Re: RFC: Arducam 64 MP (Hawkeye)

[Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@linux.intel.com>]

Hi Kieran,

On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 10:49:29AM +0100, Kieran Bingham wrote:
> Hi Sakari, Laurent,
> 
> Last night I hooked up the Arducam 64 MP Hawkeye camera [0], to an RPi4,
> and added the camera helper for the RaspberryPi IPA to libcamera, and
> was able to use the camera directly with dtoverlay=arducam_64mp in the
> Raspberry Pi /boot/config.txt using the latest release from Raspberry
> Pi.
> 
> Raspberry Pi have already added the driver for this camera [1] to their
> tree, and I have been given the tuning files from Arducam.
> 
> This has allowed me to capture an image with pretty good response to
> changing lighting conditions, and colours. [2] ... The AF isn't yet
> enabled, so that shot is out of focus a little. (That's for later).
> 
> Arducam do not wish to name the sensor used in the module, and have
> called it the 'arducam_64mp'. But attempting to upstreaming this with
> that name worries me.
> 
> Furthermore, we would like to maintain libcamera as supporting cameras
> that have 'upstream' drivers (or drivers that are on their way
> upstream), so I'm keen to identify how we can upstream the drivers to
> create a better experience for users who are currently finding that they
> need to run a fork of libcamera to operate the module.
> 
> So ultimately - my open question is ... Is it acceptable to have camera
> drivers that are named by their 'module/integration' rather than their
> sensor?

A lot of users (especially the existing ones) depend on the entity name
currently. I don't think we could change it. For new ones I guess that
would be possible.

Alternatively this could be a string control I think. That could be added
to existing drivers as well.

-- 
Kind regards,

Sakari Ailus