[sane-devel] Interested in writing a driver for...

[gerard klaver]

On Tue, 2004-04-13 at 23:40, Theodore Kilgore wrote:
> Could I also mention that there is the gphoto project, which specializes
> in camera support? If this camera is, like many others, a dual-use
> webcam-stillcam, then it may (or may not) be supported already in
> libgphoto2, for the stillcam functions. You can't always tell what is on
> the inside by the name stamped in the plastic on the outside. Some chips
> get used in 10 or 15 "different" cameras from "different" manufacturers,
> which are not distinguishable from one another underneath the plastic
> exterior.
> 
> Unfortunately, however, it is not at this time possible to support the
> stillcam and webcam functions with the same driver; the stillcam support
> uses access via libusb, and the webcam support requires a kernel module to
> be written. Further to compound the problem, if a camera is "dual use"
> then the kernel module when installed will interfere with libusb access.
> 
> Is this camera a dual-use camera? If so, I am really interested, because
> I am involved in stillcam support in libgphoto2. In any
> case, what is its Vendor:Product number?
> 
> Theodore Kilgore
> 
> 
> On Tue, 13 Apr 2004, Bertrik Sikken wrote:
> 
> > Greg Apessos wrote:
> >
> > > my Ezonics EZCam USB III webcam.  What got me interested was finding
> > > a reference to the EZCam USB II not being supported on the
> > > sane-project's site,
> > > http://www.sane-project.org/unsupported/biolux-654.html.  While it
> > > isn't a scanner, maybe my work could be useful to someone else.  But
> > > the difficulty is I don't know how to approach the problem.
> > >
> > >> From the little bits that I've gleamed, I monitor the communication
> > >> with
> > > the camera on Windows, and get an idea of how messages are sent to
> > > it.
> > >> From that I start to build something useful.
> > >
> > > Are there guides, tutorials, something that could be helpful?  I
> > > don't necessarily need step-by-step instructions, just an outline
> > > like, program X will capture the communication with the camera,
> > > library Y can be used to communicate with the webcam under Linux,
> > > etc.
> > >
> > > Any help in the right direction would be great.
> >
> > program X = usbsnoopy. There is an 'old' and a 'new' (on sourceforge)
> > version of this program. I personally like the old version, because
> > it simply logs everything as text, which is easy to parse and analyse
> > using scripts.
> > I have a hacked version somewhere that does not log the USB bulk
> > transfers. In some cases, this can help to reduce the log files
> > a lot.
> >
> > library Y = libusb. I do not recommend to write a kernel mode driver.
> >
> > * First make really sure that noone else has already written a driver.
> > * Try to figure out what kind of chip is used inside the cam and then
> > look it up on google. Read the datasheet if you can find it.
> > * Instead of starting on a sane backend, I would start with a very
> > simple command line tool, where things are easier to control.
> > * Let the world know you are working on support for the webcam.
> > Probably other people already thought about working on this webcam,
> > perhaps even figured out some stuff.
> > Publish the stuff you find out on a website and post the address.
> > If you have some actual code, consider starting a sourceforge project.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bertrik
> >

Vendor id: 0x923, Product 0x10f (info from Greg)

ICM532B chip, same as the biolux.

No still camera function, uses ischrocous mode for data.
Not supported/ or not yet by libusb which makes it more difficult to
write a sane vidcam backend for it.

-- 
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Gerard Klaver