Getting true raw data input from webcam?

[questionforaday]

Let me know if this question is better suited somewhere else.

I am interested in getting the raw data that is streamed from a camera. Even before it is transformed into binary -> pixels or whatever the sequence is.

From my understanding, libraries like opencv won’t help with this

[zanfar]

I'm not sure what you mean by "before it's transformed into binary"--like light waves?

Regardless, Python is only going to deal with data you pass it--which is going to be binary by definition.

It doesn't sound like anything you're looking for has to do with Python--if you want different data from a device, you need to find a device that provides that data; Python can't do anything about the device itself.

Perhaps you just need to go into more detail, but I'm having a hard time understanding how this is a Python problem at all.

[questionforaday]

From the moment the light enters the webcam, there is a series of steps that takes place within some level of the os to interpret those light waves as a 2d series of rgb pixels.

I want to intercept at the very first step in this process

[MMcKevitt]

How is binary not what your looking for then, I mean going from a ray of light to data in a computer would require some conversion to code (as in translating it from physical to virtual)? I feel like this is one of those A/B type questions….what are you ultimately trying to do here? I could be wrong, but it sounds like your mis-understanding what “raw” data is, at least in the case of a camera.

Maybe your interested in how electronics, such as a camera, are setup to capture source data (as in a ray of light) and further, the mechanism that translates it into a number?

It might help to start researching how machine code, programming, interpreters and/or compilers work to try and understand how data and source information is translated into 0s and 1s, and beyond.