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Welcome
The CPiA webcam driver for Linux provides a Video4Linux
interface to many of the early cheap webcams that used the
CPiA chip, and to the
Intel QX3/QX3+ USB microscopes.
Both parallel port and USB webcams are supported.
The CPiA chip is no longer in production, and these
webcams are no longer sold in stores, but can still be found on
sites like eBay, etc.
Recent News
- 2003-03-28 - Updated driver in Official Kernel 2.4.21pre6
pre-release:
while the 2.4 Kernel source still is at the v 0.8 release of the cpia driver,
it now has the updated Video4Linux interface and other fixes so it will
again work correctly when the 2.4.21 kernel release occurs. (This
affects behavior if the USB webcam is hot-unplugged while working, support
of the QX3 microscopes, control
of the camera via the /proc/cpia interface, and how the parallel port cameras
share the system resources with other processes ...)
- 2003-03-21 - Finally, most of the cvs code has made it into the
Official Linux 2.5.x kernel source (as of the 2.5.66 development kernel).
So the cpia code will live on in the 2.6.x kernels, for those still using these cameras or the QX3+ microscope...
- 2003-01-10 - New release v 1.3.0 of CPiA driver: with DMA ECP parallel port support for 2.4.x kernels.
Also now supports non-bidirectional parallel ports in nibble mode, and supports more than one USB camera on the same USB hub.
An updated version 0.5 of the cpia-control application was also released.
- 2000-04-17 - New documentation - CPiA command usage for QX3 microscope.
- 2000-04-04 - New documentation - The Windows parallel port driver.
- 2000-03-16 - New documentation - Some new documentation about
advanced stuff such as flicker control, overexposure setting, and
a definition of compression.
- 2000-03-07 - SourceForge - Obviously we've moved to SourceForge. Until things stabilizes,
see Peter's Page
for uptodate releases of the driver.
- 2000-02-07 - Driver update - Lot of work being done on the driver lately.
For various reasons this page has not been kept too uptodate. This isn't likely to
change, so please see the mailinglist for 0day info.
- 2000-01-14 - Mailinglist moved -
Peter has kindly taken over the mailinglist for now, see below for
new address.
- Older news
Mailinglist
The mailinglist has lived a turbulent life. For now, the developer list is available
here.
This should be moved to SourceForge, unless we decide forums and bugtracker is more appropriate.
Supported Webcams
Some cameras not supported by the CPiA driver
Technical info
The CPiA, or Color Processor Interface ASIC, is
made by the company STMicroelectronics (was
the Sottish company VLSI Vision Ltd.
This is the documentation I have received from VLSI Vision respectively from STM.
The accompanying mail
explains what's in the pp_test.zip file.
- Software Developer's Guide for CPiA Cameras (developer.pdf, 42 pages, 353Kb)
- Vision CPiA Data Sheet (VV0670P001) (cpia_datasheet4.pdf, 36 pages, 791Kb)
- Vision STV0673+VV6404 Data Sheets (more recent?)
- Vision PPC2 Sample Source (pp_test1.zip, 31Kb) - DOS Camera Test program
- Vision Sample Decompression (decode.zip, 26Kb) - Sample decompression source. (Updated 1999-11-03)
- Developers guide addendum - Notes about advanced handling of flicker control, overexposure, definition of compression. (Updated 2000-03-16)
- Vision Overexposure Source (overexp.c, 1Kb) - Sample source to calculate allowable overexposure. (Updated 2000-03-16)
- Parallel port driver source code by STM (ppc2.zip, 170K) - the Windows parallel port driver for CPiA cameras released under the GPL
- CPiA command usage for QX3 microscope (qx3_cmd.pdf, 5 pages, 20Kb)
Some other useful information:
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CPiA webcam driver for Linux