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Call for Participation New Camera API Working Group

EMVA and Khronos Issue Call for Participation for New Camera API Working Group
Strong industry consensus to develop an open, cross-vendor API standard for portable control over camera systems in multiple markets

Barcelona, Spain / Beaverton, OR, USA; 20 January, 2022. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), the leading European industry association dedicated to vision technology, announces the formation of a new Working Group together with the Khronos® Group, an open consortium of industry-leading companies creating advanced interoperability standards, to develop an open, royalty-free API standard for controlling camera system runtimes in embedded, mobile, industrial, XR, automotive, and scientific markets. The Working Group will be hosted by the Khronos Group and is the result of an EMVA/Khronos-hosted Exploratory Group, held in 2021, during which over 70 companies participated to develop a Scope of Work document that will guide the direction of the API design. Design work of the Working Group is expected to start in February 2022, and any organization is invited to join to participate.

The background to form this Working Group is that cameras are increasingly critical in diverse industries, motivating the development of increasingly sophisticated optical systems, image sensors and vision processors often utilizing machine learning technology. However, the lack of interoperable camera API standards increases application development time and maintenance costs while reducing portability and opportunity for code reuse, resulting in unnecessarily high integration costs for camera technologies. The new Camera API will be designed to provide applications, libraries and frameworks low-level, explicit control over camera runtimes, with a low-level of abstraction that still provides application portability over a wide variety of camera systems with effective, performant control to generate streams of data for consumption by downstream applications and clients.

“The close and productive collaboration between the EMVA and Khronos has been very effective in enabling broader industry participation and diversity of perspectives at the Embedded Camera Exploratory Group than either organization could have achieved working alone,” said Chris Yates, EMVA president. “EMVA will continue our collaboration with Khronos under a new liaison agreement to ensure that the interests of both the EMVA membership and the wider industry are represented at the new Camera API working group.”

“The Embedded Camera API Exploratory Group followed the Khronos New Initiative Process with invaluable cooperation from the EMVA. Over seventy companies worked together from March to December 2021 to forge strong industry consensus on the need, terminology, scope, requirements and design methodology for a new open standard camera system API,” said Neil Trevett, Khronos president. “Now, we warmly invite any interested companies, vendors and developers to bring their voice and their expertise to the design phase of this important work.”

The Camera API Working Group will start meetings in February 2022 and is expected to be of particular interest to sensor or camera manufacturers, silicon vendors, and software developers working on vision and sensor processing. Any organization is welcome to join Khronos and participate in this global initiative under the consortium’s multi-company governance process. More details can be found on the Khronos membership page or through contacting Khronos Membership Services.

Industry Support for the Camera API Working
Over 70 companies participated in the Camera Exploratory group and the following companies support establishing the Camera API Working Group: Adimec, Almalence Inc., Analog Devices Inc., Basler AG, Baumer Optronic GmbH, Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Collabora, Digica, Digital Air Technologies, Euresys, European Machine Vision Association, FLIR Integrated Imaging Solutions, Google, Groget, Holochip Corporation, Ideas on Board Oy, LunarG, Inc., MATRIX VISION, MM Solutions, MVTec Software GmbH, NVIDIA, Perey Research & Consulting, Phil-Vision, Pleora Technologies, Raspberry PI Ltd, STEMMER IMAGING, Texas Instruments, VeriSilicon, Vision Components.

<Quotes from any Khronos, EMVA and Exploratory Group Members>
“The generic camera API will help Adimec to focus on our mission to deliver the right image in the right place at the right time, so our customers can focus on their imaging tasks. That is what we call ‘Excellence in Imaging’,” – The Adimec Team.

“Lack of API standards for advanced use of embedded cameras and sensors is an impediment to industry growth, collaboration and innovation. Enterprise AR customers and systems integrators/value added providers will benefit from greater clarity, open interfaces between modular systems and innovation in the component provider ecosystem. This Khronos standard for camera and sensor control will increase opportunities for powerful new combinations of sensor and AR compute resources, integration with existing IT, and lower cost and complexity of future solutions,” Christine Perey, interoperability and standards program leader for the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance (AREA).

“Open interface standards such as GenICam or GigE Vision have been a key element to establish a professional Machine Vision Market. Only by such standards we can ensure the interoperability of products from different vendors. It helped to shorten the development cycles of customers dramatically and also yields in a faster growing market. Therefore we strongly support the new open standard camera API initiative driven by Khronos and the EMVA,” Arndt Bake, CDO, Basler AG.

“Over the past two decades, digital cameras used in embedded applications have changed dramatically. As video capture quality and processing power have increased, so has the potential for enhanced features which were unimaginable in early camera phones. The proliferation of features has resulted in a corresponding plethora of software support. The Embedded Camera Exploratory Group has laid the foundations for a consistent and extensible API to resolve this complexity; Digica is pleased to have contributed to this project and welcomes the development of the API under the new Working Group,” Jim Carroll, CTO, Digica.

“Due to high fragmentation and lack of standardization, the embedded camera space is subject to painful interoperability issues. Adding camera support in a product is complex and expensive, most often subject to vendor lock-in, when not practically impossible for small actors. Ideas on Board launched the libcamera project three years ago to address these issues in the Linux mobile, embedded and desktop ecosystems. We have contributed our experience to the Khronos Camera Exploratory Group, and are looking forward to continuing collaboration with the industry on a new open standard camera API,” said Laurent Pinchart, CEO, Ideas on Board, and lead architect of the libcamera® project.

“Cameras are everywhere and in everything, the market and applications have exploded in the last ten years. But a cohesive set of standard APIs has been slow to emerge making incompatibility challenging. Khronos, in conjunction with the European Machine Vision Association, is going to correct that and has formed this Working Group to develop an open API for cameras. This will be welcome news to industry participants and users alike,” said Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research.

“Existing standards, like GigE Vision and USB3 Vision, have proven that a standardization of software interfaces is beneficial for manufacturers and users. We believe that, in the rapidly changing world, Embedded Vision is significantly shaping the future of machine vision. A complementary standard for the embedded camera API is therefore important, and it makes camera control more reliable, hardware selection more flexible and shortens users’ time-to-market,” said Tilman Sanitz, head of embedded systems, Matrix Vision.

“A widely supported open standard camera API will spur innovation and reduce integration costs in multiple markets that use advanced sensors. NVIDIA has supported the work of the Exploratory Group and is committed to participating in the design work at this new Camera Working Group,” Sean Pieper, director of imaging software, NVIDIA.

“With the strong growth of camera applications in automotive, IoT, AR/VR devices, wearables and smartphones, there has been a strong demand for a standardized camera API in the industry. The standardized camera API that the Khronos group is working on will help facilitate the deployment of new cameras by reducing porting efforts, simplifying the procedures of camera upgrades, and improving the interoperability among various camera devices. This camera API standardization effort is very meaningful and will be highly influential to the related industry. We would like to see this standard API to be deployed soon,” said Weijin Dai, EVP, VeriSilicon.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

About Khronos

The Khronos Group is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of over 180 industry-leading companies creating advanced, royalty-free, interoperability standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, parallel programming, vision acceleration and machine learning. Khronos activities include 3D Commerce™, ANARI™, glTF™, NNEF™, OpenCL™, OpenGL®, OpenGL® ES, OpenVG™, OpenVX™, OpenXR™, SPIR-V™, SYCL™, Vulkan®, and WebGL™. Khronos members drive the development and evolution of Khronos specifications and are able to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. www.khronos.org.
Khronos Group Press Contact:
Caster Communications Inc.; Khronos@castercomm.com

 

EMVA Young Professional Award 2022 – Call for Application

It is the goal of the European Machine Vision Association to support further innovation in our industry, to contribute to the important aspect of dedicated machine vision education, and to provide a bridge between research and industry. The EMVA Young Professional Award is an annual award endowed with 1500 Euros to honor the outstanding and innovative work of a student or a young professional in the field of machine vision or image processing.

Applicants for the EMVA Young Professional Award are hereby invited to submit their work. Among all papers the EMVA Board of Directors, representing the European Machine Vision Industry, will select the winner of the award. The criteria of the works to be presented are:

  • Outstanding or innovative work in the field of vision technology. Industrial relevance and collaboration with a company during the work is required. The targeted industry is free of choice.
  • The work (master thesis or PHD thesis or equivalent level research) must have been undertaken within the last 18 months at, or in collaboration with, a European institution. Meanwhile the student may have entered the professional field.

Applicants may submit the following materials to the EMVA President, Dr Chris Yates, at ypa@emva.org latest until March 31st, 2022:

  • A two-page abstract summarizing the innovation and the intended commercial benefit.
  • A one-page CV.
  • A copy of the master thesis or PhD thesis. If not yet finished or under publication restrictions, please provide at least one accepted publication.

With the award, the EMVA would like to specifically encourage students and young scientists to focus on challenges in the field of machine vision and to apply latest research results and findings in computer vision to the practical needs of our industry.

The winner of the award will be announced at the flagship 20th EMVA Business Conference 2022 taking place May 12th – 14th in Brussels, Belgium, and will have the opportunity to present the awarded work to the machine vision industry leaders from Europe and abroad. The presentation may then be published by the international machine vision press. In addition to the honor of the EMVA Young Professional Award endowed with 1500 Euros and the publicity for the research work is a free conference pass for the EMVA Business Conference as well as the coverage of all travel cost to Brussels and a free pass for the 2022 European Machine Vision Forum in Ireland.

More information at www.emva.org/ypa2022.

 

 

About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

New Location for EMVA Business Conference 2022

EMVA Business Conference 2022 takes place in Brussels

  • Location change due to low vaccination rate in former host country
  • Early Bird-Registration is open

Barcelona, 26 November, 2021. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) recently announced that the next EMVA Business Conference 2022 will take place from 12 – 14 May 2022 in Brussels/Belgium. Considering the low vaccination rates in Bulgaria the originally planned destination Sofia has been changed to capital of the Belgium Kingdom.

Brussels as a center of European politics provides the appropriate infrastructure to plan and execute an international conference in challenging times where at the same time everyone longs for personal encounters.

The conference program will address up-to-date technical topics as well as relevant management, marketing and/or leadership issues. Use cases and a panel discussion will give further interesting insights. Last but surely not least, the conference will provide plenty of excellent networking opportunities during the evening events or by means of pre-scheduled face-to-face meetings in the conference break-out sessions.

Registration for this pivotal conference event in the machine vision industry taking place in Belgium next year is now open at reduced EARLY BIRD conference fees. More information is available at www.business-conference-emva.org.

 

About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

New Release 4.0 of EMVA 1288 Standard for Camera Characterization in Effect

Barcelona, 21 June, 2021. The EMVA today announced that the new release 4.0 of the EMVA 1288 Standard for objective characterization of industrial cameras, which is successfully used worldwide, has become effective. The release takes into account the rapid development of camera and image sensor technology. The documents of the standard are published here. The EMVA 1288 standard, hosted by EMVA, is part of the global G3 standardization initiative in which the five leading machine vision organizations A3, CMVU, EMVA, JIIA, and VDMA cooperate.

Until the previous Release 3.1 dated back December 2016, the application of the EMVA 1288 standard with a simple linear model was limited to cameras with a linear response and without any pre-processing. While this model is being continued with some improvements in the ’Release 4.0 Linear’, a new module ‘Release 4.0 General’ has been added in the latest release. With it, the characterization of a non-linear camera or a camera with unknown pre-processing is possible even without any model due to the universal system-theoretical approach of the EMVA 1288 standard. Just as with the linear camera model, all application-related quality parameters can be measured in this way. With both modules “Linear” and “General” the same measurements are performed. Depending on the camera characteristics, the proper evaluation either according to the linear or general model is applied.

In addition, Release 4.0 includes numerous expansions to characterize the latest generation of image sensors and cameras according to the application. The most important of these are:

  • Extended wavelength range from UV to SWIR range.
  • Raw data of any given image acquisition modality can now be characterized according to the standard.
  • The versatile and universal analysis tools of the EMVA 1288 standard can also be applied to quantities calculated and derived from multiple channels. For polarization image sensors, these are, for example, the degree of polarization and the polarization angle.
  • Inhomogeneities are measured in detail and now decomposed into column, row, and pixel variations. They can now be determined with a new method at all intensity levels from just two captured images.
  • Optionally, cameras with optics or with illumination as given by the position of the exit pupil of the optics for which the image sensor was designed can be measured according to the standard. Thus, the standard is now also suitable for image sensors with pixels shifted towards the edge.
  • A more suitable measure for the linearity of the characteristic curve is introduced.

Along with the new version of the standard, the EMVA has prepared an extensive training program. Two- or three-day training programs for the new Release 4.0 will be held regularly in near future in cooperation with EMVA member companies. The new training program will also continue the successfully introduced certification program at expert level. This is intended for anyone who wants to acquire the necessary knowledge to perform EMVA 1288 measurements themselves and understand the measurement results in detail, whether in the development of new cameras, in quality control, or to understand exactly how a camera behaves for a specific application.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

Review: EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021

Key Takeaways and Conference Attendees’ Feedback
Next physical 20th EMVA Business Conference to take place 12-14 May, 2022

 

Barcelona, 18 June, 2021. With a participation of 135 participants from 23 nations the 19th EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 took place online last week. A total of 20 speeches, two fireside chats and two CEO/Management panel discussions covered virtually all current actual economic and technical topics that the machine vision world currently deals with. During the individual B2B sessions about 90 virtual bilateral video meetings were arranged between conference attendees before and after the conference program in the afternoons.

Positive Feedback to Online Format
In their feedback almost 95 percent of participants appreciated the EMVA’s decision to offer the conference in online format instead of cancel it. Here’s a few of the personal comments given about the conference:

“The best thing you can do to learn and be inspired by the innovative trends in the world of machine vision in a very condensed way.”
“As always excellent organization, great job everybody, especially in such difficult times!”
“Again although strange not to be face to face the EMVA did not disappoint with the organization of the event.”
“Thank you for putting on a great event and adjusting the timing to accommodate North American attendees.”

Key Takeaways
The top-class panel on the second conference day discussed the current status of Industry 4.0 and stated the term Industry 4.0 has already become a standard itself with AI and machine vision as core components such as in generating digital twins. However, industrial business models are often not as disruptive as in the end consumer business e.g. where the smartphone triggered a paradigm shift; but would rather put effort into improving business models instead of new business models. According to the panelists more data also requires increasing use of AI and digitalization automatically contributes to decarbonization. Vison as it was stated can provide the right data at the right time to make the right decision in Industry 4.0.
AI being a megatrend in the machine vision industry was present in various technical parts of the conference sessions. The keynote on the second day given by IBM Benelux CTO Wouter Denayer reflected on the current developments pledged to change the fundamental structure of neural networks towards Neural Symbolic AI Systems. Simply making networks bigger would not help in future and the increase in accuracy for training AI is no longer equivalent to the amount of energy input and pollution which makes carbon footprint of AI unjustifiable. Or as EMVA President Chris Yates put in his conference wrap-up: “With great power comes great responsibility”.
This conference also provided room to put early-stage innovators in the focus: No less than six companies in the initial or post star-up stage presented their innovations which circled around the big topic AI and Deep Learning focusing on logistics and complex inspection tasks on the factory floor. Other new approaches were presented in the area of feature-based and variable density 3D scanning; contactless traceability of items with a digital image; and combining brain and AI into an innovative decision-making system.
The CEO Panel Discussion on the pandemic impacts for the machine vision industry found that vision tech overall coped fairly well in the crisis due to its vertical market focus. Business expectations of the company leaders from Stemmer Imaging, Basler and Tiama Inspection were even that pre-pandemic business level can be achieved again within the current year 2021. One obstacle, however, could be the lasting material shortage which affects virtually all components. In addition, Covid-19 taught that more elements of value generation need to move closer to the customer in all regions of business activity enabling to react on-site. The crisis was a big push for remote maintenance and webinar business meetings saving travel costs, which will keep physical meetings lower even when restrictions are lifted.
In another presentation the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) announced the launch of the first industry association led Photonics index. The basket is composed of 65 public listed companies, quite a number of them from the machine vision world. The index is an excellent opportunity to reach out to the investors’ community.
Messe Stuttgart then gave an inside in how the trade show organizer suffered in the pandemic. Most important for the machine vision industry, Messe Stuttgart asked for some more patience regarding the final decision if VISION 2021 will take place as currently the stakeholders are interviewed; with so far rather good industry sentiment but mixed company feedback when it comes to exhibit.
The session on hyperspectral imaging summarized that HSI technology is scaling up quickly in the market as it has become easier to use and more affordable. It was pointed out that with hyperspectral imaging an additional layer of information regarding the nature and consistency of an object.
Machine vision in China was in the focus of the second fireside chat. Electronics and Semiconductor are the largest industrial user sectors of machine vision in China, according to CMVU president Isabel Yang. The country experiences a huge 30 percent increase in business after the crisis, mainly pushed by a rising level of automation. 3D imaging finds a lot of attention which led to the formation of a 3D standard group. Also IR imaging gains attention.

The next physical 20th EMVA Business Conference will take place 12-14 May 2022 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

Two CEO and Management Panel Discussions at EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021

Top Level Industry Manager Discuss Covid-19 Effects and State of Industry 4.0

Barcelona, 02 June, 2021. The two panel discussions on each of the conference days of the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 from June 10-11 could be headlined ‘Industry Leaders Share Their Thoughts’. Both panels will be seated with top level industry managers who give their position on topics that currently drive the entire industry.

‘What has changed through COVID in our Industry? What will stay?’
The Panel Discussion on the first conference day June 10th has no less than three CEOs of European players on the virtual stage who will discuss the impact and opportunities of machine vision in a pandemic. The panelists are Arne Dehn, CEO at Stemmer Imaging; Dr. Dietmar Ley, CEO at Basler; and Max Hodeau, CEO at TIAMA Inspection. The panel will be moderated by inVision Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Peter Ebert who will address aspects such as the rise of remote working; the shortage in supply of semiconductor chips; the future role of virtual and physical trade shows and new ways of lead generation; as well as a business outlook for the machine vision sector over the next few years.

Panelists from left to right: Arne Dehn, Stemmer Imaging; Dr. Dietmar Ley, Basler; Max Hodeau, TIAMA Inspection; Moderator Dr. Peter Ebert inVision Magazine.

 

‘Industry 4.0: Emerging from the Early Years’ on Friday June 11
Industry 4.0 has long evolved from an empty marketing buzzword to the next logic step in industrial automation. Digitalization has even accelerated in the Corona pandemic, according to experts. In the panel discussion on the second day of the EBC Special Edition 2021 three deep insiders and CEOs discuss the current status of Industry 4.0. The experts are Dr. Gunther Kegel, CEO at Pepperl+Fuchs, President of ZVEI; Dr. Roman Dumitrescu, Director Fraunhofer IEM, MD of cluster ‘it’s OWL’; and Dr. Thomas Scheiter, Head of Technology Field ‘IoT’ at Siemens. The panelists will be talking about the challenges and opportunities in capturing, accessing, and aggregating data as Industry 4.0 matures; the role of AI evolving within Industry 4.0 and how companies can maintain or extend their competence; approaches do you see that may be indicative of a future market structure; and areas of innovation they see having the potential to most disrupt or shape our future in industry. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, Head of Zeiss Inline Inspection & Metrology and member of the EMVA Board of Directors.

Panelists from left to right: Dr. Gunther Kegel, Pepperl+Fuchs / ZVEI; Dr. Roman Dumitrescu, Fraunhofer / ‘it’s OWL’; Dr. Thomas Scheiter, Siemens; Moderator: Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, Zeiss

More information on the full program of the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 and how to register can be found at http://www.business-conference-emva.org/.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

EMVA General Assembly Elects New Board of Directors

Tribute to Gabriele Jansen after two decades of engagement

Barcelona, 01 June, 2021. The General Assembly of the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions taking place in an online format June 1st, 2021, has elected the new EMVA Board of Directors. For the upcoming three-year term, the new board consists of nine members, namely

  • Arnaud Destruels, Sony Europe B.V (Image Sensing Solutions)
  • Arndt Bake, Basler
  • Prof. Dr. Bernd Jähne, Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing of Heidelberg University
  • Dr. Chris Yates, Vision Ventures
  • Dr. Christoph Garbe, HD Vision Systems
  • Dr. Dirk Berndt, Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF
  • Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, ZEISS Inline Inspection & Metrology
  • Dr. Marco Diani, iMAGE S
  • Dr. Ronald Mueller, Vision Markets

The new elected Board of Directors will have its constituent in-person meeting as soon as possible and by then vote on the roles of EMVA President; Vice President and Treasurer amongst its members.

In a series of emotional farewell video statements many leaders of machine vision players gave their tribute to Gabriele Jansen who chose not to candidate for another term. Gabriele Jansen has been founding member of the EMVA and Board member since the association was established in 2003, making her the longest serving EMVA Board member in the association’s history. From 2003 – 2009 Gabriele Jansen served as EMVA President.

Also stepping down from the EMVA Board are Jochem Herrmann who acted as EMVA President from 2015 – 2019; Jean Caron who was EMVA Board member and Treasurer from 2015 – 2021; and Michel Ollivier who was EMVA Vice President from 2015 – 2021.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

New Release 4.0 of EMVA 1288 Standard for Camera Characterization

Barcelona, 16 March, 2021. The EMVA Standard 1288 for objective characterization of industrial cameras, which is successfully used worldwide, has a successor in the new Release 4.0, which now takes into account the rapid development of camera and image sensor technology. The release candidate was published on March 16 and the detailed standard texts can be viewed here.

Until the previous Release 3.1 dated back December 2016, the application of the EMVA 1288 standard with a simple linear model was limited to cameras with a linear response and without any pre-processing. While this model is being continued with some improvements in the ’Release 4.0 Linear’, a new module ‘Release 4.0 General’ has been added in the latest release. With it, the characterization of a non-linear camera or a camera with unknown pre-processing is possible even without any model due to the universal system-theoretical approach of the EMVA 1288 standard. Just as with the linear camera model, all application-related quality parameters can be measured in this way. Depending on the camera characteristics, the evaluation can now be applied according to the linear or general model.

In addition, Release 4.0 includes numerous expansions to characterize the latest generation of image sensors and cameras according to the application. The most important of these are:

  • Extended wavelength range from UV to SWIR range.
  • Raw data of any given image acquisition modality can now be characterized according to the standard.
  • The versatile and universal analysis tools of the EMVA 1288 standard can also be applied to quantities calculated and derived from multiple channels. For polarization image sensors, these are, for example, the degree of polarization and the polarization angle.
  • Inhomogeneities are measured in detail and now decomposed into column, row, and pixel variations. They can now be determined with a new method at all intensity levels from just two captured images.
  • Optionally, cameras with optics or with illumination as given by the position of the exit pupil of the optics for which the image sensor was designed can be measured according to the standard. Thus, the standard is now also suitable for image sensors with pixels shifted towards the edge.
  • A more suitable measure for the linearity of the characteristic curve is introduced.

After publication of the release candidate, the new Release 4.0 will automatically replace the old Release 3.1 after a three month period (therefore by mid-June) if no objections are submitted to the EMVA during this period and if objections can be resolved.

Along with the new version of the standard, the EMVA has prepared an extensive training program. Two- or three-day training programs for the new Release 4.0 will be held regularly in near future in cooperation with EMVA member companies. The new training program will also continue the successfully introduced certification program at expert level. This is intended for anyone who wants to acquire the necessary knowledge to perform EMVA 1288 measurements themselves and understand the measurement results in detail, whether in the development of new cameras, in quality control, or to understand exactly how a camera behaves for a specific application.

 

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

 

Special Online Edition of EMVA Business Conference 2021

Barcelona, 15 March, 2021. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) today announced that it hosts the Business Conference Special Edition 2021 from 10-11 June 2021. Despite the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel given by the vaccination opportunities, restrictions and limitations are still valid and probably will be for another while. Based on those considerations the EMVA Business Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, is postponed to 12-14 May 2022.

Instead, the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 takes place in an agile online event format starting with an afternoon conference track on 10 June from 12 am – 4.00 pm CEST. The whole event format includes not only top-notch talks but also excellent networking and interactive sessions with keynotes, invited talks, start-up company pitches, panel discussion, a fireside-chat as well as the pre-scheduled individual video meeting opportunities before and after the conference sessions. Registration is open for EMVA’s 2021 Online Conference. More information can be found here.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).

 

 

EMVA and Khronos Collaborate to Gather Requirements for Embedded Camera and Sensor API Standard

Call for Exploratory Group participation to all sensor and camera manufacturers,
silicon vendors, and software developers working on vision and sensor processing

Barcelona, 22 February, 2021. Today, the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), the leading European industry association dedicated to vision technology, and The Khronos® Group, an open consortium creating graphics and compute interoperability standards, jointly announce the formation of an Embedded Camera API Exploratory Group, open to all at no cost, to explore industry interest in the creation of open royalty-free API standards for controlling embedded cameras and sensors. All participants will be able to discuss use cases and requirements for new interoperability standards to accelerate market growth and reduce development costs in embedded markets using vision and sensor processing and associated acceleration. If the Exploratory Group reaches significant consensus then EMVA and Khronos will work to initiate the proposed standardization initiatives at the appropriate organization.

All sensor and camera manufacturers, silicon vendors, and software developers working on vision and sensor processing are invited to participate in this initiative. More details and instructions for joining the group are here.

The Embedded Camera API Exploratory Group has been created in response to industry requests. Increasingly, camera sensors are being tightly integrated with image, vision and inferencing accelerators in self-contained systems. Innovation and efficiency in the embedded vision market is becoming constrained by the lack of open cross-vendor camera control API standards to reduce development and integration costs of multiple advanced sensors and cameras. A consistent set of interoperability standards and guidelines for embedded cameras and sensors could streamline deployment by manufacturers and system integrators by enabling control of a wide range of camera sensors, depth sensors, camera arrays and ISP hardware to generate sophisticated image streams for downstream processing by diverse accelerators.

This Exploratory Group will use Khronos’ proven framework for new initiatives in collaboration with the EMVA. Any companies, universities, consortiums, open-source participants, and industry experts who are willing to sign an NDA are welcome to join, at no cost. All participants will have an equal voice in exploring industry needs for and benefits of creating a consensus to create a Scope of Work (SOW) document describing the objectives and high-level direction of standardization initiatives of value to the industry. The Exploratory Group is expected to meet online over a period of several months starting on March 25, 2021.

Many industry leaders have indicated an interest in joining the Exploratory Group, including ALL3D, Almalence, AMD, Apertus, AREA, Arm, Cadence, Codeplay, Collabora, EA, Facebook, Google, Holochip, HP, Huawei, LunarG, Mobica, NVIDIA, Oculus, OPPO, Qualcomm, RedHat, Texas Instruments, Ultraleap, and Valve from Khronos; as well as EMVA members and machine vision players such as Allied Vision, Basler AG, Baumer, MVTec, and Stemmer Imaging AG.

”We are delighted to work with Khronos on this initiative to commonly understand the industry needs for the future of embedded vision”, said Dr. Chris Yates, EMVA President. “Both the EMVA and the Khronos group have a well-established history of standardization developments which enable industry to develop new products more simply, whilst ensuring friction is reduced in the market. This Exploratory Group is an excellent approach to understanding broader industry needs and will bring together many companies and views in an open forum. We look forward to working closely with the Khronos Group and welcoming all new and existing participants to this important initiative for the vision community.”

“Judging by the significant industry interest, the time seems right to organize an effort around identifying and aligning on the need for interoperability APIs for embedded cameras and sensors. This is a topic that is very relevant to Khronos as our acceleration APIs, such as OpenCL™, SYCL™, and OpenVX™ are often used to accelerate sophisticated sensor stream processing,” said Neil Trevett, Khronos Group president. “Our work is also very complementary to EMVA, and we are delighted that the two organizations are working together to bring a meaningful quorum from diverse parts of the industry into this cooperative exploratory process.”

All Exploratory Group discussions will be covered by a simple project NDA to encourage open discussions. The Group is open to all proposals and relevant topics but will not discuss detailed technical design contributions to protect participants’ intellectual property (IP). If a SOW is agreed, EMVA and Khronos will work to initiate the standardization work at the most suitable host organizations or open source projects, using those organizations’ normal collaborative agreements and IP frameworks.

 

About EMVA

The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association has been founded in 2003 in Barcelona by industry representatives from all over Europe as a network to promote the development and use of machine vision technology. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. www.emva.org

 

About Khronos

The Khronos Group is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of over 150 industry-leading companies creating advanced, royalty-free, interoperability standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, parallel programming, vision acceleration and machine learning. Khronos activities include 3D Commerce™, ANARI™, glTF™, NNEF™, OpenCL™, OpenGL®, OpenGL® ES, OpenVG™, OpenVX™, OpenXR™, SPIR-V™, SYCL™, Vulkan®, and WebGL™. Khronos members drive the development and evolution of Khronos specifications and are able to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests.
www.khronos.org

Khronos® and Vulkan® are registered trademarks, and ANARI™, WebGL™, glTF™, NNEF™, OpenVX™, SPIR™, SPIR-V™, SYCL™, OpenVG™, and 3D Commerce™ are trademarks of The Khronos Group Inc. OpenXR™ is a trademark owned by The Khronos Group Inc. and is registered as a trademark in China, the European Union, Japan and the United Kingdom. OpenCL™ is a trademark of Apple Inc. and OpenGL® is a registered trademark and the OpenGL ES™ and OpenGL SC™ logos are trademarks of Hewlett Packard Enterprise used under license by Khronos. All other product names, trademarks, and/or company names are used solely for identification and belong to their respective owners.

 

PR Contact for Khronos: PR Contact for EMVA:
Alex Crabb

Caster Communications Inc.

Email: alex@castercomm.com

 

 Andreas Breyer

Manager Media Relations, EMVA

Email: press@emva.org

Phone: +49 151 1242 8585