Genicam - Smartek UCC User Manual

1.2.3 GenICam

GenICam (Generic Interface for Cameras) is a generic
programming interface for machine vision cameras. The
goal of the standard is to decouple industrial camera
interface technology (such as GigE Vision, Camera Link,
USB or FireWire) from the user application programming interface (API). GenICam is administered by the
European Machine Vision Association (EMVA).
GenICam consists of three modules to help solve the main tasks in machine vision field in a generic
way. These modules are:
GenApi - configures the camera and details how to access and control cameras by using an XML
description file.
Standard Feature Naming Convention (SFNC) - are the recommended names and types for common
features in cameras to promote interoperability
GenTL - is the transport layer interface for enumerating cameras, grabbing images from the camera,
and moving them to the user application.
GenICam provides supports for five basic functions:
Configuring the camera - supports a range of camera features such as frame size, acquisition speed,
pixel format, gain, image offset, etc.
Grabbing images - creates access channels between the camera and the user interface and initiates
receiving images.
Graphical user interface - enables user GUI interface to seamlessly talk to the camera(s).
Transmitting extra data - enables cameras to send extra data on top of the image data. Typical
examples could be histogram information, time stamp, area of interest in the frame, etc.
Delivering events - enables cameras to talk to the application through an event channel
Standard Features Naming Convention (SFNC)
SFNC provides the definitions of standard use cases and standard features. The goal is to cover and to
standardize the naming convention used in all those basic use cases where the implementation by different
vendors would be very similar anyway. The GenICam technology allows exposing arbitrary features of a
camera through a unified API and GUI. Each feature can be defined in an abstract manner by its name,
interface type, unit of measurement and behavior. The GenApi module of the GenICam standard defines
how to write a camera description file that describes a specific camera's mapping.
For detailed information about this convention visit www.emva.org.
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