Portenta: How to configure for multiple Carrier boards and shields?

[KurtE]

Semi-simple question to ask, answer maybe not so simple...

For example, Portenta H7 and Cameras:

a) Suppose I have a Portenta Vision shield:

1. Version 1 has HM-01B0
2. Version 2 has HM-0360

b) Suppose I have a Mid Carrier: I can plug in any of the cameras with the Arducam pin out:
(GC2145, OV5640, OV2640, OV7670, OV7675, HM01b0, HM0360). Maybe default to GC2145.

c) Max carrier? I believe no H7 support for MIPI?

Note: the pinouts used are different between the Vision shield and the Mid Carrier.

So how should this be handled?
a) Define shields in Arduino?

Otherwise?
..

[KurtE]

@iabdalkader and all:

Still not sure what approach Arduino would like to take on supporting Cameras on the Portenta H7, when they can be
hooked up multiple ways. Like the Vision shield versus the Mid Carrier, and maybe some others.

Currently playing with the Portenta Vision Shield. I believe it is V1 with the HM01b0. So far I have not had a lot of luck
with this Shield (Zephyr, MBED) Although works well with OpenMV. On MBED, a majority of the time the camera
fails to initialize (Hit or Miss)...

I noticed earlier that the Clock pin is different on the breakout boards(A8) versus the Vision shield.(K1), but that both of
them were on the same timer... Looking at how OpenMV does it, I see:

#define OMV_CSI_CLK_SOURCE                  (OMV_CSI_CLK_SOURCE_TIM)
#define OMV_CSI_CLK_FREQUENCY               (12000000)
#define OMV_CSI_TIM                         (TIM1)
#define OMV_CSI_TIM_PIN                     (&omv_pin_K1_TIM1)
// Enable TIM1-CH1 on PA8 too for Portenta breakout.
#define OMV_CSI_TIM_EXT_PIN                 (&omv_pin_A8_TIM1)
...

And another file where both are defined:

OMV_GPIO_DEFINE(A, 8,  AF1,  TIM1)
...
OMV_GPIO_DEFINE(K, 1,  AF1,  TIM1)

And I know (from my excel document) AF1: TIM1_CH1

I was also wondering about the Reset pin...
Found some more hints here:

// GPIO.0 is connected to the sensor module reset pin on the Portenta
// breakout board and to the LDO's LDO_ENABLE pin on the Himax shield.
// The sensor probing process will detect the right reset or powerdown
// polarity, so it should be fine to enable it for both boards.
#define OMV_CSI_RESET_PIN                   (&omv_pin_C13_GPIO)
#define OMV_CSI_RESET_DELAY                 (100)
...
// GPIO.3 is connected to the powerdown pin on the Portenta breakout board,
// and to the STROBE pin on the Himax shield, however it's not actually
// used on the Himax shield and can be safely enable for the two boards.
#define OMV_CSI_POWER_PIN                   (&omv_pin_D5_GPIO)
#define OMV_CSI_POWER_DELAY                 (100)

I noticed that the delays in the MBED camera code are shorter:

int Camera::reset()
{
    // Reset sensor.
    #if defined(DCMI_RESET_PIN)
    digitalWrite(DCMI_RESET_PIN, LOW);
    HAL_Delay(10);

    digitalWrite(DCMI_RESET_PIN, HIGH);
    HAL_Delay(20);
    #endif
    return 0;
}

And I don't believe the powerdown pin is even defined in the library?

So again question is on Zephyr, should we define maybe multiple "shields" that are specific for each of the different
Arduino boards, probably with connector objects... Or for now, should we look into somewhat hacking it.
to configure both A8 and K1 for the clock?

Thanks
Kurt

[iabdalkader]

should we define maybe multiple "shields" that are specific for each of the different Arduino boards

I think that's the best approach. Each shield/carrier/breakout has its own pinout and Zephyr makes it easy to support these variants, so we should make use of it.

[KurtE]

Thanks, some of this gets sort of complicated. However I wonder about the amount of disk space that might require.

That is: my built version of stuff which includes the stuff in the varians\arduino_portenta_h7_arduino_portenta_h7_stm...
is about 66MB in size, plus the stuff in firmwares is about 13mb nearing 80mb..

So if we then have variants for:
No shield, 4 different Carrier boards plus 4 different shields that could start adding up.

Sanity check on sizes:
Did a quick check and looked at the latest Arduino Board page installed and I see I need to cleanup my copy from build
But still good size. Looks like variant is still about 66MB firmware is 7mb