FAQs

This section provides fast answers to many of the frequently asked questions (FAQs) Pleora receives about GigE and the iPORT Connectivity Solution. For more details, contact Pleora directly at +1-613-270-0625, or send an email to sales@pleora.com.

• FAQs about GigE and other standards
  
• FAQs about Pleora's iPORT Connectivity Solution
  
• FAQs about GigE Vision
  
• FAQs about Pleora's EtherCast Family of ASI-to-IP gateways
  
• FAQs about Pleora's Custom Solutions
  
• FAQs about Pleora vs Third Party products
  
• FAQs About Pleora vs Make Your Own
  

FAQs about GigE and other standards

GigE is the third generation of Ethernet, the dominant global LAN standard protocol for transmitting IP (Internet Protocol) packets (data, video, voice) over standard IP networks. The Ethernet standard defines four data rates: Ethernet (10 Mb/s), Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s), Gigabit Ethernet, or GigE (1000 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s), and 10GigE (10,000 Mb/s or 10 Gb/s). At all speeds, Ethernet's underlying packet processing and transmission protocols are the same, allowing multi-rate Ethernet networks to inter-work seamlessly.

We chose GigE because it is the world's first off-the-shelf, low-cost transport platform with enough bandwidth to carry video and imaging data in real time. It is well-suited to video and imaging applications because it is link-based, which means each connected device gets a dedicated link, rather than sharing bandwidth with other devices. GigE also offers long-distance reach, networking flexibility, processing scalability, and ease of use.

1394 allows up to 63 devices to be connected on one shared bus. The maximum distance between devices is 4.5 m. The latest version of 1394 (1394b) has 800 Mb/s of total bandwidth, with 512 Mb/s available for image data. All devices on the bus share this bandwidth, and may thus have to queue for access, interfering with real-time operation. By contrast, each device on a GigE network has a dedicated connection - there is no queuing for access. The maximum distance between GigE-connected devices and PCs and/or switches is 100 m. At 1 Gb/s, GigE has almost twice the image bandwidth capacity of 1394b.

GigE is a commercial standard, and USB is consumer-oriented. USB supports up to 127 devices on a shared bus. The maximum distance between devices is 5 m. The latest version of USB (USB 2.0) has a total bus bandwidth of 480 Mb/s. All devices on the bus share this bandwidth, and may have to queue for access. By contrast, each device on a GigE network has a dedicated connection - there is no queuing for access. The maximum distance between GigE-connected devices and PCs and/or switches is 100 m. At 1 Gb/s, GigE has more than twice the bandwidth capacity of USB 2.0.

Camera Link is a standard managed by the Automated Imaging Association that defines bi-directional high-speed links over specialized cabling between cameras and PCs. The maximum cable distance is 10 m, and connections are strictly point-to-point. Camera Link defines three configurations - base, medium, and full - with bandwidths of 2,040 Mb/s, 4,080 Mb/s, and 6,120 Mb/s respectively.

With the Pleora iPORT Connectivity Solution, GigE can be exploited by Camera Link users to develop networked applications (point-to-point or multi-point) over distances beyond 10 m. iPORT allows the spans between Camera Link cameras and PCs to extend to up to 100 m with no intervening LAN equipment. Longer distances can be supported using standard commercial LAN switches.

These are standards that define the video signals used most commonly in television and broadcast applications. NTSC and PAL represent the color versions of RS-170 and CCIR. Many security and surveillance cameras use these standards.

There are two main differences between wired and wireless image data transfers: the type of media used (copper or fiber vs "air"); and speed. Today's wireless Ethernet networks operate at less than 100 Mb/s and are half-duplex connections. The underlying rules for processing packets in all Ethernet networks are the same.

FAQs about Pleora's iPORT Connectivity Solution

The Pleora iPORT solution adds a protocol layer on top of GigE so that video, imaging, and I/O control data can be transferred with low, predictable latency between cameras and PCs. iPORT transfers this data at 1 Gb/s over ordinary Cat-5 LAN cable in full duplex mode. The iPORT protocol layer handles all tasks related to layers 2-7 of the OSI communications stack. iPORT is fully compatible with standard commercial GigE networking equipment. For more information, click here.

iPORT is an ideal fit for applications requiring:

• Long-distance reach, where distances greater than a few meters are required between the video source(s) and the destination PC(s)
• High-bandwidth, real-time data streaming
• Networking, where one or more camera needs to connect to one or more PC
• Distributed processing, where heavy real-time processing is required
• Remote control and access: for bi-directional, centralized video and I/O transfers

iPORT is ideal for many machine vision and security/surveillance applications.

iPORT reduces system complexity and implementation time, lowers cost, provides off-the-shelf flexibility and scalability, speeds time-to-market, and eliminates the need for frame grabbers, DSPs, and custom hardware.

The iPORT solution uses highly reliable, purpose-built technology. Other video-over-IP convergence products are often based on an embedded software operating system (OS). This approach is less efficient and reliable, and sometimes requires the data to be compressed prior to transport. The iPORT solution supports deterministic, low latency, bi-directional video transfers of the native data with high performance. iPORT can be designed directly into a camera or other video device without the need for an embedded OS.

For high-performance applications, this iPORT driver allows you to stream continuous video data 1 Gb/s directly into PC user memory, while using minimal CPU capacity. For more information, click here.

I/O control can be handled in two ways: by serial control and/or status signals that are transferred from the PC to the camera as IP packets; or as control signals to the GPIO port on the iPORT IP engine from an external source, independent of the PC.

Yes. Local triggering is hardware-based, delivered through a GPIO port and control software on the iPORT IP engine. The GPIO enables precise synchronization of cameras and other equipment, and supports flexible triggering capabilities, including quadrature encoder support, Boolean combinations, internal timers, and rescalers. For triggering from the PC, iPORT IP engines time stamp each IP packet. Using careful system analysis, time-stamping enables applications to precisely time trigger events and synchronize system elements, independent of latency variations in the PC operating system.

Yes. All communications links are bi-directional, and iPORT fully supports control over GPIO and RS-232.

The unique iPORT protocol provides comprehensive error detection, packet tracking, and re-transmission. Data is never lost.

Yes. The Pleora iPORT PT2000-CLM engine streams data at up to 2 Gb/s over two synchronized GigE links.

It depends on the size of your images, and how you configure your IP engine. The engines have 16 MB of onboard memory, and a variable called the water level. If, for example, the water level is set at 75%, 12 MB (i.e. 75% of 16 MB) of memory is available to store images sequentially.

For 1 Gb/s streaming, the minimum recommended PC configuration is:

• Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ or Intel P4 2.0 GHz
• Memory: 512 MB DDR-RAM PC2700
• Motherboard: Mid-end without embedded graphic card
• VGA card: Nvidia GForce2 or better (ATI not recommended)
• Network card: Intel PRO/1000 family

Yes, iPORT products inter-work seamlessly with off-the-shelf GigE and 10/100 Ethernet equipment.

Yes. The highest performance is obtained using network cards from Intel's PRO/1000 MT family. Other network cards can be used with somewhat reduced performance.

Commercially available GigE switches range widely in price and feature functionality. The feature set you need is dictated by your application requirements. In general, the amount of memory in a switch and its packet forwarding rate are directly proportional to its maximum sustained data rate.

To achieve GigE's full, 1-Gb/s data rate on all ports, the switch should ideally be non-blocking, and it needs to support jumbo frames of 8192 bytes. If you want to multicast, or simultaneously send, data to many PCs or other devices, the switch needs to support IGMPv2. If you only need to multicast from a single iPORT to a few PCs, then the broadcasting capability of almost any switch will suffice.

iPORT can be used with any type of serial or parallel video or data stream, providing the appropriate clock and data valid signals are present.

iPORT supports a wide range, including ARP, IP, ICMP, UDP, BOOTP, and DHCP. Data delivery and control is managed with the Pleora-developed iPORT protocol.

We offer models for Camera Link, LVDS, NTSC/RS-170, PAL/CCIR, and raw digital data formats. Click here to find out more.

Pleora's standard products support Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s) and Ethernet (10 Mb/s) solutions.

Yes. The iPORT architecture and data communication methods are fully compatible with wireless Ethernet LAN standards (802.11a/b/g).

Yes, but you need RJ-45-to-fiber adapters. These are commercially available from numerous vendors, and cost less than Cameral Link-to-fiber adapters.

Yes, via RS-232 control from the PC application.

Yes. Click here for more information.

Yes. Click here for more information.

iPORT PT-1000-CL IP engines are out-of-the-box compatible with all cameras that comply with the Base-configuration Camera Link standard, and with some that comply with the Medium-configuration Camera Link standard. iPORT ANL IP engines are out-of-the-box compatible with cameras that comply with NTSC/PAL/RS-170/CCIR/SECAM standards. Other types of cameras may require some integration. To speed boot up, the iPORT SDK has a camera selection menu that lists popular GigE, Camera Link, and LVDS camera models. For a list of the cameras we support, click here. If we do not support your camera, contact us, and we can either integrate it for you or provide you with the simple tools required to integrate it yourself.

iPORT products are available through our global network of representatives and distributors or, in areas without representation, directly from Pleora. Click here for more information.

FAQs about GigE Vision

GigE Vision is a communications standard that provides the vision industry with an open framework for transferring images and control signals between cameras and PCs over standard Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) connections. The first version of the standard was ratified by members of the Automated Imaging Association in May 2006. There are four main elements in the standard. Click here for more information.

No. Compliance with the GigE Vision standard means only that products follow a certain connectivity method. It does not mean, for example, that the products can recover from packet loss in the GigE connection, deliver deterministic real-time operation, or meet the precisely timed synchronization requirements of multi-element applications. As with any other vision product, cameras and PC software that comply with GigE Vision must be assessed for reliability and quality of implementation.

GenICam is a standard for controlling cameras from a PC that is managed by the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA). Its goal is to provide a generic camera description file for all camera types, regardless of the interface technology they use (i.e. GigE, Camera Link™, 1394 DCAM, etc.) or the features they implement.

The first version of GenICam was ratified by the EMVA in September 2006. This version defines the XML camera description schema for seven mandatory camera features. It includes GenAPI, a dynamic API showing how to parse the XML file to present camera parameters to end users or developers. For more information click here.

Yes. Pleora has developed a multi-faceted technology strategy that gives its camera partners, OEM customers, and end-users a clean and simple way to adopt GEV while minimizing disruptions to existing practices and applications.

Pleora's GigE Vision strategy includes four elements: iPORT IP Engines, eBUS Drivers, the AutoGEV mapping tool; and the iPORT SDK.

eBUS is the core software architecture that drives Pleora's newest generation of high-performance device drivers. Building on the success of our high-performance iPORT drivers, eBUS allows GigE NIC (network interface card/chip) hardware to emulate direct, bus-like transactions with PC subsystems at the kernel level. eBUS leverages Intel's I/OAT® architecture to basically eliminate CPU usage in the PC, while delivering fast and efficient response times.

The eBUS architecture supports two products:
• The eBUS Universal Driver – which runs on almost any vendor's NIC and combines the performance of a dedicated driver with the flexibility of a traditional filter driver; and
• The eBUS Optimal Driver – which runs on Intel's PRO/1000 family of NICs and 825xx chips and is optimized for demanding applications with particularly heavy processing overheads

Like iPORT drivers, eBUS is bundled with Pleora's iPORT IP Engines at no extra charge as part of a complete, end-to-end GigE connectivity solution.

AutoGEV is a unique mapping tool that makes it fast and easy for camera vendors and other companies with iPORT-based GigE interfaces to create the GenICam-compatible XML file required for GigE Vision compliance. AutoGEV guarantees consistency between camera hardware and the XML file and can be used to regenerate the XML as camera features change or new ones are added. For more information about AutoGEV, click here.

Pleora has developed a new version of the iPORT SDK that allows camera vendors and end-users to choose from a number of GigE Vision compliant software implementation options, depending on their preferences and performance requirements. More information about these options is provided in Pleora's White Paper "Achieving Performance Within the GigE Vision Framework." (Registration required)

FAQs about Pleora's EtherCast Family of ASI-to-IP gateways

EtherCast devices are small, low-power ASI-to-IP gateways that reliably transport digital video in real time over standard Ethernet IP networks. They reduce the cost and complexity of video distribution systems by allowing economical IP facilities to replace specialized, more costly video routing gear.

EtherCast gateways take SD-SDI and/or DVB-ASI (MPEG2-TS) data, efficiently convert it to IP packets, and pump it continuously onto a GigE or Fast Ethernet link or LAN. At the other end of the connection, the engines perform the reverse, converting the data back to the required SD-SDI or DVB-ASI format.

Advanced, purpose-built hardware delivers the jitter control and low, predictable latency required for real-time, superior-performance video transport.

EtherCast allows high-performance video applications to leverage the low-cost, long-distance reach, networking flexibility, and scalability of standard GigE/IP networks.

Pleora offers products for SD-SDI and DVB-ASI. The product names are:

• DVB-ASI: EtherCast ASI-Pro
• SD-SDI/DVB-ASI: EtherCast 1453

EtherCast and streaming video address different markets. EtherCast products transfer native format (SD-SDI and DVB) video in real-time over high-speed Ethernet/IP networks, while delivering the low, predictable latency and jitter control required by high-performance video applications.

By contrast, streaming video transfers compressed data over lower-speed IP networks. Streamed video can be stored in a buffer awaiting display, or the display is stopped while the receiving end awaits more data.

A video encoder compresses/encodes the data and transmits it over an IP network. The latency is usually adjustable, with a range of from 350 ms to several seconds. At the receiving end, the video decoder decompresses/decodes the data. Video encoders/decoders are based on embedded processors with software operating systems.

In contrast, EtherCast does not compress the video stream, but can be used in conjunction with video encoders. EtherCast gateways are based on purpose-built hardware, with patent-pending techniques to reduce latency and improve reliability.

Yes. EtherCast gateways can transport data over lower-speed Ethernet networks with no modifications, as long as the bandwidth of the data stream does not exceed the capacity of the link.

Yes, using the GigE/IP link.

EtherCast gateways are available as boxed units or OEM boards. In either format, the footprint is very small.

Support is available through our worldwide network of representatives and distributors, or directly from Pleora.

EtherCast gateways are available through Pleora’s global network of reps and distributors. Check out our website (www.pleora.com) or contact Pleora to find the distributor serving your region.

FAQs about Pleora's Custom Solutions

Pleora offers GigE connectivity boards in custom sizes for camera manufacturers and others who require a different form factor and/or functionality than our off-the-shelf products.

Yes, of course. But before you start you should consider these factors:

1. Risk. An in-house project has no guarantee of success. Some companies invest a lot of time and money before realizing that the product they’ve developed will not give them the performance they need, and that they’ve added 12 months to their time-to-market.

2. Expertise. Camera companies know cameras but generally have little experience with networks. Networking companies know networks but are not camera experts. Pleora bridges the two areas and can help you avoid the common pitfalls associated with GigE connectivity products for medical and scientific imaging, machine vision, intelligent traffic monitoring, broadcast transport etc.

3. Time-to-market. Developing your own GigE connectivity product is costly and time-consuming. By implementing a Pleora board into your camera or OEM product you’ll be up and running quickly.

4. Cost. Developing your own products from scratch is very costly. Pleora offers affordable solutions for all your GigE connectivity needs.

Pleora has a long history of developing field-proven GigE connectivity solutions. The iPORT IP Engines are used in such applications as industrial inspection, post and parcel sorting, high-end surveillance, homeland security, X-ray systems, and intelligent traffic monitoring. The benefits of a Pleora solution include:

1. Pleora offers an end-to-end solution. The IP engine, the eBUS Driver Suite, and the iPORT Vision Suite work as an integrated whole to enhance GigE-based, camera-to-PC connections. Pleora’s AutoGEV application makes it easy to make your existing camera GigE Vision compliant, if required.

2. Pleora makes continuous improvements to its products. This development is leveraged across all our products.

3. Pleora GEV board can sustain up to 25% packet drop and still deliver all packets. Pleora’s packet re-send scheme is field-proven and effective. It should be noted that products don’t have to offer a packet re-send scheme to be GigE Vision-compliant.

4. Pleora has the richest feature-set in the industry. Pleora’s iPORT Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) can be programmed to control external equipment in a completely automated machine vision system.

5. Pleora plays a leadership role in GEV/GenICam committees. The GigE Vision standard is based in large part on Pleora innovations. Pleora’s Francois Gobeil is currently the Vice Chairman of the committee.

Pleora provides a reference design, including schematics and BOM. This includes an EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) with locking keys and the MAC address. Pleora also provides integration documents to help you fit the board into the desired form factor.

The only Pleora branding is the driver – its name remains the eBUS driver. We provide all relevant documentation to our customers in native format for re-branding. We also re-brand the software.

Ideally, you should provide clock, FVAL and LVAL.

For an integrated design, the power budget is ~2 Watts. You can provide 3.3 Volts and some other options.

Yes, field upgrades are possible (and the norm).

If the code is customized, an annual maintenance charge would apply to keep the design current with new features that are developed that are compatible with the custom core.

You can eliminate what you like at the board level, assuming it is compatible with the FPGA core. If what you want to eliminate affects the core, then additional NRE will apply.

Yes, the iPORT engine will encapsulate the data in GVSP format, including leader and trailer packets.

Yes, the iPORT IP Engine handles all the GVCP commands.

Resent GVCP commands are handled by the iPORT IP Engine as per the GEV standard.

FAQs about Pleora vs Third Party products

The simple answer is: you get what you pay for. Quality costs. Pleora offers reliable, field-proven products and the company’s leadership is well documented in industry committees and among plug-fest organizers.

In fact, several camera companies have approached Pleora after realizing that other companies did not meet their needs.

The Pleora business model has proven that it’s more cost-effective to leverage the core competencies of both companies. Pleora brings to the table years of real-world experience in designing, building and deploying cost-effective GigE connectivity products that meet a wide range of requirements. In this model, Pleora’s camera partners fully leverage their own camera manufacturing expertise and focus on designing and building first-rate cameras.

Other business models are based on a source-code hand-off. These vendors essentially drop off the product at the customer’s door step and walk away – with no interest in providing the user with guidance or technical support.

Pleora prefers to view the relationship with the customer as a partnership – we succeed only through the success of our partners. Our business model ensures that you receive our full support throughout the lifecycle of your camera.

This is not true. The GigE Vision standard is essentially a communications protocol. It does not in itself guarantee performance or reliability. All GigE Vision installations must be assessed carefully from end to end to ensure that all requirements are met. Pleora’s solution includes best-in-class hardware, high-performance drivers, and the most feature-rich SDK on the market. The combined result is simply unparalleled performance.

The iPORT PT1000-VB is Pleora’s venerable off-the-shelf product for in-camera solutions. Since its introduction in 2005, the very cost-effective iPORT PT1000-VB has helped many of our camera partners take their cameras to market quickly and successfully.

Pleora also offers its IP engines as fully customizable boards. We’ve provided one of our customers with a custom board that’s 50 mm x 30 mm, or 1,500 mm2 – making it one of the smallest, full-featured in-camera connectivity boards today.

The second generation off-the-shelf in-camera board from Pleora, the iPORT NTx-Mini, which will be introduced in early 2008, is 42 mm x 42 mm, or 1,764 mm2. This board is smaller than any other standard board on the market.

Many of our competitors can only claim lower power usage by excluding some vital features from the board design. Without these features, the camera will not operate properly. When these features are included, these boards and Pleora’s PT1000-VB use approximately the same amount of power.

According to publicly available information, most boards from our competitors use between 1.6 and 1.8 Watts.

The second generation in-camera board from Pleora, the iPORT NTx-Mini, which will be introduced in early 2008, uses as little as 1.4 Watts at GigE rates. With the tight integration possible with the iPORT NTx-Mini, it is possible to deliver low-power solutions to market.

Pleora focuses on quality and reliability for all applications, regardless of data rates or level of complexity. Pleora offers a wide range of solutions, including attractively priced, lower through-put options for customers with modest needs. These customers still benefit from Pleora’s renowned product quality, superior product support and flexible design options.

For instance, the cameras on the NASA Shuttle are used in a limited-bandwidth application. However, NASA astronauts do require high quality and 100% reliability when performing in-space inspections of the all-important heat tiles before re-entry. NASA has used Pleora iPORTs for its Shuttle program since 2006.

Pleora has always offered first rate support to its customers. In addition to phone and email support provided by a team of experienced application engineers, the Pleora website includes a searchable knowledgebase where anyone can search for solutions to common problems and issues.

The Pleora support team often uses video-conferencing and collaboration tools like WebEx to show users quickly how to take advantage of all the features Pleora products offer – right on their own screens, sometimes half a world away.

Pleora succeeds through the success of its customers, and is committed to providing all our customers with help and support throughout the entire design cycle – from initial project specifications, to testing, and final validation.

To support the product launch, Pleora can provide its customers with a wide range of marketing material. We also invite our partners to co-author case studies and pursue other opportunities to maximize exposure in industry publications. We’re always looking for innovate ways to help you succeed.

Pleora has been a key contributor in establishing the GigE Vision and GenICam standards, and our GigE connectivity expertise is unparalleled in the machine vision industry. We have more real-world experience than any other company with regards to deploying in-camera GigE connectivity products.

We’re very proud of our strong relationship with camera companies, distributors and other partners across the world. If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to contact us.

FAQs About Pleora vs Make Your Own

It’s easy to overlook the extra costs associated with building your own GigE connectivity solution. Any true measure of cost must include all additional R&D, engineering and support costs. Companies who have performed a thorough financial evaluation of a GigE camera project almost always end up purchasing the GigE component from a 3rd party supplier because this business model offers superior ROI and much faster time-to-market. We have seen customers try to do their own and come back to Pleora because of the complexity and effort required to complete the project.

Pleora brings to the table years of real-world experience in designing, building and deploying cost-effective, low power, and best-of-breed GigE connectivity products. The company has spent years developing the range of skills required for a true end-to-end solution that meets the market needs. Pleora’s proven eBUS drivers, a key component in any vision system, are widely recognized as delivering the best performance in the industry.

Pleora adds additional value by providing its partners with a wide range of supporting marketing and training materials. We offer continuous online and face-to-face training, invite our partners to co-author case studies, and pursue other opportunities to maximize exposure in industry publications.

The Pleora business model has proven that it’s more cost-effective to leverage the core competencies of both companies. In this model, Pleora’s camera partners fully leverage their own camera manufacturing expertise and focus on designing and building first-rate cameras.

Making your own GigE interface comes at a cost: you have to maintain the code on your own, and you will only get a subset of the functionality you get from Pleora. Any newcomer to GigE connectivity products has relatively limited market exposure. Drawing on its years of integration experience, Pleora has unique insight into the market and can avoid the typical pitfalls associated with designing a GigE camera interface. It is more likely that the critical feature that you may not have been aware of, but that you may need in the future, is already in the Pleora core. If you develop yourself, it is likely not there.

Pleora’s IP Offering is an ideal way to achieve compact, cost-effective and fully integrated GigE connectivity solutions. In this scenario a shared FPGA can be configured to include the Pleora IP Core as well as customer developed functionality for a seamless and ultra-efficient solution from an integration, cost and power consumption perspective.

By the same logic most camera companies would also develop their own camera sensors. In fact, most camera companies buy existing sensors because it’s much more cost-effective to do so, and differentiation in the market is still very much possible. Quality of sensor integration and unique camera features are often the true differentiators between the cameras that use the best GigE interfaces. The defining characteristics of Pleora’s products are quality, reliability, performance and flexibility. Any differentiating features you have developed can be incorporated when using a Pleora solution.

Yes. When an off-the-shelf solution isn’t a good match with a particular camera design, Pleora’s products are available as Reference Design layouts. The customized hardware can be manufactured according to your exact specifications and the software is available as an OEM package that can be branded by our camera partners.

Previous experience has shown that you are more likely to add value by expanding your core competencies, compared to developing your own GigE solution. Pleora co-founded the GigE Vision Standard Initiative in 2003 and plays a vital role on the technical committees of the GigE Vision and GenICam standards, including the Vice-Chair position in the GigE Vision Technical Committee. Nobody understands the complex issues surrounding GigE Vision and GenICam integration, XML file creation and management etc. better than Pleora. The company’s unique AutoGEV application enables our camera partners to seamlessly generate and maintain the GenICam XML file needed for GigE Vision (GEV) compliance – not only for a single camera model, but also for families of cameras.

Pleora’s engineering team has extensive integration experience and will assist you throughout the project from the initial project specifications, to testing and validation. We also assist you with GEV product registration and compliance certification, and represent your interests at GEV and GenICam technical meetings.

Pleora focuses on quality and reliability for all applications, regardless of data rates or level of complexity. Pleora offers a wide range of solutions, including attractively priced, lower through-put options for customers with modest needs. These customers still benefit from Pleora’s renowned product quality, superior product support and flexible design options.

For instance, the NASA Shuttle cameras are used in a limited-bandwidth application. However, NASA astronauts require high quality and 100% reliability when performing in-space inspections of the all-important heat tiles before re-entry. NASA has used Pleora iPORTs for its Shuttle program since 2006.

Pleora offers custom solutions that can match virtually every requirement, including support for Linux and Xilinx. For instance, Pleora’s FPGA RTL code is portable to any FPGA or ASIC technology. If you have a particular requirement, let us know. There is a good chance we already have something in place to address it.

Unlike most camera companies, Pleora has over 4 years of experience providing first-rate software application support, and our customers benefit greatly from our unparalleled GigE for vision experience. In addition to phone and email support provided by a team of experienced application engineers, the Pleora website includes a searchable knowledgebase where anyone can search for solutions to common problems and issues. The Pleora support team often uses video-conferencing and collaboration tools like WebEx to show users quickly how to take advantage of all the features Pleora products offer – right on their own screens, sometimes half a world away.

Perhaps, but at a higher cost and longer time-lines. Creating your own board requires large resources. Cost overruns are common, with missed schedules and missed opportunities. It’s very easy to underestimate complexity and scope of a GigE Vision project and the range of skills required for a true end-to-end solution that meets the market needs. For instance, FPGA verification and product validation efforts required to achieve GEV certification are often underestimated. Pleora has developed an extensive FPGA GigE Vision compliance verification and product validation environment. In fact, Pleora developed the official validation framework for the GEV technical committee, based on a subset of the more advanced Pleora version.