Camera module

[mmaitre314]

The camera module is not in the list of supported HW for Win10 but since the MMAL code looks like user-mode C++ I was wondering whether there was a version compatible with Windows?
https://github.com/raspberrypi/userland ... mal/mmal.h
Skimming through posts it looks like it has some dependency on .so libs and I haven't been able to figure out whether Broadcom was providing equivalent .lib VC libs.

[markrad_msft]

All I know currently about cameras is that there is work in progress to port USB camera drivers to ARM. I don't have any details on which cameras will be supported at this time.

[jsnmc]

This is a bummer as I based my whole project on having access to the Raspberry PI camera. I think that it would be good to get some USB support, but at the very least the official camera should be supported.

[ame]

This is a bummer as I based my whole project on having access to the Raspberry PI camera. I think that it would be good to get some USB support, but at the very least the official camera should be supported.

If only there was some way to use the camera...

[jamesh]

This is a bummer as I based my whole project on having access to the Raspberry PI camera. I think that it would be good to get some USB support, but at the very least the official camera should be supported.

Well, it works fine in Linux. Where all the camera development work was done. You need to talk to MS if you want the camera to be supported on IoT- nothing to do with the Foundation.

But I have to say - if you planned a project around the camera working on Win10, your due diligence was a bit defective.

[jsnmc]

I am just working on a hobby project, so its not a big deal right now - I would say if you planned any project on a brand new OS/platform you are lacking diligence. I knew that I was working with a Beta OS so I assumed that all things wouldn't be working. You would think that at some point, the official hardware would be supported. At the very least I thought there would be some basic USB support - but that seems to be in the works. BTW: I bet it feels good to say that something works on Linux vs. Windows for once

But on a serious note, is there an official place that you know of to log requests to MS for device support?

[jamesh]

Win10IoT is purely a MS effort, nothing to do with the Foundation, so it is up to them what accessories they support, whether official or not.

As for bug reports, I would expect them to be handled on the MS website somewhere.

[markrad_msft]

I am just working on a hobby project, so its not a big deal right now - I would say if you planned any project on a brand new OS/platform you are lacking diligence. I knew that I was working with a Beta OS so I assumed that all things wouldn't be working. You would think that at some point, the official hardware would be supported. At the very least I thought there would be some basic USB support - but that seems to be in the works. BTW: I bet it feels good to say that something works on Linux vs. Windows for once

But on a serious note, is there an official place that you know of to log requests to MS for device support?

The product group are currently working on porting USB webcam drivers to the Win 10 IoT platform. I'm hoping we will see some supported fairly soon.

[mmaitre314]

it works fine in Linux. Where all the camera development work was done.

Would you have some pointers/documentation/etc. about what the camera development work on Linux consisted in? It sounds like Broadcom provided a stack. If they have something similar on Windows there might be a way to light up the camera module.

Full disclaimer: although RPi is a purely personal project, I also work at MS and I have some (limited) awareness of the work being done for USB cameras. I just think it would be fun to get the RPi camera module to work on Win10. If it involves something a bit less complex than writing a full-blown driver, I could spin up a GitHub project (you can take a look at previous work at http://mmaitre314.github.io/, this is all Apache 2 take-the-code-and-run kind of projects). I have a good idea of what needs to be done to connect to the WinRT MediaCapture API but I don't have a good understanding of what MMAL and the Broadcom APIs consist in.

[ghans]

The only public documentation is Linux and FreeBSD kernel
source code. The VCHIQ system is propably reliant on lot of UNIX-like
infrastructure too.


ghans

[mmaitre314]

Thanks. I missed that dependency. Overall it looks like that would be a non-trivial amount of work to get that to work.

[DazzF]

Hi,

I personally see the Camera driver as a must to be developed. I’ve been play with Windows IoT since release, and I must say I’m impressed.

Look at how many projects have been spawned with the camera module under Linux. IMHO the Pi camera module driver would make Pi Windows IoT an incredible multimedia platform.

[jamesh]

it works fine in Linux. Where all the camera development work was done.

Would you have some pointers/documentation/etc. about what the camera development work on Linux consisted in? It sounds like Broadcom provided a stack. If they have something similar on Windows there might be a way to light up the camera module.

Full disclaimer: although RPi is a purely personal project, I also work at MS and I have some (limited) awareness of the work being done for USB cameras. I just think it would be fun to get the RPi camera module to work on Win10. If it involves something a bit less complex than writing a full-blown driver, I could spin up a GitHub project (you can take a look at previous work at http://mmaitre314.github.io/, this is all Apache 2 take-the-code-and-run kind of projects). I have a good idea of what needs to be done to connect to the WinRT MediaCapture API but I don't have a good understanding of what MMAL and the Broadcom APIs consist in.

Brcm provided the MMAL interface layer, which is an improved/easier to use OMX IL. I just wrote the raspistill and raspivid apps on top of MMAL. I suspect that MMAL could be recompiled for Windows, in fact I think that there may already be a VCOS port for a Win32 style API, which may well be the majority of the work. Then its just a matter of the CPU/GPU communications via VCHIQ, which presumably is already working in WIn10 anyway.

[Stannieman]

We're over a year later now and I was wondering... Is there any progress on this?
I'd write some MMAL wrapper or whatever myself if I could, but I'm afraid I have not enough knowledge about lower level camera stuff, drivers and abstraction layers and the kind used...

[mms]

I guess the RPI Foundation has no interest in a Windows IoT driver for the PI camera? This is the only thing that prevents us from using PI for our solution, we're using x86 boards presently.

[beta-tester]

I guess the RPI Foundation has no interest in a Windows IoT driver for the PI camera? This is the only thing that prevents us from using PI for our solution, we're using x86 boards presently.

i think it is a job of Microsoft to get active here to support the RPi's accelerations... same for hardware video decoding and other hahrdware accelerations of the RPi.

Raspberry pi Foundateion says Microsoft has to start to do a driver for that.
Microsoft doesn't tell anything... only in the far future they maybe add support for that...

the poor performance of the GUI because of missing hardware acceleration is also to me a big barrier that prevents me to use RPi + Windows IoT in "production".

[DougieLawson]

A better idea is for the OP to post a new thread on https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forum ... WindowsIoT where the Microsoft folks discuss everything about Raspberries and other SBCs with Win10 IoT.

Never did work out why this subforum on here needs to exist.

[beta-tester]

Never did work out why this subforum on here needs to exist.

better to have those (annoying) Win IoT questions in an isolated separated part of the forum than in the other forum parts.
it is easyer to ignore those questions
but a big ""DONT EXPECT ANY ANSWER TO MICROSOFT RELATED QUESTIONS IN THIS FORUM" warning is missing in this part of the forum.

[mms]

Yes, this shouldn't be in a separate forum.. it shows the attitude towards Windows and part of the reason why there is no GPU or camera drivers..

Other reason perhaps not big enough audience, vote here https://aka.ms/Hfo2r7. If there is enough people asking it will happen.

Note Microsoft does not write drivers for other manufacturers devices. It's up to the hardware/device manufacturers to do this in this case who? Broadcom? Raspberry Pi Foundation? Who wrote the Linux driver?

There even is a Raspberry Pi sample driver here https://github.com/Microsoft/graphics-driver-samples just waiting for capable hands to add actual VideoCore support.