VISION Press Lunch in Stuttgart on 8 November 2005

European Machine Vision Association


President:

Ga
briele Jansen


General Secretary:

Patrick Schwarzkopf


EMVA

c/o VDMA FV R+A

Lyoner Straße 18

60528 Frankfurt am Main

Germany


Phone

+49 69 66 03
-
15 02

Fax

+49 69 66 03
-
16 89

E
-
Mail

info@emva.org

Internet www.emva.org

Press Release













The spoken word shall apply!



VISION Press Lunch

in Stuttgart on 8 November 2005



Machine vision:

The market in Germany and Europe



Gabriele Jansen,


Vice
-
President Corporate Development,

ISRA Vision Systems AG, Darmstadt
,


President

European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), Frankfurt, Germ
a
ny.



Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to talk to you today about two standardisation projects
of the European Machine Vision Association, which will provide
great impetus in future

for additional machine vision applications
throughout the world. The projects in question are the EMVA 1288
Standard and the GenICam Standard. I will also give you a short
overview of the European Machine Vision Association and our
most important fields o
f work. Finally, I would like to say a few brief
words about the forthcoming 2006 European Machine Vision
Bus
i
ness Conference in Tampere, Finland.



Reference

Contact

Phone

Fax

e
-
mail




EMVA
-
08
-
11
-
2005

Patrick Schwarzkopf

+49 69 6603
-
1466

+49 69 6603
-
2466

schwarzkopf@emva.org



-

2

-

EMVA 1288 Standard: transparency for users

When looking for a suitable camera, machine vision customers do
not always find it easy to compare the products that are available
on the market. What is the best way to evaluate the pe
r
formance
characteristics specified by manufacturers, for example the signal
-
to
-
noise ratio, change gain or sensitivity? To date, a num
ber of
measuring methods producing different results have been used to
determine these very important parameters for customers.
Ho
w
ever, users depend on reliable information in order to be able
to estimate and evaluate the efficiency of a camera in the sys
tem.
In order to pr
o
vide assistance in this case, the EMVA has created
an industry standard, i.e. EMVA 1288, which gives users more
tran
s
parency to help them select the right product. The Standard
first defines the necessary measuring method in precise and

compr
e
hensible terms. This means that the results of the
measurements and, thus, the specified performance data are
clearly defined and can be co
m
pared. The 1288 Standard also
contains a uniform method for pr
e
senting the parameters. It
therefore becomes s
afer and easier for users to compare available
image recording sensors and ca
m
eras. The Standard has a
modular layout. The currently available “Release 1.0” covers the
parameters of “signal noise” and “sens
i
tivity”. Other modules will
define additional par
ameters such as colour measurements. The
first products to be characterised accor
d
ing to the 1288 Standard
will be presented at VISION 2005. The driving
-
forces behind the
Standard are the members of the 1288 Working Party, i.e. Adimec,
Asentics, Aspect, At
mel, Awaiba, Basler, Dalsa, IDS, JAI, PCO
Imaging, Sony, Stemmer
I
maging, TVI, Ruprecht Karls University
in Heidelberg and Karl von O
s
sietzky University in Oldenburg.
Martin Wäny, a member of the Executive Committee of the
European Machine Vision Associati
on and Chairman of the EMVA

-

3

-

1288 Working Party, will describe the Standard in detail a
f
ter this
press conference at 14.00 during the Industrial Vision Days.


The GenICam Standard: rapid integration of machine vision
cameras

Camera which are now used in mac
hine vision applications can be
configured in a relatively comparable manner. For this purpose,
certain parameters are read and stored in registers. The utilised
protocols, formats and register addresses differ, however, from
manufacturer to manufacturer.
The objective of the GenICam
Standard is ther
e
fore to provide a universal programming interface
which can be used irrespective of the camera manufacturer and
the utilised communication standard (for example Gigabit Ethernet,
Camera Link or FireWire). Thank
s to the GenICam Standard, the
user can easily access the camera functions. The centrepiece of
the GenICam Standard is the camera descriptor file in XML fo
r
mat,
which reproduces the camera functions in its registers. The new
Gigabit Ethernet Standard, whic
h is now available as a draft, is
based on the new GenICam Standard by prescribing the use of a
GenICam
-
compatible camera descriptor file. The advantages of
the new Standard are obvious: customers have greater flexibility in
selecting the right camera and
can integrate them much more
ea
s
ily in systems. Software manufacturers also benefit from the
Gen
I
Cam Standard since it reduces the number of drivers which
have to be provided with the software product. The market will be
e
x
tended for camera manufacturers b
ecause cleverer “smart
fe
a
tures” will be available in all large standard libraries. The active
members of the GenICam Working Party
–

Atmel, Basler, Dalsa
-
Coreco, Jai, Le
u
tron Vision, MVTec and Stemmer Imaging
–

have
already form
u
lated the configuration mo
dule and published it as
Draft Release 1.0. Another module will define the transport layer
and will be available in the middle of 2006. Dr. Friedrich Dierks,

-

4

-

Chairman of the EMVA GenICam Working Party, will describe the
Standard in detail after this press
conference at 14.00 during the
Industrial V
i
sion Days.


EMVA in short

I would now like to say a few words about the European Machine
Vision Association. Founded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the EMVA
has grown very quickly and now numbers 63 members from 18
co
untries: 56 machine vision companies, 5 national associations
and 2 research institutes. The EMVA cooperates closely with
Messe Stuttgart and is the official partner of the VISION trade fair.
For further information, please visit:
www.emva.org
.


In addition to our website, important work areas include our
monthly e
-
mail newsletter, press and PR activities, market data
and statistics, representation of the interests of the machine vision
industry in Europe, standardisatio
n and networking events.


2006 European Machine Vision Business Conference

In conclusion, I would like to mention the next European M
a
chine
Vision Business Conference which will be held in Tampere, the
high
-
tech centre of Finland, on 30 June and 1 July 200
6. This
lea
d
ing event for the machine vision industry is expected to attract
more than 100 d
e
legates
–

decision
-
makers and industry experts
from all over the world.


Thank you very much for your attention
.