How to simulate ESP32 camera board?

Question

I couldn't find any ESP32 Camera board simulator online, even popular embedded systems simulator like wokwi didn't provide.

Perhaps you can tell me if there is any existing ESP32 Camera Board online.

The reason I asked this, because I'm so tired to debug embedded systems where I need to compiling and then uploading the program for small code changes.

My code base currently on C language where I'm using Espressif IoT Development Framework (FreeRTOS).

I ever heard that ESP32 Camera Board basically just a normal ESP32 but with reserved pinout for camera pins.

Here is the reserved pin map:

OV2640	ESP32	Variable name in code
D0	GPIO 5	Y2_GPIO_NUM
D1	GPIO 18	Y3_GPIO_NUM
D2	GPIO 19	Y4_GPIO_NUM
D3	GPIO 21	Y5_GPIO_NUM
D4	GPIO 36	Y6_GPIO_NUM
D5	GPIO 39	Y7_GPIO_NUM
D6	GPIO 34	Y8_GPIO_NUM
D7	GPIO 35	Y9_GPIO_NUM
XCLK	GPIO 0	XCLK_GPIO_NUM
PCLK	GPIO 22	PCLK_GPIO_NUM
VSYNC	GPIO 25	VSYNC_GPIO_NUM
HREF	GPIO 23	HREF_GPIO_NUM
SDA	GPIO 26	SIOD_GPIO_NUM
SCL	GPIO 27	SIOC_GPIO_NUM
POWER PIN	GPIO 32	PWDN_GPIO_NUM

Since there is no ESP32 Camera Board to simulate, i'm wondering if I can simulate based on those physical pin.

So, there are two esp32 board total, the first one act as esp32cam board, and the second one act as camera module where it virtually sending frame buffer to those reserved pin. Esp32 that act as camera module will get the framebuffer from wifi interface or IP.

Hence, I can code with existing esp32 camera pinout.

The overall diagram will be like this:

Framebuffer (IP) -> ESP32 (act as camera module) -> ESP32 (act as camera board) -> Printing Framebuffer

So, how do I achieve my goal?

Answer 1

OV2640 – Specs, Datasheets, Cameras, Features, Alternatives says for the OV2640 camera:

The sensor interface is DVP which standards for digital video port, a kind of parallel source synchronization camera interface with 8bit data, horizontal/vertical synchronization signal, and an associated pixel clock

The ESP32 Camera board uses a ESP32-S2. Looking at the ESP32-S2 Series Datasheet and ESP32S2 Technical Reference Manual the camera interface is receive only. E.g. the I2S0I_H_SYNC, I2S0I_V_SYNC and I2S0I_H_ENABLE signals are shown as input only in the DVP camera mode.

Therefore, can't see how one ESP32 Camera board can be configured to transmit a camera image to another ESP32 Camera board connected via the DVP camera interface.