Sony IMX219 Linux driver

Problems running the pipelines shown on this page? Please see our GStreamer Debugging guide for help.

Driver List Information

Refer to the RidgeRun Linux Camera Drivers to meet all the list of Drivers available

Overview Video

Sony IMX219 image sensor features

The Sony IMX219 is a CMOS image sensor with the following features:

CSI2 serial data output (selection of 4 or 2 lanes)
Max. 30 frame/s in all-pixel scan mode
180 frame/s 720p with 2x2 analog (special) binning, 60 frame/s @ 1080p with V-crop
Data rate: Max. 722 Mbps/lane(@4lane), 912 Mbps/Lane(@2lane)
Max resolution of 3280 (H) x 2464 (V) approx. 8.08 M pixels

RidgeRun has developed a driver for the Jetson TX1 platform with the following support:

L4T 24.2 and Jetpack 2.3
V4l2 Media controller driver
Tested resolution 3280 x 2464 @ 15 fps
Tested resolution 1080p @ 47 fps
Tested resolution 720p @ 78 fps
Tested resolution 1640x1232 @ 30 fps
Tested resolution 820x616 @ 30 fps
Tested with J100 and J20 Auvidea boards.
Capture with v4l2src and also with nvcamerasrc using the ISP.

Enabling the driver

In order to use this driver, you have to patch and compile the kernel source, and there are two ways to do it:

Using RidgeRun SDK

Through the SDK you can easily patch the kernel and generate an image with the required changes to get the imx219 sensor to work. In this wiki Getting Started Guide for Tegra X1 Jetson you can find all the information required to build a Jetson TX1 SDK from scratch.

In order to add the IMX219 driver, follow these steps:

Go to your SDK directory
Go to the kernel directory
Copy the patches in the patches directory

0001-add-imx219-subdevice-driver.patch
0002-add-imx219-dtb.patch

In the case that you will use the driver with the J20 board, you will need to copy the following patch:

0003-add-j20-board-driver.patch

Modify the series file in the kernel directory. You have to add the 3 above patches.
Run make config and select the IMX219 in the Kernel Configuration like this:

-> Kernel Configuration
 -> Device Drivers                                                                                                                        
  -> Multimedia support                                                                                           
    -> Encoders, decoders, sensors, and other helper chips
       -> <*> IMX219 camera sensor support

In the case that you will use the driver with the J20 board, you need to select the J20 support Kernel Configuration like this:

-> Kernel Configuration
 -> Device Drivers                                                                                                                        
  -> Multimedia support                                                                                           
    -> Encoders, decoders, sensors and other helper chips
       -> <*> Auvidea J20 Expansion board

Then make the SDK and install it following the Started Guide mentioned before

Using Jetpack

Follow the instructions in (Downloading the code) to get the kernel source code.

Once you have the source code, apply the following two patches if you haven't yet, for fixing kernel errors during compilation.

kernel_r7_asm.patch
logical_comparison.patch

Apply the driver patches:

0001-add-imx219-subdevice-driver.patch
0002-add-imx219-dtb.patch

In the case that you will use the driver with the J20 board, you will need to apply the following patch:

0003-add-j20-board-driver.patch

you can apply the patches with the command:

quilt push -a

Follow the instructions in (Build Kernel) for building the kernel, and then flash the image.

Make sure to enable imx219 driver support:

make menuconfig

-> Device Drivers                                                                                                                        
  -> Multimedia support                                                                                           
    -> Encoders, decoders, sensors and other helper chips
       -> <*> IMX219 camera sensor support

In the case that you will use the driver with the J20 board, you need to make sure to enable the J20 support:

make menuconfig

-> Device Drivers                                                                                                                        
  -> Multimedia support                                                                                           
    -> Encoders, decoders, sensors and other helper chips
       -> <*> Auvidea J20 Expansion board

Using the driver

GStreamer examples

The GStreamer version distributed with Jetpack doesn't support Bayer RAW10 only RAW8 so GStreamer needs to be patched in order to capture using v4l2src. Follow the steps in the following wiki page to add the support for RAW10:

http://developer.ridgerun.com/wiki/index.php?title=Compile_gstreamer_on_tegra_X1

Important Note: When you are accessing the board through serial or ssh and you want to run a pipeline to display with autovideosink, nveglglessink, xvimagesink or any other video sink, you have to run your pipeline with DISPLAY=:0 at the beginning of the description:

DISPLAY=:0 gst-launch-1.0 ...

Snapshots

In order to check the snapshot, you can use the following tool:

https://github.com/jdthomas/bayer2rgb

So, run the following commands to download the tool and compile it:

git clone git@github.com:jdthomas/bayer2rgb.git
cd bayer2rgb
make
cp bayer2rgb /usr/bin/

Bayer2rgb will convert naked (no header) Bayer grid data into RGB data. There are several choices of interpolation (though they all look essentially the same to my eye). It can output tiff files and can integrate with ImageMagick to output other formats.

3280x2464

gst-launch-1.0 -v v4l2src device=/dev/video0 num-buffers=1 ! "video/x-bayer, format=rggb, width=3280, height=2464" ! filesink location=test_3280x2464.bayer

./bayer2rgb --input=test_3280x2464.bayer --output=data.tiff --width=3296 --height=2464 --bpp=16 --first=RGGB --method=BILINEAR --tiff