SEPTEMBER 8--Today's digital cameras are packed with more functionality than just delivering an image. Processing the image and appending the results to the image data stream, controlling external hardware, and doing the real-time part of the application have become common tasks for machine-vision cameras. As a result, the programming interface for cameras has become more and more complex. The goal of the GenICam standard is to provide a generic programming interface for all kinds of cameras. No matter what interface technology (GigE Vision, Camera Link, 1394 DCAM) the cameras are using or what features they are implementing, the application programming interface (API) should be always the same.
The GenICam standard consists of multiple modules according to the tasks to be solved:
GenApi: configuring the camera
Features: recommended names and types for common features
Transport Layer: grabbing images
DataStream: interpreting additional data that might be appended to the image
The first version of the standard contains the GenApi module only, but the others will follow.
The GenICam standard group is hosted by the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA; www.genicam.com). Members include ATMEL, Basler, JAI A/S, MVTec, Stemmer Imaging, DALSA Coreco, Leutron Vision, National Instruments, Pleora Technologies, and TOSHIBA TELI. The group also provides GenICam reference implementation. The reference implementation (not part of the standard) comes with a BSD-like license and can be freely used by associated members of the GenICam group.