Timely before the Vision show 2009 in Stuttgart, the new release 2.0 of the GenICam standard was launched on November 2nd, 2009. GenICam 2.0 includes many features enabling camera vendors to more easily provide GenICam support for their devices. This leads to greater interoperability between hardware and software products from different vendors.

The GenICam (Generic Interface for Cameras) standard is available since 2006 and allows developers to easily use and interchange a range of GenICam-compliant cameras, regardless of the interface and/or protocol technologies, using a compliant software application. "GenICam has been a huge success in the market. It delivers new camera features with minimal effort to the customer. The new version 2.0 greatly extends the XML syntax for the camera description file and thus the new GenICam becomes even more powerful," Dr. Friedrich Dierks, Chairman of the GenICam Standard Working Group said.

In detail, GenICam 2.0 provides numerous improvements and additional features regarding the three included modules:

- GenApi 2.0 - the XML description file format defining how to capture the features of a device and how to access and control the features of a camera in a standard way

- SFNC 1.3 - the common naming convention for camera features, which promotes interoperability between products from different, manufacturers

- GenTL 1.1 - the generic transport layer interface, between software drivers and libraries, that transports the image data from the camera to the application running on a PC

GenICam 2.0 ensures full backward compatibility with v1.0 cameras and allows easy migration from v1.0 to v2.0. The first products that are compliant with GenICam 2.0 are expected to be introduced in the first half of 2010.

The GenICam standard is hosted by the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA). Today, more than 70 companies from all over the world are part of this initiative.

More information about the GenICam 2.0 standard is available at www.genicam.org