MAY 11--The official announcement of the GigE Vision standard was made at The Vision Show East in Boston on May 9 by the Automated Imaging Association (AIA; Ann Arbor, MI; www.machinevisiononline.org), the global trade group that oversees the ongoing development and administration of the standard. GigE Vision is a camera interface standard developed using the Gigabit Ethernet communication protocol. GigE Vision is the first standard to allow fast transfer (1000 Mbits/s) of data using low-cost standard cables over very long lengths (up to 100 m). Hardware and software from different vendors can interoperate seamlessly over GigE connections. The highly scalable interface will follow the growth of Ethernet bandwidth. As 10GigE becomes the mainstream protocol, GigE Vision will be the fastest connection in the industry.
''Using a standard interface allows component manufacturers to bring their products to market faster by eliminating the time-consuming steps of multivendor integration,'' said Jeffrey Fryman, AIA director of standards An industry-adopted standard means real cost savings for component manufacturers, freeing up funds for innovation in R&D, and makes entry into new markets easier. Additionally, the interface is plug-and-play, making it easy to use, a real benefit to end users, Fryman said.
Growth in GigE Vision camera sales is anticipated to be strong, according to Paul Kellett, AIA director of market analysis. ''GigE camera sales represented just 0.7% of the market in 2005, and we forecast that to grow to 26.4% (or $34 million) in 2010,'' said Kellett.
The standard was developed for the industry by a group of companies representing every sector of the vision industry. More information is available on the Web site of Machine Vision Online. Included will be a listing of compliant products, which will make it easy for users to not only find the product that best suits their application, but see the products that will easily interoperate with each other.
