Camera TODOs

Opening this to make it easier to track known issues all over the stack. Feel free to suggest more items and link to/from this issue.

The main focus for now is on the Pixel 3a (sargo) and Snapshot (i.e. a Pipewire, GStreamer, GTK stack).

Pixel 3a

• Rear camera not supported: will ship in upcoming 6.11 update.
• Focus does not work for rear camera (see libcamera section and https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux/-/issues/2)
  • This will also be needed to make reference images for tuning files, see below in the libcamera section.
• imx363 driver (rear camera) needs better mode/resolution data (context: https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux/-/merge_requests/4)
• imx355 driver (front camera) is missing features for libcamera, makes the later complain (e.g. when running cam -l)
• imx355 driver does not work with swISP in 1920x1080 (workaround shipped in !5710 (merged), to be upstreamed)

Snapshot and/or Gstreamer

• Distro package has broken dependencies, needs manual installation of gst-plugins-rs (https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/merge_requests/72641)
• The default mode not optimal for phones (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/snapshot/-/merge_requests/317)
• Recorded videos are not rotated correctly (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/snapshot/-/issues/218)
  • Gst: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/merge_requests/8319
  • GTK: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/merge_requests/8151
• Flatpak needs device-all permissions to use HW en-/decoding (https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/5524)
• Some devices like the PPP crash when taking pictures (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer/-/issues/3693)

libcamera

• swISP does not support autofocus / AF
• swISP does not support various algorithms to enhance image quality (see https://patchwork.libcamera.org/cover/22276/ for WIP CCM support)
  • Calibration / creating tuning files needs standardized raw test images. One way to make them is using the box from here: https://source.android.com/docs/compatibility/cts/camera-its-box
• swISP deos not support (sensor+ISP specific) tuning data (initial support landed in 0.4.0, see temp/libcamera: upgrade to 0.4.0 (!5948 - merged) for examples)
• swISP runs CPU -> there are ongoing experiments to write a gpuISP (see e.g. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/camera/libcamera-softisp/-/commits/softisp/origin/master-24-11-03+gpuisp+threadfix)