i.MX6 MIPI Sensor support for ANDROID

[ramansubramania]

The key issue with regard to
the camera is:  Is there any Android reference code for demosaicing
raw Bayer sensor data?  Basically all color sensors 8MP and above require
this.  The camera and ISP hardware don't support it directly, so a
software solution is necessary. 

We have GPU codes for both
OpenGL and OpenCL, but OpenCL doesn't appear to be supported in Android, and
the data copy performance out of the graphics driver in OpenGL is terrible
(although actual processing time appears to be good).  Is there a
particular software version that makes this feasible, or are there best
practices that we aren't aware of that may improve performance?

We are currently doing our work on Android 4.4.  If
newer software is required to make this work, what version should we target?

[jimmychan]

For iMX6, the IPU can't support converting bayer format to RGB/YUV on the fly, it can only use generic mode to receive the CSI input bayer data to memory. The CPD can only be used to convert 10 bits color data to 8 bits.

    On iMX5x IPU, there is a module called "ISP" which can be used to handle bayer format data, but it was also not fully verified, so in the iMX5x document, the ISP section had been removed. And on iMX6, that "ISP" module had been removed.

FYI. IPU - bayer pattern conversion

[ramansubramania]

Does this mean, there is solution for the problem they are having? How about the moving to the latest Android version? Have we ported that to i.MX6?

[jimmychan]

Sorry to tell you that we don't have example code for doing this.

FYI. Someone tried to do it : imx6 MIPI CSI with OV5648 camera