Supported Cameras

Cameras supported by V4L2 (on Linux)

In theory all cameras supported by the Linux V4L2 interface should work.  In practice this isn’t so.  In particular, interpretation of the requirements for UVC compliance appears to have been quite liberal at times and some cameras can require tweaks to get them to work correctly.

UVC cameras with known issues include the Microsoft Lifecam and Xbox cameras.  There is a patch for the v3.0.0 kernels documented here which may help.  Both cameras need a longer timeout than the driver allows by default. Alternatively, whilst the UVC library is not included in the binary release, building from source does allow including this library on Linux using the --with-libuvc flag when running configure. This gives the option of connecting to the camera either via V4L2 or libuvc.

Imaging Source cameras are also supported using the V4L2 UVC driver but require a small (and rather simpler) tweak to get them to work.  A ruleset for udev is supplied to deal with this.

ZW Optical

These are supported using the Linux and OSX SDKs supplied by ZWO.  In theory all of the cameras should work and many have been tested have been tested.  By default the device nodes for these cameras only allow access to the “root” user.  A udev ruleset is supplied that allows access to anyone.  A better solution would be to allow access only to users in a specific group.  This will be implemented in a future release.

Celestron

I believe the Skyris cameras should work. The 174M and 132C have been tested. The Neximage models should also work.

Imaging Source

As above, the mono USB versions of these should work on Linux using V4L2 and all USB astro cameras should work using the UVC interface. On OSX they are supported using libuvc. The FireWire cameras also work on Linux and OSX.

Other Imaging Source cameras may work, but no others have been tested.

QHY

Currently the QHY5, QHY5L-II, QHY5-II, QHY6 and IMG132E are supported.  On Linux these cameras uses a udev ruleset to load the firmware into the camera. On OSX they do it when the application connects to the camera.

Point Grey

The Firefly MV and Chameleon work. The Gig-E Blackfly should work on Linux. I see no reason why many of the other Point Grey USB and FireWire cameras wouldn’t work, but I haven’t tested them. The Blackfly camera will require the flycapture libraries to be installed.

Atik

The Atik GP should work, but is untested. Some of the ATK-16 models may well work. The only one I have tested is the 16IC.

Starlight Xpress

The Lodestar and Lodestar X2 should work.

Mallincam

If a camera is supported on Linux using Mallincam Lite, then oacapture can use the same libraries to support the same cameras.

Altair

If a camera is supported on Linux using Altair Capture then oacapture can use the same libraries to support the same cameras.

Toupcam

If a camera is supported on Linux using Toupcam Lite, then oacapture can use the same libraries to support the same cameras.

Others

The IIDC/DCAM interface is supported which means that any camera supporting that interface over FireWire or USB should function correctly. That may mean that cameras manufactured by Basler, IDS, Lumenera, Unibrain and Ximea stand a fair chance of working.

Cameras implementing the UVC interface should all work.

1 thought on “Supported Cameras

  1. Pingback: OpenCV driver foor QHY5?

Comments are closed.