Third Party Components
========================

The following third party components are included with the BFT4Lin package.

Gen<i>Cam
-----------

    **Gen<i>Cam** is a standard interface for camera control and acquisition. Most
    often, BitFlow customers wish to use Gen<i>Cam because it provides a
    standard method for configuring and controling CoaXPress cameras, although
    powerful applications can be written without the use of Gen<i>Cam, and
    acquisition using the native BitFlow SDK will always provide higher
    performance. Before seeking to use Gen<i>Cam, it is highly recommended that
    prospective users familiarize themselves with the standard itself by
    consulting the reference material provided by the European Machine Vision
    Association (EMVA), which may be retrieved from their website, `Gen<i>Cam Introduction <https://www.emva.org/standards-technology/genicam/introduction-new/>`_.

    For convenience, runtime and SDK files for version 3.3.0 of the Gen<i>Cam
    GenApi reference implementation are bundled with BFT4Lin, along with version
    1.5 of the GenTL header file. A thorough catalog of current and older
    Gen<i>Cam standard documents and build files is provided free of charge on
    the EMVA website.

    To run any Gen<i>Cam application, the GenTL path environment variable must
    be set to include the directory path of the BitFlow GenTL (BFGTL) producer
    CTI file. Multiple GenTL producer paths may be listed, colon separated. It
    is also recommeneded to set the Gen<i>Cam root and cache variables. The
    cache may be any user writable local path, ideally one dedicated to this
    purpose.

        For 32-bit producers:

        .. code-block:: console

            $ export GENICAM_GENTL32_PATH=/path/to/bfgtl/[;other-paths]

        For 64-bit producers:

        .. code-block:: console

            $ export GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH=/path/to/bfgtl/[;other-paths]
            $ export GENICAM_ROOT_V3_3=/path/to/genapi
            $ export GENICAM_CACHE_V3_3=/user/writable/directory/path

    For a standard BFT4Lin installation, the following will be valid:

        .. code-block:: console

            $ export GENICAM_GENTL32_PATH=/usr/local/lib/BitFlow
            $ export GENICAM_GENTL64_PATH=/usr/local/lib/BitFlow
            $ export GENICAM_ROOT_V3_3=/usr/local/lib/BitFlow/GenICam

    Modern boards including the Cyton and Claxon support Gen<i>Cam camera
    control directly in the BFML camera file, by utilizing the device_commands
    feature. If this feature is to be used, then Gen<i>Cam must be configured as
    described above, in order for any application to successfully apply the
    camera file