Linux – How to get this proprietary low-vision camera working in Linux

cameradrivershardwarelinuxwindows

I am a visually impaired Computer Science student, and use a special USB camera to zoom in on the board/projector during lectures. The camera only officially supports Windows, and I've been using it for about 2 years. I really enjoy using Linux though, and this one aspect is really preventing me from switching completely (I have a dual boot setup currently with Ubuntu 14.04, and have to reboot for most lectures). I tried setting it up with VirtualBox with a Windows guest, and while the camera drivers and software install fine, the image is just black. I would love to be able to find some method of using it without rebooting, whether that be somehow getting the virtual machine to work, using another camera driver to interface with it as a webcam type device, or writing a new driver.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this to work?

The camera is a SmartView Graduate by HumanWare. I believe it's discontinued now, but here is the support page (with a link to the Windows software:
http://support.humanware.com/en-usa/support/smartview_graduate_support

P.S. Sorry if this is not quite in the scope of Unix/Linux, but I felt that it would be in the case that I'd need to write a driver.

I can also provide a .pcat file to load into Wireshark if it's helpful. I tried looking at the packets but really had no clue what to do with them.

EDIT:
I've uploaded the output of lsusb for the camera to pastebin at http://pastebin.com/8dieAAuk
Also, here's the output of dmesg:

[  720.831143] usb 2-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci
[  720.930297] usb 2-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=0b06, idProduct=a513
[  720.930309] usb 2-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=1, SerialNumber=2
[  720.930316] usb 2-1.1: Product: \xffffffcc\xffffff8c\xffffff8cSV Graduat

Best Answer

Being physically disabled, I understand how you feel. As such, I'm posting the info I find on your device:

VendorID = 0b06 = Athena / Advantage x7500 / Dopod U1000 / T-Mobile AMEO
ProductID = a513 = ??

a513 doesn't exist in any USB Database I could find, but I did find this post over at Reddit. I tend to agree that buying a newer supported product would solve the problem...

I found this list at the American Federation for the Blind

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