Enhancements to Pleora’s iPORT Vision Connectivity Solution Boost Performance, Flexibility of Gigabit Ethernet Imaging Systems

• New iPORT™ release delivers improvements for triggering, memory capacity, multicasting, archiving, flow control, and platform support

OTTAWA, CANADA, October 19, 2004: Pleora Technologies today announced key enhancements to its iPORT Vision Connectivity Solution that allow designers to substantially improve the performance and flexibility of GigE (Gigabit Ethernet)-based imaging systems.

“We’ve upgraded the iPORT solution from end to end,” said Rudi Rincker, Vice-President of Sales, Pleora Technologies. “Our new features give designers richer sets of options for triggering, acquiring, transporting, storing, and interfacing to imaging data carried over standard GigE connections.”

The improvements are implemented in Version 3.50 of the firmware for Pleora’s growing family of iPORT IP engines, in Release 2.1.3 of the iPORT IP Device Driver, and in Release 2.1.3 of the iPORT SDK (Software Development Kit).

Advanced real-time triggering

Pleora has equipped the control software for GPIO (general purpose input/output) ports on iPORT IP engines with key new features – including an encoder input, a rescaler, and an event delayer – that improve the ability of designers to synchronize the triggering of cameras, strobe lights, and other vision system elements in real time.

The encoder input allows the GPIO controller to track changing speeds on conveyor belts or other moving system elements. The rescaler allows the controller to scale encoder signals up or down so that camera acquisition rates are mapped correctly to the speed of the moving elements. With the delayer, the controller can postpone the triggering of system events, such as camera acquisition starts and stops, until precisely the right moment.

High memory driver

To improve system reliability, particularly in vision applications with large data transfer requirements, Pleora has added a high memory driver to its iPORT solution. The driver significantly increases the PC memory available to vision applications based on iPORT systems running under a Windows® OS (operating system).

Windows’ standard memory addressing scheme gives applications access to up to 2 GB (gigabytes) of user memory. With Pleora’s newest driver, image data can be stored in up to 64 GB of Windows kernel memory. This ensures data integrity, even in the event of an application crash, which is important when reliability is paramount, such as in medical applications.

Improved networking flexibility

Some vision applications, such as those with very high-speed cameras or wireless and 10/100 Mb/s Ethernet networking links, acquire data faster than it can be sent to PCs. To ensure data integrity in configurations like these, iPORT IP engines now offer separate control of data acquisition and transmit functions.

In addition, for applications that use switched GigE architectures to send camera data simultaneously to multiple PCs– a capability known as multicasting – iPORT now permits master PCs to control acquisitions without being part of the multicast group. This allows designers to decouple image processing tasks from system control functions.

Better archiving, easier migration from legacy code

iPORT’s archiving capabilities have been enhanced so that users can export image data in a broad range of formats, including image sequences and movies, making it easier for designers to play back or save images to disk. iPORT now supports such popular formats as JPEG, BMP, AVI, and MPEG.

iPORT has also been equipped with a new buffer class that makes it easier to integrate iPORT applications with legacy framegrabber code. With the new class, buffer functions that manage the flow of image data – such as read, write, and wait – can be controlled by third-party software via OS commands.

Expanded Linux support

The new version of the iPORT SDK runs under the SuSe distribution of the Linux OS, a version popular in Europe. The SDK also runs under the Windows OS and the RedHat 9.0 distribution of Linux, giving designers a broad choice of operating environments.

About Pleora

Pleora Technologies Inc. pioneered the use of Gigabit Ethernet for real-time video connectivity and revolutionized industrial imaging. With this spirit of innovation, Pleora engineers networked video connectivity solutions for mission-critical applications. Working with its rich portfolio of video networking elements, Pleora partners with customers to tailor solutions to their individual needs, from definition to deployment, with full integration support. Find out why more military, medical, and manufacturing integrators and OEMs choose—and stay—with Pleora, visit www.pleora.com.