Camera Software Development Solution

This document describes the NVIDIA® Jetson™ TX1 and TX2 camera software solution and explains the NVIDIA supported and recommended camera software architecture for fast and optimal time to market. Development options are outlined and explained to customize the camera solution for USB, YUV, and Bayer camera support. Additionally, debugging approaches are explored to aid in the development process.

The NVIDIA camera software architecture includes NVIDIA components that allow for ease of development and customization:

The camera architecture includes the following NVIDIA components:

• nvcamerasrc—An NVIDIA camera GStreamer plugin that provides many options to control ISP properties.

• v4l2src—A standard Linux V4L2 application that uses direct kernel IOCTL calls to access V4L2 functionality.

NVIDIA provides OV5693 Bayer sensor as a sample. NVIDIA tunes this sensor for the Jetson platform. The drive code, based on the media controller framework, is available at:

NVIDIA provides additional sensor support for BSP software releases. Developers must work with NVIDIA certified camera partners for any Bayer sensor and tuning support. The work involved includes:

These tools and operating mechanisms are NOT part of the public Jetson Embedded Platform (JEP) Board Support Package release.

For more information on sensor driver development, see the NVIDIA Tegra X1 V4L2 Sensor Driver Programming Guide.

The following table provides a matrix of the camera APIs available at each camera configuration.


	Uses Tegra ISP (CSI Interface)	Does not use Tegra ISP † (CSI Interface)	USB (UVC) * (USB Interface)
Camera API	libargus GStreamer (GST-NVCamera)	V4L2	V4L2
* Drivers are not provided by NVIDIA, you must write the drivers. Customer can support peripheral bus device such as: - Ethernet - Non-UVC USB † Libargus is the perferred path to access the camera.

Note:

The default OV5693 camera does not contain an integrated ISP. Use of the V4L2 API with the reference camera records “raw” Bayer data.

This topic provides various testing and debugging approaches to assist development and validation of the sensor functionality.

Once your driver development is complete, use the provided tools or application to validate and test the V4L2 driver interface.

For general GStreamer and multimedia operations, see the Multimedia User Guide, which is available from the NVIDIA Embedded Download Center at:

Note:

nvgstcapture is planned for retirement. It will be replaced, in a future release, with a more basic plugin built around libargus. The basic plugin will provide high-level functionality. Any new applications requiring low-level control must be built using libargus.

The NVIDIA Multimedia API provides samples that demonstrate how to use the libargus APIs to preview, capture, and record the sensor stream.

The Multimedia API can be installed only with NVIDIA JetPack. It cannot be installed as a stand-alone package. JetPack is available for download from the NVIDIA Embedded Download Center at:

To view the Multimedia API Reference, click the API tab at the top of this page.

With GStreamer with the nvcamerasrc, you can:

For example, for a Bayer sensor with the format 1080p/30/BGGR, you can:

gst-launch-1.0 nvcamerasrc num-buffers=200 sensor-id=0 ! 'video/x-raw(memory:NVMM),width=1920, height=1080, framerate=30/1, format=NV12' ! omxh264enc ! qtmux ! filesink location=test.mp4 -ev

gst-launch-1.0 nvcamerasrc sensor-id=0 ! 'video/x-raw(memory:NVMM),width=1920, height=1080, framerate=30/1, format=NV12' ! nvoverlaysink -ev

Use this approach for YUV sensor or USB camera to output YUV images without ISP post-processing. This approach does not use any of the NVIDIA camera software stack.

For example, a USB camera with the format 480p/30/YUY2, you can:

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src num-buffers=200 device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw, format=YUY2, width=640, height=480, framerate=30/1' ! videoconvert ! omxh264enc ! qtmux ! filesink location=test.mp4 -ev

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw, format=YUY2, width=640, height=480, framerate=30/1' ! xvimagesink -ev

For a YUV sensor with the format 480p/30/UYVY, you can:

• Save the preview into a file as follows (based on hardware accelerated converter):

gst-launch-1.0 -v v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw, format=(string)UYVY, width=(int)640, height=(int)480, framerate=(fraction)30/1' ! nvvidconv ! 'video/x-raw(memory:NVMM), format=(string)NV12' ! omxh264enc ! qtmux ! filesink location=test.mp4 -ev

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw, format=(string)UYVY, width=(int)640, height=(int)480, framerate=(fraction)30/1' ! xvimagesink -ev

Use this approach to verify basic functionality during sensor bringup.

For example, capture from a Bayer sensor with the format 1080p/30/RG10:

v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=1920,height=1080,pixelformat=RG10 --stream-mmap --stream-count=1 -d /dev/video0 --stream-to=ov5693.raw

• Built-in to the Camera Core where the release package includes initial ISP configuration files for reference sensors.

Note:

CSI cameras, with integrated ISP and USB camera, can work in ISP bypass mode. Provided ISP support is available for Jetson Developer Kit (OV5693) RAW camera module.

Additional ISP support for other camera modules are supported using third party partners.