The first edition of the CoaXPress high speed digital interface standard for imaging applications has been approved by the Japan Industrial Imaging Association (JIIA) as a standard for public release.
Additionally, the AIA/EMVA CoaXPress Liaison Group, which consists of members from the AIA (Automated Imaging Association, USA) and the EMVA (European Machine Vision Association), have also given its approval, paving the way for global adoption in early 2011.
Representatives from both JIIA and AIA/EMVA groups voted on the standard and the results were released in December 2010, showing a total of 31 votes in favour, none opposed and 2 abstentions.
JIIA also launched a compliance test procedure to test and approve CoaXPress devices as officially compliant products. This compliance program will also manage permission to use the CoaXPress name and logo. Additional details of how this process will work will be announced in Q1 2011.
Following this successful ratification of the standard, the CoaXPress specification will now go through a three-month international appeal process, during which interested parties can comment on a wide range of technical and legal areas. The result of this process, which has been agreed upon by JIIA and the two other major industry organisations – the AIA and the EMVA – will be announced at Automate 2011 in Chicago, USA and will pave the way for CoaXPress to become an international standard.
'We are well on our way to making CoaXPress a global and widely adopted standard for high-speed digital image data transmission,' said Tadashi Miyazaki, chair of JIIA CoaXPress Working Group. 'The voting results demonstrate the universal approval for the technical validity of the approach, as well as the support for a next-generation method for enabling flexible, high-speed connectivity between the components of imaging systems, including multiple cameras, frame grabbers, and image processing systems.'
The successful ratification of the standard culminates a productive year that began with CoaXPress earning the Vision Award at Vision 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany. Since then, support for the standard has been widespread with more than 30 companies providing feedback on the specification development; an Adopters Group formed to investigate a variety of applications; and involvement from the AIA and EMVA through an active CoaXPress Liaison Group making it a global effort.
'I’d like to thank and congratulate the many people and organisations that contributed to helping us reach this milestone for CoaXPress,' commented Jochem Herrmann, chairman of the CoaXPress Consortium. 'I am pleased with the broad ranging support and input the specification has received, which confirms the industry demand for a solution of this type. We are also pleased to see the start of the product compliance process so the benefits of CoaXPress can quickly get into system developers hands.'
CoaXPress was originally developed by Adimec, Active Silicon, and Components Express using chip technology from EqcoLogic. It is a digital interface specification that allows the transmission of high speed data from a device, for example a camera, to a host such as a frame grabber in a PC, at a speed of up to 6.25Gbps over a single coax cable.
First products were demonstrated in Stuttgart, Germany at Vision 2009. These included cameras from Adimec, frame grabbers from Active Silicon and cables from Components Express.
The products and technology were well received and the CoaXPress Consortium won the Vision Award 2009 for innovative new technology. These products used an early version of the CoaXPress protocol referred to as CoaXPress-TD.
