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https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/ 13MP camera is nice. Specs are certainly much improved. Probably enough for daily dri

https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/ 13MP camera is nice. Specs are certainly much improved. Probably enough for daily driver. My next phone though: Next battery tech, solid state? 88mp front cam as this is the threshold for beating film. depth cam that can 3d scan things for me. Sure sounds like iphone will get there first, pine could beat them to it.

ben-schaaf 4y ago
> Sure sounds like iphone will get there first, pine could beat them to it. Pine64 doesn't make any of those components. High end components are also generally from manufacturers that don't share documentation, so entirely useless for Pine64's goals.
oneplane 4y ago
Doesn't matter how good the hardware is if the software can't make it useful for users, which is largely the problem here. Most of those 'high MP' cameras are also not really useful anymore without an ISP and those aren't available open-source (except perhaps with camera emulation and a fake CSI interface to the application processor cores).
- megous 4y ago
  Some ISPs are opensource. Pinephone Pro's is, so this is not a problem for Pine64.
  - oneplane 4y ago
    The RK3399 does have a rather limited ISP, not something you'd want to pump 88M in. If you were to use only 1 camera and combine the two ISP nodes it has you'd have a maximum of 26M. This is also why they used a IMX258 as anything better would require to use the second interface for that single camera too. But to clarify: it's not really as much about "any ISP" as it is about a good ISP that can do multi-camera composition. The ISP in the RockChip SoC can't even do one, it mostly just does basic cropping/rotation/resizing and controls the PHY. While technically an ISP, it's more like an interface driver at this stage. The driver is open source, but the hardware isn't. That's not always a bad thing, as in this case the hardware doesn't run on any RT blob, it's mostly just a bunch of registers for (image) stream processing. I think in the android rom hacking world, most ISPs are used with their binary blobs (both firmware and kernel modules) but without the configuration and user land blobs, resulting in working cameras (at high pixel counts) but really bad image quality.
    - megous 4y ago
      RK3399 ISP does much more than cropping/resizing. (It can't do rotation, btw - if it can, I wanna know where you're getting your details from, because that would be very useful :)) It's still a bit basic, I'd like more, but there much more color and image correction controls than you're acknowledging https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/media/v4l/pixfmt-meta-rkisp1.html#c.rkisp1_params_cfg https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/media/v... There's also no firmware. It can be used as is without one. Lack of documentation is also not a huge issue, since rockchip manuals for all/most parameters of the ISP are findable on the net. What's missing are calibration tools. But those can be re-created from scratch. It's not terribly difficult. Just saying that there are FOSS supported ISPs available. RKISP10 is fully supported in mainline Linux. You can just use it via v4l2.
      - oneplane 4y ago
        IIRC the other operations are only supported on the other linux media framework (of which I can't remember the name - but it's the newer one than v4l2), and most examples I saw (a while back with a RK3399 dev board) were using libcamera at the time. It does indeed not need firmware, but higher end IPS blocks often do, especially when you get much higher bandwidth sensors per CSI channel. What I am wondering now about those calibration tools is if however they are built or reverse-engineered, they could read the pre-existing calibration payload.
        megous 4y ago
        Whole of ISP uses v4l2. You communicate with ISP by sending specially formatted buffers (C structs docs I posted) via v4l2 buffers (the same interface you'd get image data, too). Preexisting calibration data are just XML files with params to load to the ISP and params to use to determine which set of params to load based on statistics collected from ISP (like after detecting what kind of light the scene has, you have to load params calibrated for that light type). (I do rotation via RGA, so maybe you mean that? That's a separate HW block, not part of ISP.)
Jackim 4y ago
88MP camera? I don't know if phone cameras will ever get there. edit: wow, did not realise how far phone cameras had come!
- fullstop 4y ago
  There are quite a few phones available today which exceed that. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, Huawei Nova SE 9, realme 8 Pro, etc. The upcoming Moto X30 Pro has a 200 MP camera in it. edit: these are all rear cameras
  - Jackim 4y ago
    Wow! Thanks for the info.
    - fullstop 4y ago
      Of course! It's bonkers how far phone cameras have come over the last few years.
      - ge96 4y ago
        But is it actually "good". Take a 40MP photo from a Lumia 1040 compare it with an A7R3 not really the same picture.
        fullstop 4y ago
        A lot of the higher MP cameras are gimmicks. Lots of MP with a tiny sensor.
- gabi32 4y ago
  There are already phones with 108MP cameras [1], and my current ~200 EUR phone has a 64MP camera. [1]: https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/best-108mp-camera-phones/ https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/best-108mp-camera-phones/
fbanon 4y ago
Lol! You're pretty unhinged.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  I was well downvoted. Could you explain to me why I'm unhinged? I didn't feel like I had posted anything controversial or whatever.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    having unrealistic expectations may be considered unhinged by some. we are still a bit far from having 3d scanners that fit on your pocket.
    - incomingpain 4y ago
      >having unrealistic expectations may be considered unhinged by some. I feel like I wasn't being unrealistic at all. solid state batteries exist today and can be bought. Obviously early in the commercialization but they do exist. Still unclear how safe they are. 88mp camera is less than what I can go buy from costco right now. 3d scanners totally fit in your pocket. I don't mean photogrammetry neither. The newer iphones have lidar that can scan. Newer androids have depth sensors or TOF sensors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r26OhSxBUXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r26OhSxBUXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UXeJWmEn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UXeJWmEn8
      - em-bee 4y ago
        interesting, i had no idea. thanks!
  - fbanon 4y ago
    PinePhone couldn't even create a phone that can make voice calls properly like a Nokia 3310, yet you're envisioning them beating Apple (!) with rolling out some futuristic technologies.

ben-schaaf 4y ago

> Sure sounds like iphone will get there first, pine could beat them to it. Pine64 doesn't make any of those components. High end components are also generally from manufacturers that don't share documentation, so entirely useless for Pine64's goals.

oneplane 4y ago

Doesn't matter how good the hardware is if the software can't make it useful for users, which is largely the problem here. Most of those 'high MP' cameras are also not really useful anymore without an ISP and those aren't available open-source (except perhaps with camera emulation and a fake CSI interface to the application processor cores).

megous 4y ago
Some ISPs are opensource. Pinephone Pro's is, so this is not a problem for Pine64.
- oneplane 4y ago
  The RK3399 does have a rather limited ISP, not something you'd want to pump 88M in. If you were to use only 1 camera and combine the two ISP nodes it has you'd have a maximum of 26M. This is also why they used a IMX258 as anything better would require to use the second interface for that single camera too. But to clarify: it's not really as much about "any ISP" as it is about a good ISP that can do multi-camera composition. The ISP in the RockChip SoC can't even do one, it mostly just does basic cropping/rotation/resizing and controls the PHY. While technically an ISP, it's more like an interface driver at this stage. The driver is open source, but the hardware isn't. That's not always a bad thing, as in this case the hardware doesn't run on any RT blob, it's mostly just a bunch of registers for (image) stream processing. I think in the android rom hacking world, most ISPs are used with their binary blobs (both firmware and kernel modules) but without the configuration and user land blobs, resulting in working cameras (at high pixel counts) but really bad image quality.
  - megous 4y ago
    RK3399 ISP does much more than cropping/resizing. (It can't do rotation, btw - if it can, I wanna know where you're getting your details from, because that would be very useful :)) It's still a bit basic, I'd like more, but there much more color and image correction controls than you're acknowledging https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/media/v4l/pixfmt-meta-rkisp1.html#c.rkisp1_params_cfg https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/media/v... There's also no firmware. It can be used as is without one. Lack of documentation is also not a huge issue, since rockchip manuals for all/most parameters of the ISP are findable on the net. What's missing are calibration tools. But those can be re-created from scratch. It's not terribly difficult. Just saying that there are FOSS supported ISPs available. RKISP10 is fully supported in mainline Linux. You can just use it via v4l2.
    - oneplane 4y ago
      IIRC the other operations are only supported on the other linux media framework (of which I can't remember the name - but it's the newer one than v4l2), and most examples I saw (a while back with a RK3399 dev board) were using libcamera at the time. It does indeed not need firmware, but higher end IPS blocks often do, especially when you get much higher bandwidth sensors per CSI channel. What I am wondering now about those calibration tools is if however they are built or reverse-engineered, they could read the pre-existing calibration payload.
      - megous 4y ago
        Whole of ISP uses v4l2. You communicate with ISP by sending specially formatted buffers (C structs docs I posted) via v4l2 buffers (the same interface you'd get image data, too). Preexisting calibration data are just XML files with params to load to the ISP and params to use to determine which set of params to load based on statistics collected from ISP (like after detecting what kind of light the scene has, you have to load params calibrated for that light type). (I do rotation via RGA, so maybe you mean that? That's a separate HW block, not part of ISP.)

Jackim 4y ago

88MP camera? I don't know if phone cameras will ever get there. edit: wow, did not realise how far phone cameras had come!

fullstop 4y ago
There are quite a few phones available today which exceed that. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, Huawei Nova SE 9, realme 8 Pro, etc. The upcoming Moto X30 Pro has a 200 MP camera in it. edit: these are all rear cameras
- Jackim 4y ago
  Wow! Thanks for the info.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    Of course! It's bonkers how far phone cameras have come over the last few years.
    - ge96 4y ago
      But is it actually "good". Take a 40MP photo from a Lumia 1040 compare it with an A7R3 not really the same picture.
      - fullstop 4y ago
        A lot of the higher MP cameras are gimmicks. Lots of MP with a tiny sensor.
gabi32 4y ago
There are already phones with 108MP cameras [1], and my current ~200 EUR phone has a 64MP camera. [1]: https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/best-108mp-camera-phones/ https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/best-108mp-camera-phones/

fbanon 4y ago

Lol! You're pretty unhinged.

incomingpain 4y ago
I was well downvoted. Could you explain to me why I'm unhinged? I didn't feel like I had posted anything controversial or whatever.
- em-bee 4y ago
  having unrealistic expectations may be considered unhinged by some. we are still a bit far from having 3d scanners that fit on your pocket.
  - incomingpain 4y ago
    >having unrealistic expectations may be considered unhinged by some. I feel like I wasn't being unrealistic at all. solid state batteries exist today and can be bought. Obviously early in the commercialization but they do exist. Still unclear how safe they are. 88mp camera is less than what I can go buy from costco right now. 3d scanners totally fit in your pocket. I don't mean photogrammetry neither. The newer iphones have lidar that can scan. Newer androids have depth sensors or TOF sensors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r26OhSxBUXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r26OhSxBUXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UXeJWmEn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UXeJWmEn8
    - em-bee 4y ago
      interesting, i had no idea. thanks!
- fbanon 4y ago
  PinePhone couldn't even create a phone that can make voice calls properly like a Nokia 3310, yet you're envisioning them beating Apple (!) with rolling out some futuristic technologies.