libdw and libunwind provide backtraces to help debugging assertion failures. Their functions overlap, libdw provides the most detailed information, and libunwind is not needed if both libdw and the glibc backtrace() function are available.

for device hotplug enumeration: [optional]

libudev-dev

for documentation: [optional]

python3-sphinx doxygen graphviz texlive-latex-extra

for gstreamer: [optional]

libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev

for Python bindings: [optional]

libpython3-dev pybind11-dev

for cam: [optional]

libevent-dev is required to support cam, however the following optional dependencies bring more functionality to the cam test tool:

• libdrm-dev: Enables the KMS sink
• libjpeg-dev: Enables MJPEG on the SDL sink
• libsdl2-dev: Enables the SDL sink
• libtiff-dev: Enables writing DNG

for qcam: [optional]

libtiff-dev qt6-base-dev

for tracing with lttng: [optional]

liblttng-ust-dev python3-jinja2 lttng-tools

for android: [optional]

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