[LeifCarrotson]

What's the market or use case for these camera drivers? It seems like the fancy direct-to-chip camera connections and driver development would be better aimed at sensor manufacturers, not hobbyists trying to build simple vision algorithms.

Why wouldn't you use the Ethernet port with a traditional GigE camera? I've also done some simple projects using an ordinary USB webcam.

I'm interested in this as a small form factor industrial computer. I've run Raspberry Pis and Intel NUCs in lots of manufacturing equipment where you need something that can run a few lines of Python and sit between the PLC and your device. Given this board's processing power, it might be interesting to plug into a little Dalsa or Basler camera and run a vision algorithm. You can already buy simple "vision sensors" from Keyence, Banner, Sick, etc. that integrate what I understand to be a simple ARM chip with the vision sensor and run basic vision algorithms, but they're often hamstrung by the tooling. The ability to perform and communicate results of arbitrary commands in applications where you don't need lots of processing power would be great.

What camera applications are people builidng that need 1.5 Gbps of camera data? I've built assembly lines that build several parts per second and never even come close to being limited by frame rate or network bandwidth.