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.