Other Sensors, Higher Resolution

[BAStumm]

Are there currently or are there plans to support any higher resolution image sensors, maybe the OV10823 or other Omnivision sensors or even other manufacturers? My application could really use something higher than 5mp, ideally something around 40mp but even 8 or 10 is an improvement.

I have done *some* reading and understand support has to be in the broadcom chip, are there other sensors with built in support?

[jamesh]

apart from the Toshiba sensor in the Nokia 808 and the 1020 (?) I'm not aware of any 40MP sensors. They are also pretty expensive. I've got a Omnivision guy sitting next to me at the moment, the biggest they do is 23MP, and its is v. expensive compared to the current device.

I'm not aware of any different sensors currently being considered, but the 5647 is getting pretty old now. Might be time to think of another, but costings are very important so I doubt anything above 8MP-12MP which is the current 'standard' for phones. But as I said, I'm not aware of any intended changes.

[6by9]

They are also pretty expensive. I've got a Omnivision guy sitting next to me at the moment, the biggest they do is 23MP, and its is v. expensive compared to the current device.

He's just visited here too
That 23MPix job looks a nice sensor, but readout time is going to be painful over 2-lane CSI-2 - it's designed for 4-lane at 2Gb/s, or 8-lane at 1-Gb/s. You could do 4-lane @ 1Gb/s on the Compute Module, but that's still not enough.
Also, not a chance of the Pi ISP consuming that data fast enough (limited to about 200MPix/s)

I'm not aware of any different sensors currently being considered, but the 5647 is getting pretty old now. Might be time to think of another, but costings are very important so I doubt anything above 8MP-12MP which is the current 'standard' for phones. But as I said, I'm not aware of any intended changes.

That's up to Pi Towers to determine, and they will play their cards close to their chest until the product is ready for market.

[BAStumm]

This is an industrial application, I am already building a few proprietary boards (including a HAT) for use with the RPi. I can develop my own board for the image sensors but if I understand correctly, unless it is supported by the GPU it won't work no matter how hard I try. If this is true, how can one get a list of supported image sensors?

[6by9]

unless it is supported by the GPU it won't work no matter how hard I try.

Correct. Currently all control and data lines go back to the GPU.

If this is true, how can one get a list of supported image sensors?

For Raspberry Pi, it's not a very long list.

• Ominivision OV5647

The main issue is that for Bayer sensors you need to tune the ISP, and that is a big job (typically about 3 man-months to do a decent job). There are other sensors that Broadcom have written drivers for and tuned for other customers, but due to commercial reasons those can't be released on Pi.

For YUV or mono sensors there may be another option, but not yet.