Basic concepts about camera

About camera interface:

There are mipi and VIP type of sensors. The former is serial interface while the later is parallel interface . Some sensors especially old sensors only supports parallel interface. Most mipi compatible sensors have capabilities to change sensor programming to output parallel signals which however not suggested in most of time by sensor vendor.

 

About camera output format:

There are also output formats that a sensor can support, raw bayer and yuv are two common types. Some sensors only support bayer, because yuv format needs sensor to have an isp block on sensor chip which makes the sensor module more expensive . Selecting bayer format requires usage of AP chip's isp as well as sensor/isp calibration and tuning, which needs bit longer time than bringing up a yuv sensor because yuv sensor does not need calibration.

 

Generally there are three solutions below we can support.

(a) a camera connected to usb interface, more likely a uvc class camera that linux can support.

(b) a mipi or VIP sensor with yuv output (even sensor itself might have bayer output choice) .

(c) a mipi or VIP sensor with bayer output. It would provide better quality, but suggested to let us to bring up this kind of sensors.