USB3 Vision is the recognized standard for communicating with USB industrial cameras. This international standard is hosted by the Association for Advancing Automation ("A3") and is supported by major camera manufacturers. The USB3 Vision standard expands upon the USB 3.0 standard. Specifically, the standard:

You may be familiar with other camera communication standards, such as GigE Vision, Camera Link and IEEE-1394 IIDC (Firewire). Compared to these standards, USB3 Vision:

If your computer will be located near the camera, USB3 Vision is the leading candidate. But if you need a long cable length, consider one of our GigE Vision cameras.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an open standard originally developed in 1994. It defines the cables, connectors and communication protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power between electronic devices. With the advent of version 3.0 with "SuperSpeed", this bus now has more than enough bandwidth for typical machine vision projects.

The USB3 Vision standard blends together USB with the GenICam standard. GenICam defines a generic programming interface common to GigE Vision, Camera Link, and some Firewire cameras. Software developers can therefore write code that communicates with any USB3 Vision camera, without paying much attention to which camera model is connected at the other end of the cable. Because of this standard, companies can create near universal drivers for all USB3 Vision cameras. And these drivers can be much the same as drivers for GigE Vision, Camera Link, and Firewire cameras.

One word of caution. There are some companies selling cameras that are USB 3.0 compliant, but are not USB3 Vision compliant. To use these cameras, you must use proprietary software. If you develop software around such a camera's API, your software may be of little use if you change to a different camera manufacturer in the future.

USB3 Vision beats IEEE-1394 IIDC ("Firewire") in nearly all regards. USB3 Vision cameras offer:

Like Firewire, USB3 Vision offers efficient image transfer to host memory. And, like Firewire, cable lengths are limited.

Here's Basler's white paper comparing USB3 Vision with Firewire.

We occasionally hear from customers having problems achieving a camera's maximum frame rate. Images may be dropped. Or, even worse, communication with the camera may stop, necessitating cycling power to the computer and camera. This is most common with high-resolution and high-frame-rate cameras that need to transfer more than around 200 MB/s.

The issue is not the Basler or SVS-Vistek camera. It has been factory tested and will perform to specifications. The problem is:

The USB Cable

We always recommend using a high-quality shielded USB cable. Even shielded cables over five meters in length may have problems in electrically noisy environments. In such cases, we recommend one of our fiber-optic extenders.

The USB Controller

The most common problem is the computer's USB controller. Many controllers fail to handle anywhere near the data load specified by USB 3.0, even though they are marketed as USB 3.0 devices. Basler's white paper provides some rather disconcerting test results. This issue is typical of the USB controllers built in to many computers today, especially notebooks and embedded computers. To avoid this problem, see our USB 3.0 PCIe cards that have been tested under full data load.

Furthermore, most computers and USB cards have multiple ports connected to a single USB controller, requiring a camera to share bandwidth with other devices. Some of our USB cards have a USB controller dedicated to each port so that each camera receives the full bandwidth, without interference from other devices.

Power Settings

The computer's power settings can cause intermittent bandwidth issues. Please review the recommended USB power settings.

The Computer

And finally, the problem may be the computer itself. Not all computers are created equal. Some just are not up to the task, especially when multiple cameras are grabbing simultaneously. For your convenience, we offer several industrial computers designed especially for imaging.

You may like to read USB 3.0 Interface and USB3 Vision Standard — Data, Facts, Setup and Migrating to USB 3.0, and Setting Up a Stable USB3 Camera System. Also, this white paper does a nice job comparing the various camera interfaces.