As mentioned in README.md the installation of vimbasrc consists of just two necessary files that
need to be placed in appropriate directories. The shared library containing the GStreamer element
must be findable by GStreamer. This can be achieved by defining the GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH and
placing the shared library file in that directory. Additionally the VimbaC shared library must be
loadable as it is used by the vimbasrc element. VimbaC is provided as part of the Vimba SDK.
Below are more details on the installation on Linux (more specifically Ubuntu) and Windows.
If the GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH variable is not defined, the default paths of the system wide
GStreamer installation, as well as the ~/.local/share/gstreamer-<GST_API_VERSION>/plugins
directory of the current user are searched. Installing the vimbasrc element is therefore simply a
matter of placing the compiled shared library into this search path and letting GStreamer load it.
As the shared library containing the vimbasrc element is dynamically linked, its linked
dependencies must be loadable. As GStreamer itself is likely installed system wide, the dependencies
on glib and GStreamer libraries should already be satisfied.
In order to satisfy the dependency on libVimbaC.so the shared library needs to be placed in an
appropriate entry of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. The exact method for this is a matter of preference and
distribution dependant. On Ubuntu systems one option would be to copy libVimbaC.so into
/usr/local/lib or to add the directory containing libVimbaC.so to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH by
adding an appropriate .conf file to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/.
Correct installation of libVimbaC.so can be checked, by searching for its file name in the output
of ldconfig -v (e.g.: ldconfig -v | grep libVimbaC.so). Alternatively correct loading of
dependent shared libraries can be checked with ldd (e.g. ldd libgstvimbasrc.so).
Adding the directory containing the compiled shared library file to the GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH is
the easiest way to install the vimbasrc element. Alternatively the file can be placed in the
GStreamer installation directory of the system. The installation directory was chosen during the
installation of the GStreamer runtime. The directory the plugin should be placed into is
<GSTREAMER_INSTALLATION_DIRECTORY>\1.0\msvc_x86_64\lib\gstreamer-1.0 on 64 bit systems.
In addition to the installation of GStreamer runtime and placing the vimbasrc shared library into
the GStreamer plugin search path, VimbaC needs to be loadable. This can be achieved by adding a
directory containing VimbaC.dll to your systems PATH variable. With a working Vimba installation
the directory %VIMBA_HOME%VimbaC\Bin\Win64 will contain VimbaC.dll for 64 bit systems.
More information on the environment variables used by GStreamer to determine directories which should be searched for elements can be found in the official documentation.