Holoscan Camera Overview

🚧 Documentation is under development

The Holoscan SDK guide is currently under active development. Some sections may be incomplete or change without notice.

Questions? Contact RidgeRun or email to support@ridgerun.com.

Holoscan SDK

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Contents Pin

• Overview
  • Scope and Release Coverage
  • How Can RidgeRun Help?
  • Holoscan SDK at a Glance
  • Why the API Changed
  • Architecture and Execution Model
• Build, Run, and Validate
  • Build the SDK on AGX Orin
  • Running and Stopping
  • Run SDK Examples
• Core Concepts
  • Operators and Graphs
    • Operator Lifecycle
    • Ports, Samples, and Payload Types
    • Temporal Contracts and Input Selection
    • Building Graphs and Queue Policies
    • Fan-Out, Fan-In, Mux, and Demux
    • Execution Planning and Capacity
      • Automatic Partitioning and Plan Inspection
      • Rates, Queue Sizing, and Derived Tensor Capacity
    • Dynamic Graph Behavior
  • Tensor Data and Memory
    • Tensor Contracts and Memory Types
    • Sensor Payloads and Schemas
    • Allocation Ownership and Tensor Pools
    • Zero-Copy Data Flow and CUDA Stream Ordering
    • Copy Paths and Memory Conversion
    • External Memory: VPI, PVA, NvSci, and DLPack
  • Interprocess Communication
    • Channels and HoloMQ
    • External Endpoints and Endpoint Catalogs
    • Descriptor-Tensor External Topics
    • Standalone ChannelRuntime Clients
    • Dynamic External Peers
• Application and Operator Development
  • Building an HSDK Application
  • Writing a Minimal Operator
  • Typed Parameters and Configuration
  • Reading, Writing, and Forwarding Data
  • Writing Tensor Operators
  • Complete Operator Patterns
  • Authoring Runtime Behavior
  • Runtime Parameter Updates
  • Lifecycle Callbacks and Restart Control
  • Performance and Debugging
  • SDK Source Map
• Operator Reference
  • Core Operators
    • ConvertToOp
    • CopyMakeBorderOp
    • CustomCropOp
    • HolovizOp
    • InferenceOp
    • NonMaximumSuppressionOp
    • NormalizeOp
    • ReformatOp
    • RemapOp
    • ResizeOp
  • Holoscan Camera
    • Overview
    • Build and Installation
    • V4L2CaptureOp
    • SIPLCaptureOp
  • Holoscan RidgeRun
    • Overview
    • Build and Installation
    • ArgusCameraOp
    • V4L2SourceOp
    • V4L2UserPtrSourceOp
    • BgraToPlanarTensorOp
    • RawBayerToBgraOp
    • RawBayerToYoloTensorOp
    • YuyvToBgraOp
    • TensorRtInferenceOp
    • DrmDisplayOp
    • DrmBgraDisplayOp
    • X11DisplayOp
    • CudaCompositorOp
    • DepthColorizerOp
    • FakesinkOp
    • FrameSkipperOp
    • InterprocessSrcOp
    • TestPatternOp
• Migration from Holoscan 4.x
  • Concept Map
  • Applications, Fragments, and Graphs
  • Conditions and Temporal Contracts
  • Code-Level API Evolution
• Examples
  • Core
    • Vision Pipeline Example
    • Managed Run Control Example
    • Automatic Partitioning Example
    • Rate-Aware Ports and Tensor Pool Capacity Example
    • CUDA Green Context Example
    • Inference Example
    • Descriptor-Tensor External Topic Example
    • HoloMQ Example
  • Holoscan Camera
    • SIPL Frame Saver Example
    • SIPL Stereo Monitor Example
  • Holoscan RidgeRun
    • Interprocess External-Endpoint Demo
• Benchmark and Use Cases
  • Holoscan vs GStreamer
    • Overview
    • Capture and Display
      • Execution context
      • G2G latency
      • CPU utilization
      • GPU utilization
      • Process memory (RSS)
      • Results
      • Analysis
    • Capture and Inference
      • Execution context
      • Software interlatency
      • Inference processing time
      • CPU utilization
      • GPU utilization
      • Process memory (RSS)
      • Results
      • Analysis
    • Compare the workloads
    • Implemented Applications
    • Framework Selection
  • Interprocess

Holoscan Camera Overview

Camera integration support

Getting camera frames into processing means matching the sensor path, frame format, and memory your application needs. RidgeRun can adapt capture operators and integrate the camera into your pipeline. Contact RidgeRun to see how we can help with your camera integration.

Holoscan Camera provides two capture paths for bringing Linux video devices and SIPL camera rigs into an HSDK application. Use the comparison below to choose the path that fits your camera stack and the processing stage that will consume its frames.

Choose a Capture Path

Path	Platform and device	Published data	Memory placement	Good starting point for
V4L2CaptureOp	A Linux V4L2 device exposed through a video device node.	Packed YUYV in an image payload.	Host, pinned host, or CUDA device memory.	A camera or video source that already exposes a V4L2 mode.
SIPLCaptureOp	A camera rig managed by the NVIDIA SIPL stack.	RAW10 or NV12 image data plus per-frame sensor metadata.	Host, pinned host, or CUDA device memory.	A configured sensor rig that needs camera indices, metadata, or multi-camera capture.

Both operators publish the SDK's typed image payload. Its descriptor carries the image format and geometry, while the Tensor storage carries the bytes consumed by the next operator. The selected memory placement becomes part of the graph contract, so choose it according to the first consumer that needs the frame.

Follow the Camera Path

Start with Build and Installation to build the module against the SDK installation used by your application.

Continue with V4L2CaptureOp when the source is a Linux video device. Continue with SIPLCaptureOp when the source is a configured SIPL rig.

The SIPL Frame Saver Example and SIPL Stereo Monitor Example are hardware-dependent paths for inspecting captured data and comparing two streams. For the broader SDK setup and API route, see the NVIDIA Holoscan SDK User Guide.

Related examples and concepts

Examples

• SIPL Frame Saver Example saves captured frames for inspection.
• SIPL Stereo Monitor Example displays synchronized camera streams.

Concepts

• Sensor Payloads and Schemas introduces typed image and sensor payloads.
• Tensor Contracts and Memory Types explains how storage placement becomes part of a port contract.

Holoscan SDK

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