libwebcam

The Webcam Library libwebcam is designed to simplify the development of webcam applications, primarily on Linux but with an option to be ported to other platforms, in particular Solaris. It realizes part of what the unwritten Video4Linux user space library was always supposed to be: an easy to use library that shields its users from many of the difficulties and problems of using the V4L2 API directly.

Today libwebcam provides the following core features:

• Enumeration of all cameras available in the system.
• Provide detailed information about the detected devices and their controls.
• Wrapper for the V4L2 frame format enumeration.
• Convenient access to device controls.
• Support for configuring the Linux UVC driver's dynamic controls (extension unit controls).

License

libwebcam is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

uvcdynctrl is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Download

libwebcam and uvcdynctrl

Updated 2010-01-20: The latest versions are libwebcam 0.2.0-pre and uvcdynctrl 0.3-pre. Until source and binary packages are available you can get the latest code from the new and restructured Subversion repository:

http://svn.quickcamteam.net/svn/qct/webcam-tools/trunk/

Please refer to the included README files to find out what's new and for instructions on how to build and install the software. Less experienced users may also want to take a look at the following step-by-step instructions:

How to install the Webcam Tools (libwebcam, uvcdynctrl)

Note that the previously available libwebcam 0.1.1 is not compatible with current revisions of the UVC driver. Users are advised to use the latest source code instead.

Dynamic controls configuration file

The latest version can also be found in the Subversion repository. It can be downloaded directly from here:

http://svn.quickcamteam.net/svn/qct/webcam-tools/trunk/uvcdynctrl/data/046d/logitech.xml

The current version is 0.17. Details can be found in the change log or in the XML file itself.

Documentation

libwebcam comes with extensive API documentation, which is generated with the help of Doxygen.

We also have a list of past changes and planned features.

Questions and feedback