Show-me webcam USBBOOT: An open source, trustable and high quality webcam. No SD-card needed!

This project is a fork of showmewebcam with one goal: boot over USB instead of using an SD card.

Yes, no sd card needed. Just this tool usbboot/rpiboot.

Why this fork?

A Raspberry Pi Zero is around $5, and a clone V1 camera $3. An USB micro cable costs less then 1$.

This means you can have a good quality and very versatile webcam for less then $10.

An SD card is the most expensive item you need in the showmewebcam project. Cheaper ones than $7 are hard to find, and although I have more SD cards then Raspberry Pi's, I still feel that I'm always one short.

Booting without a SD card will save you the cost of an SD card. In case of a Raspberry Pi Zero with a clone V1 Camera, you'll save around 50%.

Of course you can also use a v2 Camera Board or the Raspberry HQ camera board for better quality. Highly recommended.

More fun

A Raspberry Pi is fun.
A Raspberry Pi Zero is more fun.
A Raspberry Pi Zero with a camera as a UVC Webcam is super fun.
A corrupt SD card is a nightmare. Using no SD card means one nightmare less. More time for fun. ;)

Easier in some ways

You can use the release to boot a Raspberry Pi Zero, a Zero W, or both from the same directory. No more hassle with SD cards.

Or you can boot two camera's from one directory. Just issue the command twice.

Less is more

What else to say. No SD card needed!

Give a disabled Raspberry Pi a new life

In my house lives a Raspberry Pi Zero with a broken SD card slot. Poor lad, couldn't do much. Feeling lonesome and useless. Breaking my heart.

With this project, that desperate Raspberry Pi Zero found a new purpose in life. It's looking me in the eye daily now. Yes we're smiling to each other constantly.

When to use?

In most cases the original showmewebcam with an SD card will be what you want. A highly fast-booting transportable webcam. Just plug your Pi with a camera in any computer and it will boot as a Webcam.

This fork needs a preinstalled/build rpiboot program. It also boots slower: around 30s.

Instructions:

Showmewebcam-usbboot needs the USBBOOT/rpiboot program.

• Download the latest release. Unpack it.
• Download and build usbboot/rpiboot
• Connect the Pi Zero with an USB connector in the middle USB port.
• sudo usbboot/rpiboot -d path/showmewebcam-usbboot

After ca 30 seconds the Webcam will be ready for use. You can check that with dmesg.

   sudo dmesg -w

   uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Piwebcam  (1d6b:0104)
   
   input: Piwebcam : UVC Camera as /devices/platform/scb/fd500000.pcie/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.3/1-1.3:2.0/input/input21
   cdc_acm 1-1.3:2.2: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

Quick start (with no other camera attached):

• mpv /dev/video0

Made with love, sweat and a lot of curses.

More info:

This firmware transforms your Raspberry Pi into a high quality webcam. It works reliably, boots quickly, and gets out of your way.

Wiki & Documentation | Discord Chat | Introduction video | Hackaday Project

Show-me webcam usbboot is also proudly powered by peterbay's uvc-gadget.

What you need

• Raspberry Pi Zero with or without Wifi
• Raspberry Pi Zero Camera Adapter/Ribbon (The one that comes with the camera may not fit)
• Raspberry Pi Camera or Raspberry Pi High-Quality Camera
• A compatible lens if you use the HQ Camera sensor
• Micro SD card (at least 64MB)
• A case or mounting plate (optional)

What works and what doesn't

• Here's a compatibility matrix as far as we could test. Let us know if you had the chance to test other variants:

OS \ Raspberry Pi	Zero	Zero W	RPI 4
Ubuntu 20.04	✓	✓
Ubuntu 20.10	✓	✓
Raspberry Pi OS	✓	✓
MacOS
Windows 10

Debugging

For debugging, a 115200 baud serial interface is provided as a ttyACM device:

• Use screen, minicom, picocom or the included smwc-expect script to connect to it
• Use username: root, password root

Also, there is a serial interface on the 40-pin header: https://pinout.xyz/pinout/uart

Linux example:

$ ls -l /dev/ttyACM*
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 166, 0 sep 25 14:03 /dev/ttyACM0
$ sudo screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200

Mac OS example:

$ ls -l /dev/tty.*
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel    9,  18 Dec  7 13:14 /dev/tty.usbmodem13103
$ screen /dev/tty.usbmodem13103 115200

If the terminal is blank try pressing enter to see the login prompt. To exit the session, use Ctrl-A \ (screen) or Ctrl-A X (minicom & picocom).

ATTENTION: This interface is not really helpful if the Raspberry Pi didn't boot fully, as the serial-over-USB interface only comes up when uvc-gadget starts.

Customizing camera settings

Automatic

Log in to the debug interface and execute:

/usr/bin/camera-ctl

This tool will allow you to show and tweak all available camera parameters.

Development & building

Clone or download this repository. Then inside it:

• Download the latest Buildroot stable from https://buildroot.org/download.html
• Extract it and rename it to buildroot
• Run build command (defaults to raspberrypi0 ):
  • ./build-showmewebcam.sh raspberrypi0w to build Raspberry Pi Zero W image.
  • ./build-showmewebcam.sh to build Raspberry Pi Zero (without Wifi) image.
  • IMPORTANT: If you didn't rename your Buildroot directory to buildroot or if you put it somewhere else you need to set the Buildroot path manually, e.g. BUILDROOT_DIR=../buildroot ./build-showmewebcam.sh raspberrypi0
• The resulting directory will be in the output/$BOARDNAME/images folder
• The only difference between the two builds is the device tree blob file. Both are provided in the release.

Credits

• Showmewebcam developers: https://github.com/showmewebcam/showmewebcam/
• David Hunt: https://www.davidhunt.ie/raspberry-pi-zero-with-pi-camera-as-usb-webcam/
• Petr Vavřín: uvc-gadget
• Buildroot
• ARM fever: https://armphibian.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/how-to-build-raspberry-pi-zero-w-buildroot-image/
• The repository icon is attributed to the GNOME project