xref: /linux/Documentation/userspace-api/media/v4l/selection-api-intro.rst (revision 778b8ebe5192e7a7f00563a7456517dfa63e1d90)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GFDL-1.1-no-invariants-or-later
2.. c:namespace:: V4L
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5Introduction
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7
8Some video capture devices can sample a subsection of a picture and
9shrink or enlarge it to an image of arbitrary size. Next, the devices
10can insert the image into larger one. Some video output devices can crop
11part of an input image, scale it up or down and insert it at an
12arbitrary scan line and horizontal offset into a video signal. We call
13these abilities cropping, scaling and composing.
14
15On a video *capture* device the source is a video signal, and the
16cropping target determine the area actually sampled. The sink is an
17image stored in a memory buffer. The composing area specifies which part
18of the buffer is actually written to by the hardware.
19
20On a video *output* device the source is an image in a memory buffer,
21and the cropping target is a part of an image to be shown on a display.
22The sink is the display or the graphics screen. The application may
23select the part of display where the image should be displayed. The size
24and position of such a window is controlled by the compose target.
25
26Rectangles for all cropping and composing targets are defined even if
27the device does supports neither cropping nor composing. Their size and
28position will be fixed in such a case. If the device does not support
29scaling then the cropping and composing rectangles have the same size.
30