Standardization is the key to the success of machine vision technology. Machine vision standards are commonly developed in the standard working groups and here by dedicated individuals. The EMVA interview series ‘Faces of Machine Vision Standards‘ introduces engineers having joined a standard working group and talk about their motivation to contribute and which experience they take out for their daily work.
EMVA recently spoke with GenICam working group member Stefan Battmer, Product Owner – Machine Vision APIs and Drivers at Balluff:
Why do you participate in the GenICam WG?
For me as a software developer by heart exchanging design ideas with a group of experts from all over the world was kind of a dream coming true. What could result in a better solution than something that has been approved by an international group of people facing similar or even the same challenges than yourself? As a result, to me it comes as no surprise, that GenICam and the various documents and standards that come with it have proven to be invaluable for both customers as well as device and software vendors since it greatly reduces integration and development time for all parties and allows to solve almost every problem today’s machine vision applications are facing.
Which GenICam parts do you intend to shape with your input?
Balluff (formerly MATRIX VISION) has been part of the GenICam working group since 2007. I joined the GenApi release team when GenApi became available on Linux based ARM platforms more than 10 years ago and since then I am a permanent member of the GenApi release team, providing the official ARM binaries to the community. Apart from that we also maintain the GenICam PFNC (Pixel Format Naming Convention) document. This work includes processing requests for new pixel formats, organizing discussions and votes on proposed changes. Right now, we focus on one of the more recent initiatives within the GenICam community which aims to specify a C-API specification that is supposed to overcome certain limitations of GenApi. Once resolved, this will allow to make even better use of the GenICam standard for technologies and platforms especially when dealing with systems having very limited resources.
How does your company benefit from your WG participation?
Meeting experts from the machine vision industry from all over the world and learning from them has proven to be a huge inspiration for my own work and the way we as a company approach today’s market demand. Before GenICam, for us as a machine vision camera supplier usually the integration of our devices into a third-party software package meant to develop some kind of adapter library/package. Nowadays with all the standards like GenICam and GenTL third party software usually almost instantly can use the full potential of our devices without the need for such a specific adapter, significantly reducing maintenance effort and the need for specific domain knowledge. Our customers also directly benefit from that since the robustness and overall user experience of these interfaces is excellent and comparing hardware between different vendors became a lot easier.
What was your biggest light bulb moment in the GenICam collaboration?
It’s hard to pinpoint the light bulb moment. In fact, there have been several such moments at every meeting I can remember. Plugfests for example are almost guaranteed to provide you with an eye opener on how to improve your product. Apart from that I see the face-to-face meetings as being crucial for the success of the standard, since a lot of important ideas came out of coffee breaks or over dinner when experts stuck their heads together.
