Inside libcamera: Why an Open Source Camera Stack Matters for Embedded Vision

Anyone who has brought up a camera on an embedded Linux platform knows the pattern. Every SoC family has its own ISP, its own configuration tools, its own proprietary userspace. A camera pipeline that works on one platform rarely transfers to the next, and every migration means re-learning the stack from the kernel up.

That fragmentation is exactly what libcamera was created to address. At ImagingNext 2026, Stefan Klug, Lead Camera Architect at Ideas on Board, presents “Overview of libcamera and its Role in the Camera Ecosystem” – a session on the open source camera stack that gives Linux a common way to manage complex camera pipelines, and on the ecosystem forming around it.

About Stefan Klug

Stefan Klug is Lead Camera Architect at Ideas on Board Oy. He has been developing imaging and graphics related software for more than 20 years, with deep expertise in embedded cameras and ISPs, and spent 10 years in the machine vision industry as a developer, architect, and team lead. In 2024 he joined Ideas on Board to improve the fully open source camera stack libcamera and the surrounding ecosystem.

Why this matters for embedded vision teams

Camera support has long been the least portable layer of an embedded vision system. libcamera sits between the kernel drivers and the application, taking on the work that used to live in vendor-specific code: pipeline configuration, per-platform tuning, and control of the ISP. For product teams, that translates into questions with real project consequences – how much camera bring-up effort carries over when you change platforms, how dependent your roadmap is on a single vendor’s stack, and how you maintain camera code over a product lifecycle measured in years, not release cycles.

Klug speaks from inside the stack, not beside it. He has been developing imaging and graphics software for more than 20 years, including a decade in the machine vision industry as a developer, architect, and team lead, and he has deep expertise in embedded cameras and ISPs. In 2024 he joined Ideas on Board, the company at the heart of libcamera’s development, to improve the stack and the ecosystem around it.

What you’ll take away

• Where libcamera sits in the stack – what it takes over from vendor-specific code, and what stays in kernel drivers and the application.
• What adopting libcamera means for platform portability, vendor independence, and long-term maintenance of camera code.
• A realistic picture of the ecosystem today: what is production-ready, and where the gaps still are.