CoaXPress MC258x Camera Manual
9
3
Hardware
3.1 CoaXPress
®
interface
CoaXPress
®
is a new high speed interface standard for digital machine vision components in-
cluding frame grabbers and cameras. CoaXPress
®
uses the GenICam standard for
host/camera communication.
Benefits of the new technology are
•
High transfer rates between camera and host up to 6.25 Gbps
•
Good scalability
•
By using the “electronically manual” of the GenICam
®
specification, CoaXPress
®
grants compatibility and interchangeability between different CoaXPress hard- and software
components
•
Connection between host and camera over (cheap) 75
Ω Coax cables
•
Max. Coax cable length can be influenced by selecting Link Speeds from 1.25 Gbps to
6.25 Gbps.
3.1.1 The GenICam standard
“The goal of GenICam is to provide a generic programming interface for all kinds of cameras.
No matter what interface technology the cameras are using or what features they are
implementing, the application programming interface (API) should be always the same
(GenICam Specification 1.0 ).”
Although CoaXPress do not support the full GenICam standard, it uses parts of the specifica-
tion to ease the interchangeability between different CoaXPress
®
compliant components. Eve-
ry camera must be provided with an 'electronically readable manual'. This manual can be read
and interpreted automatically by software components to control the features of a camera in a
generic way.
3.1.2 GenTL
GenTL is one part of the GenICam standard. It defines a hard- and software independent in-
terface that each CoaXPress
®
compliant frame grabber must support. One of the benefits that
GenTL offers to the user is a general and well defined interface to communicate with the cam-
era over the frame grabber hardware. So the user is not 'chained' to a software offered by the
frame grabber manufacturer. He can use the software of its choice select from all components
that supports the CoaXPress
®
and GenTL compliant interface.
