> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://dragonwingdocs.qualcomm.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Qualcomm® Intelligent Multimedia SDK

The Qualcomm® Intelligent Multimedia SDK (QIM SDK) is a comprehensive hardware-accelerated multimedia and AI framework built on GStreamer. It is designed for developers, solution integrators, and OEMs building intelligent vision, audio, and AI applications across IoT segments — including smart cameras, robotics, home appliances, drones, and AI inference appliances.

With QIM SDK, developers can rapidly compose and deploy single- or multi-stream AI and multimedia pipelines on Qualcomm® platforms. Pipelines have access to the full processing capacity of the SoC — including neural processing accelerators, video encode/decode, camera ISP, GPU, display, and audio DSP — without requiring deep knowledge of the underlying hardware or platform-specific libraries.

The SDK's plugin-based architecture abstracts hardware complexity entirely, enabling applications to run seamlessly across Qualcomm® chipset tiers and generations — accelerating time-to-market for a broad range of industries including smart retail, industrial automation, security surveillance, and connected devices.

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/qualcomm-prod/ZhwPHeig5GFrMRIg/SDKs/IMSDK/images/imsdk-hw-pipeline.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=ZhwPHeig5GFrMRIg&q=85&s=bf89d1a16985fd44dbccd3d06d8ddce6" alt="IMSDK HW pipeline" width="1794" height="491" data-path="SDKs/IMSDK/images/imsdk-hw-pipeline.png" />

## Recommended path for new developers

<Steps>
  <Step title="Setup the SDK">
    Get the QIM SDK installed on your Linux device<br />
    [Go to Installation](installation)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create your first AI pipeline">
    Create a simple Hello World style AI pipeline<br />
    [Go to Quickstart Guide](quickstart)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Understand the main components of an AI pipline">
    Learn to capture video and audio from a device, preprocess inputs, run AI inference, and interpret the results<br />
    [Go to Building AI Pipelines](qimsdk-overview/sdkoverview)
  </Step>

  <Step title="Explore features of QIM SDK">
    Browse sample pipelines and code, dive into advanced features and containerization, and reference the full plugin documentation<br />
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What do you want to do?

<Columns cols={2}>
  <Card title="Installation" icon="pen-to-square" href="/installation">
    Install QIM SDK on your Linux device.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Building AI pipelines" icon="palette" href="/qimsdk-overview/sdkoverview">
    Learn how to quickly build AI pipelines using the provided examples.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Plugin Documentation" icon="map" href="/plugin-reference/introduction">
    Reference documentation for all QIM SDK GStreamer plugins.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Release Notes" icon="note" href="/relnotes">
    View the latest release notes.
  </Card>
</Columns>

## Need inspiration?

<Card title="AI pipeline examples" icon="pipe-section" href="/sample-pipelines/aipipelines">
  View complete end-to-end pipeline examples you can leverage.
</Card>

<Card title="See code samples" icon="terminal" href="/sample-application/ai-sample-applications">
  Get started with Python, C++, and GStreamer code samples.
</Card>