Standards
High-end systems to benefit from lens standard
Greg Blackman talks to Arnaud Darmont at the EMVA on a new standard interface for lenses
M
achine vision industry bodies have begun the first steps to define a standard interface for lenses. Te
initial meeting to build the working groups took place on 9 July; the groups will be chaired by Marcel Naggatz, from Baumer, and Erik Widding, from Birger Engineering. Nothing has been specified yet, according
to Arnaud Darmont, the EMVA’s standards manager, but he said that higher-end systems and new applications could benefit a great deal from a lens standard. Writing on the subject for Imaging and
Machine Vision Europe in December 2017, Professor Dr Bernd Jähne stated: ‘It is really surprising to see that such an essential part of a vision system as an open camera lens communication standard has been overlooked for such a long time by the industry. It is now essential to develop it, in order to make the next generation of vision systems possible.’ Darmont envisaged a
‘mandatory if we want to communicate with less expensive devices that might want to be compliant but don’t want to invest in the full standard.’ Another aspect would be mapping over
GenICam, so that the end-user will see the lens as virtual parameters of the camera. However, this would be later in the implementation, because the basics have to be defined first. Te standard, according to Darmont, will
Going to a single- cable solution for long distance applications is probably something people will be looking for
potential standard as having two backwards compatible communication protocols on the same bus: an extremely basic version, for lenses that don’t have a lot of electronics, and a more advanced protocol allowing communication in both directions at higher speed with more commands. He said that the basic version is
not address the low-cost lens market, as these devices have to remain inexpensive. ‘We are addressing the market of higher-end systems,’ he said, giving the example of setups with two cameras and two lenses that could use just one camera and one programmable lens. Te lens would toggle between two settings to grab two different views of a scene. Here, the customer would invest more in the lens, but would save money on the camera. Applications that make use
of lens control would also benefit from the standard.
‘Currently, these applications have custom solutions, custom electronic controls for the lenses with a second cable,’ Darmont explained. ‘For those, even if the protocol is more expensive, users will save on cables; they will save on the cost of the custom implementation.’ Applications currently based on GigE
42 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • Yearbook 2018/2019
Vision with long cables oſten require a second cable to control the lens separately, which is expensive. ‘Going to a single-cable solution for those long-distance applications is probably something people will be looking for, because it’s not only the cost of the cable, it’s the cost of all the problems you have with cables,’ Darmont said – cables will have a lifetime when they are bent, for example. ‘If users go from two cables to one, they might increase the lifetime of the system,’ he continued. ‘Tere are some niche applications where it really makes sense.’ One question raised at the initial meeting
is whether the interface can be made more generic to include devices such as encoders or light sources. In this way, these devices would be controlled directly by the camera, so that the light source no longer needs its own connection to the PC. Te camera would be the bridge between the computer and the light source. ‘Tis type of basic interface is very similar to what we would do with lenses,’ Darmont said. ‘Tis question hasn’t been answered, but if
we find a match between what we could do for lenses and what lighting requires, then we will have something even more general,’ he concluded. A working group meeting for the standard is scheduled for October. O
Since this article was written, Arnaud tragically died in an accident during a trip in the United States. Our thoughts are with his family.
@imveurope
www.imveurope.com
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