Sharing webcam between guest and host OS

A method for sharing a USB camera between Virtual Machines (VMs) and a host, the method comprising:

• launching at least one Virtual Machine (VM) on a host OS;
• starting a Guest OS on the VM;
• launching a video-rendering application on the Guest OS;
• instantiating a video-rendering application on the host OS;
• activating a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) for providing interface between the VM and the USB camera;
• emulating the USB camera with a virtual driver on the Guest OS;
• instantiating a virtual USB bus on the Guest OS;
• sending a video request to a host standard video library from the virtual USB bus over the VMM;
• receiving video frames from a host frame library via the virtual USB bus under control of the VMM;
• providing the video frames to the virtual camera;
• and
• providing the video frames from the host frame library simultaneously to all virtual video cameras, and then passing the video frames to the rendering applications executed under the Guest OSs.

A system for sharing a USB camera between Virtual Machines (VM) and a host, the system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory coupled to the processor;
• a computer program logic stored in the memory and executed on the processor, the computer program logic for implementing the steps of:
• launching at least one Virtual Machine (VM) on a host OS;
• starting a Guest OS on the VM;
• launching a video-rendering application on the Guest OS;
• instantiating a video-rendering application on the host OS;
• activating a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) for providing interface between the VM and the USB camera;
• emulating the USB camera with a virtual driver on the Guest OS;
• instantiating a virtual USB bus on the Guest OS;
• sending a video request to a host standard video library from the virtual USB bus over the VMM;
• receiving video frames from a host frame library via the virtual USB bus under control of the VMM;
• providing the video frames to the virtual camera;
• and
• providing the video frames from the host frame library simultaneously to all virtual video cameras, and then passing the video frames to the rendering applications executed under the Guest OSs.