Qualcomm IM SDK GStreamer Plugins

The QIM SDK encapsulates hardware complexity within a modular plugin architecture, freeing developers from the burden of managing low-level platform libraries or hardware-specific details that vary across Qualcomm chipsets and generations.

Each QIMSDK plugins in the SDK maps directly to a dedicated hardware accelerator — including video encode/decode, camera ISP, GPU, display, and AI/ML accelerators — giving developers a clean, unified API surface to build sophisticated multimedia and AI pipelines with minimal integration overhead.

Compilation Instructions

Download and install the toolchain

Follow the steps below to obtain the cross-compilation toolchain required to build this project.

1. Get the latest Nightly Build (wrynose) from the below link:

   https://github.com/qualcomm-linux/meta-qcom/actions/workflows/nightly-build.yml

2. Locate the "build-nightly / publish_summary summary" section within the workflow results.

3. Expand the "Download URLs Details" section to reveal the available build artifacts.

4. Under the qcom-distro-sdk distribution for the qcom-armv8a target, click on the "Files" link.

5. In the file list, use the "Type" filter to select .sh files, then download the following toolchain installer:

   qcom-distro-x86_64-qcom-multimedia-proprietary-image-armv8a-qcom-armv8a-toolchain-<version>.sh
   

6. Extract and install the toolchain.

   bash qcom-distro-x86_64-qcom-multimedia-proprietary-image-armv8a-qcom-armv8a-toolchain-*.sh -d <path_to_install_toolchain> -y
   

7. Source the cross-compilation toolchain environment.

   source <path_to_install_toolchain>/environment-setup-armv8a-qcom-linux
   

   Note: This environment must be sourced for every new shell session before building the project.

Download source code

Clone the source code from Github:

git clone https://github.com/qualcomm/qimsdk.git
cd qimsdk

Build the source code

1. Compile base libraries.

   cmake -B build-base -S . \
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr \
   -DENABLE_GST_PLUGIN_BASE=1 \
   && cmake --build build-base
   

2. Install base libraries to SDK sysroot path.

   DESTDIR="${SDKTARGETSYSROOT}" cmake --install build-base --prefix /usr
   

3. Compile plugins and sample apps with updated base libraries.

   cmake -B build -S . \
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr \
   -DENABLE_GST_IMSDK_PLUGINS=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_PLUGIN_MLTFLITE=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_PYTHON_EXAMPLES=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_SAMPLE_APPS=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_SAMPLE_APPS_CAMERA=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_PLUGIN_TOOLS=1 \
   -DENABLE_GST_CAMERA_PLUGINS=1 \
   -DENABLE_APP_BUILDER_CPP=1 \
   -DENABLE_APP_BUILDER_PYTHON=1 \
   && cmake --build build
   

Resources

• Qualcomm IM SDK Documentation

Development

Contributions are welcome! Please refer to the CONTRIBUTING.md file for full details on how to contribute to this project, including:

• Branching strategy
• Submitting a pull request

License

gst-plugins-imsdk is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause-Clear License. See LICENSE.txt for the full license text.