Hi all,
as Hans de Goede does not have enough free time to go after this, he
asked me to poke the V4L list. As this also concerns Linux in general,
I am sending to the Linux Driver Project as well. [0] says to mail
prjmgr@ for new projects so I am doing that. Finally, I wasn't sure if
mailing LKML would reach people who might reasonably be interested in
this offer yet miss it due to not reading the other two lists. I am
still unsure but decided to default to the save option especially as
one additional email to LKML is a drop in an insanely-sized bucket,
anyway.
We have two USB cameras by IDS Imaging [1], the uEye XS [2] and the
uEye LE [3] which require a proprietary blob [4] to run under Linux.
There is an user-space API of questionable usefulness. We would prefer
native V4L support which actually works over said Linux "solution".
The USB IDs are:
Bus 002 Device 007: ID 1409:1645 # uEye U|164xLE-C
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1409:1008 # uEye U|1008XS-C (seems to be a
Sony package meant for phones with IDS stuff around it)
The full output lsusb -v can be found at
http://paste.debian.net/100555/ - the first entry is my mouse :p
The text on chips on the LE is:
CY22150FZ
XC
1007 A 02
609214
2400P
ED4Ca
464WP
K018
Output from usbmon [5] is attached. It's only 344 kiB in size so I
decided to attach it for everyone's convenience. In case any list
filters out attachments, just poke me and I'll send them your way.
More stuff:
* We will ship the cameras we bought to you. Preferably to a location
where shipping costs are not insane; Europe preferred. You keep the
cameras; they are yours.
* You try and get pictures out of the cams. We don't need HD or
anything. Our use case is criminal investigation so pics don't need to
be print perfect.
* The XS has auto focus and can somewhat dynamically adapt to
different lighting situations. Ideally, this should work.
* Hans will advise us on who of the volunteers, if any, are best
suited for this. I don't know the V4L community; he does. If we get
volunteers via the Linux Driver Project, I don't know how people are
selected, but I am happy to go with whatever they propose.
* While we know that no guarantees of any kind can be made, we
obviously prefer fast results over slower ones. If someone has gobs of
time available and is looking for a end-of-year project, that is a
huge plus :p That being said, we don't expect miracles.
* As the cameras were not cheap, we would appreciate, but do not
require, a short mention in the initial commit message[s].
As an aside, if anyone can point us to any small (around thumb size or
smaller) cameras, both with really wide angle and narrow angle, that
connect via USB, FireWire, or Ethernet and are well-supported under
Linux... we are all ears. The pictures will need to be fed into
zoneminder, other than that, we don't really care how we get the pics
as long as it's reliable and supported for the longer term. One would
assume that dozens of webcams would fit the bill, but most of the ones
I could find have been EOLed for ages.
Thanks,
Richard
[0] http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/foswiki/bin/view/Main/MailingLists
[1] http://www.ids-imaging.com/
[2] http://www.ids-imaging.com/frontend/products.php?cam_id=125
[3] http://www.ids-imaging.com/frontend/products.php?cam_id=48
[4] http://www.ueyesetup.de/frontend/files/uEyeupdater/Setup_e.htm
[5] http://people.redhat.com/zaitcev/linux/usbmon-6.tar.gz