EMBEDDED STANDARDS
The push for open- embedded camera APIs
Khronos’Neil Trevett and EMVA’s Chris Yates say the time is right to investigate scope for embedded vision software standards
A
n initiative that will explore open API standards for controlling embedded cameras
has been formed. Te work is a joint-effort by the Khronos Group, a consortium creating graphics and compute interoperability standards, and the European Machine Vision Association. Participants in the Embedded
Camera API Exploratory Group will discuss requirements for new interoperability standards to accelerate market growth and reduce development costs in embedded vision.
Christine Perey, interoperability
and standards programme leader for the Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance, commented: ‘Lack of API standards for advanced use of embedded cameras and sensors is an impediment to industry growth, collaboration and innovation. Enterprise augmented reality customers and systems integrators or value-added providers will benefit from greater clarity, open interfaces between modular systems and innovation in the component provider ecosystem.’ If the exploratory group reaches
significant consensus, then Khronos and EMVA will work to initiate the proposed standardisation projects at the appropriate organisations. All sensor and camera
manufacturers, silicon vendors and software developers working on vision and sensor processing are invited to participate in this initiative.
What challenges do embedded vision developers face? Trevett: Te embedded industry is building smart devices and applications that use a variety of cameras and sensors to understand their surroundings. While the diversity and capabilities of sensors are evolving, and there are established hardware interfaces to streamline system integration, there are no widely adopted, open standard, cross-vendor APIs to ease software integration of new sensors. For many companies, the cost and time needed to integrate new cameras and sensors into systems has become a significant bottleneck that is becoming more critical, as firms seek to preserve their software investment across diverse platforms and hardware generations. Yates: Te scope of vision technology is increasing, and new devices and sensors are creating significant commercial opportunities. However, while vision technology and components are readily available, embedded systems rely on tight integration to realise the ultimate benefits. Without widely-used open standards for control and connectivity, manufacturers must spend additional effort each time a new sensor or processor is designed into a system, slowing development cycles and reducing time for creating value-add features. Tis becomes more apparent as the trend for complex multi-sensor systems accelerate, such as combinations of lidar and vision, or non-visible imaging.
What does the initiative hope to achieve? Yates: Tere are two aspects where I hope our joint initiative will be successful: primarily in defining the scope for an embedded camera API, which can then be developed and used independently of any
32 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE VISION YEARBOOK 2021/22
particular industry vertical or sector. Tis would be a tremendous benefit to the entire vision market and enable rapid product development and innovation, culminating in significant end-user value. An effective open standard would also provide a benefit to sensor suppliers, by eliminating the need for every individual vendor to define and maintain their own API, with associated development and support costs, while time- to-market for cameras and sensors can be reduced. Secondly, I hope that the model of cross-
industry collaboration stimulates an open discussion and identifies key requirements through information exchange, while opening opportunities for new contacts and between participants. For the EMVA this partnership with the Khronos Group matches our desire to increase co-operation and standardisation across the vision industry as a route to market growth. Trevett: Ultimately, the goal is to expand the commercial opportunities for all companies making and using advanced cameras and sensors by removing industry friction slowing their adoption and deployment. Khronos’ interest stems from our work to develop open standards for embedded compute acceleration, including vision processing and inferencing, often used to process sensor streams. Machine vision applications often need precise programmatic control over the sensor – for example the lens, iris, exposure and ISP of a camera and sensor assembly – to gather the data needed for downstream processing. If this level of control can only be achieved through proprietary APIs, then integrating a new sensor can cause significant software rework. So, we would like to see an effective, widely-adopted camera API that can work well alongside our acceleration APIs.
How will it work? Trevett: EMVA and Khronos are working to create a safe space for the industry to explore if there is an opportunity and a need to build software API interoperability standards for cameras and sensors. We are not jumping into designing API right away. We are using the Khronos Exploratory Group process to bring together a wide industry quorum to explore whether we
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