eGrabber Reference Documentation

The Application Programming Interface (API) for Coaxlink cards, Grablink Duo, and Gigelink is eGrabber, which is based on GenICam.

The goal of GenICam is to provide a standardized, uniform programming interface for using cameras and frame grabbers based on different physical interfaces (CoaXPress, GigE Vision, etc.) or from different vendors.

GenICam is a set of EMVA standards (GenApi and GenTL), as well as related conventions for naming things (the SFNC for standard features, the PFNC for pixel formats).

• GenApi is about description. At the core of GenApi is the concept of register description. Register descriptions are provided in the form of XML files. They map low-level hardware registers to high-level features.

  GenApi allows applications to detect, configure and use the features of cameras and frame grabbers in a uniform and consistent way.

• GenTL is about data transport. The TL suffix stands for Transport Layer.

  The GenTL standard defines a set of C functions and data types for enumerating, configuring, and grabbing images from cameras and frame grabbers. This API is defined by a C header file.

  Frame grabber vendors provide libraries that implement this API (i.e., libraries that export the functions declared in the standard header file). These libraries are referred to as GenTL producers, or Common Transport Interfaces (CTI) and use the cti file extension. Euresys provides three GenTL producers: coaxlink.cti for Coaxlink cards, grablink.cti for the Grablink Duo, and gigelink.cti for GigE Vision cameras.

Before consulting this reference documentation, it is strongly recommended to read the eGrabber programmer's guide.