The publication of GenICam modules 1.2 and GenTL 1.1 (planned for autumn 2009) was under discussion at the 2009 GenICam and GigE Vision Technical Meeting, which took place in Munich, Germany from 21-24 April. The event, hosted by Munich software manufacturer MVTec Software, hosted 26 participants from 17 companies and organisations. Also discussed was expanding the GigE Vision standard in such a way that non-streaming devices can be addressed.
The aim of the standards is to clearly ease and unify the image acquisition as well as the configuration of industry cameras. 'This is highly desirable for users as well as manufacturers,' said Christoph Zierl, MVTec's product manager and organiser of the meeting.
Currently, camera manufacturers provide proprietary programming interfaces for parameterisation and image acquisition. However, the GenICam standard enables to control the complete functionality of any camera via a common generic programming interface. Meanwhile, this standard has become popular, because it is mandatory for all cameras and applications compatible with the established GigE Vision standard.
The GenICam GenTL standard defines a software interface between a GenICam GenTL Producer and a GenICam GenTL Consumer. Therefore, any camera may be chosen for machine vision applications without the need of programming specific adaptations and it doesn't matter whether the camera is connected via Gigabit Ethernet, USB, IEEE 1394, or Camera Link. Thereby, the comprehensive GenICam Standard Feature Naming Convention cares for a unique naming of the available camera parameters.
