Under the so-called ‘G3 agreement’, EMVA cooperates with the leading machine vision associations in the development and dissemination of machine vision standards. Through this cooperation between A3 – Association For Advancing Automation (North America), CMVU – China Machine Vision Union, EMVA – European Machine Vision Association, JIIA – Japan Industrial Imaging Association and VDMA – German Mechanical and Plant Engineering Association, the members of all mentioned associations have access to the various technical working groups of standards hosted by any of the G3 organizations.
Global machine vision standards are critical to ensuring the furtherance of global free trade and the assurance of a level playing field for all competitors in the market, through the promotion of innovation coupled with wide interoperability within industry and between different product vendors.
To help achieve this aim, in 2009 the leading machine vision associations in Europe (EMVA), North America (A3), and Japan (JIIA) entered into a global cooperation agreement on machine vision standards, called the ‘G3 Cooperation’. The cooperation was further strengthened through the joining of the VDMA (Germany) in 2014 and the CMVU (China) in 2015. Continued cooperation is established through the G3 committee which consists equally of representatives from all five industry associations.
The purpose of the G3 agreement is to globally coordinate standardization activities in the machine vision industry, and so provide an overall benefit for the vision industry. The cooperation agreement enshrines the principles of openness, transparency, and consensus in standards development. Since it was implemented the G3 cooperation has proved highly successful, with participants from all associations meeting regularly throughout each year to work on the development of current standards and machine vision standardization topics.
Global promotion of all G3 machine vision standards be all associations at trade shows and conferences has ensured wide visibility and adoption of the G3 standards across the vision industry. Future developments in standardization are addressed through a dedicated working group known as the Future Standards Forum (FSF) which meets twice a year to provide an industry wide standards roadmap.
The machine vision standards community meet at the International Vision Standards Meeting held in both spring and fall each year, rotating across America, Europe, and Asia, and hosted by a different member company. During each week-long event, committees representing each of the standards discuss progress, road maps and collaboration.
G3 global machine vision standards are listed below with links to find further information. Each standard is hosted by one of the five participating associations and coordinated by dedicated working groups which consist of many experts from across the entire industry working in a collaborative and open approach to standards development. Please follow the links or contact standards@emva.org to learn more.
