Roboception GenICam Convenience Layer

This package combines the Roboception convenience layer for images with the GenICam reference implementation and a GigE Vision transport layer. It is a self contained package that permits configuration and image streaming of GenICam / GigE Vision 2.0 compatible cameras like the Roboception rc_visard. The API is based on C++ 11 and can be compiled under Linux and Windows.

This package also provides some tools that can be called from the command line for discovering cameras, changing their configuration and streaming images.

Prebuilt binaries can be downloaded on the releases page.

Contents

• Minimum Requirements
• Compiling and Installing
  • Linux
  • Windows
• Examples
• Description of Tools
  • gc_info
  • gc_config
  • gc_stream
  • gc_pointcloud
  • gc_file
• Definition of Device ID
• Finding the Transport Layer
• Network Optimization under Linux

Minimum Requirements

• Linux x64 / i86: gcc >= 4.8
• ARMhf: gcc >= 4.9.4
• Linux AArch64: gcc >= 5.4
• Windows 10: Visual Studio >= VC140

Compiling and Installing

Linux

Building follows the standard cmake build flow. Please make sure to set the install path before compiling. Otherwise it can happen that the transport layer is not found when calling the tools.

cd <main-directory>
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<install-directory> ..
make
make install

Bash completion

To install bash completion, configure cmake with -DINSTALL_COMPLETION=ON

Debian package

A Debian package can be built with e.g.

cd <main-directory>
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr ..
make
make package

Windows

The main directory contains the script build_win.bat. Execute this script in the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt for building the package. Alternatively, you can use cmake manually to generate a build project for compilation with your favorite compiler.

NOTE: For using the libraries in own projects, define the symbol GENICAM_NO_AUTO_IMPLIB in your project file to avoid linker problems with the GenICam libraries.

Examples

There are some self explanatory example programs for streaming 2d and 3d data with this API in the sub folder ‘examples’.

Description of Tools

The tools do not offer a graphical user interface. They are meant to be called from a shell (e.g. Power Shell under Windows) or script and controlled by command line parameters. Calling the tools without any parameters prints a help text on the standard output.

NOTE: If any tool returns the error No transport layers found in path ..., then read the section ‘Transport Layer’ below.

gc_info

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2.8.12 (2026-11-11)

• Copyright and license files are installed relative to the install prefix, unless it is /usr or /opt/ros/<distro>, so that installing without root permissions works, e.g. on the ROS buildfarm

2.8.11 (2026-11-10)

• Replaced the Baumer GenTL producer by rc_gev_producer 0.1.2 of Roboception as default transport layer for GigE Vision. USB3 Vision is not supported by default any more, and libusb is no longer needed.
• Dropped the default transport layer for armhf, i686 and Win32, as well as the CI builds for armhf
• A device that is requested by its IP address is opened directly, without discovery, if the producer supports it
• Fixed finding devices whose ID or interface ID contains ':', e.g. if derived from MAC addresses
• build_win.bat does not try to copy a directory that Windows builds do not have

2.8.10 (2026-10-27)

• Added license, copyright and SBOM information to debian package
• Rewrote net_perf_check.sh under the BSD license with additional checks

2.8.9 (2026-10-06)

• Updated GenICam reference implementation to 3.5.1 and dropped it for Win32 and Linux32_x86
• Using latest zlib and libpng under Windows

2.8.8 (2026-09-17)

• Added method for getting custom device info string
• Fixed Stream::close() not releasing the data stream and its nodemap
• Fixed throwing pointers to exceptions and a memory leak when storing PNG images
• Fixed missing error handling of libpng (setjmp return value was ignored)
• Fixed setString() always returning false
• Fixed parsing of MAC addresses, which only considered 4 of 6 bytes
• Fixed last row of images that are converted from a Bayer format
• Fixed row offset of storeImageAsDisparityPFM() for images with x-padding
• Fixed reporting device access status OpenReadOnly as OpenReadWrite
• Fixed possible buffer overflow in loadFile()
• Fixed uninitialized payload type in Buffer
• Fixed passing igncache to getRegister() and getString()
• gc_info and gc_config now catch GenICam exceptions instead of terminating
• gc_stream sends software triggers from the main thread, as nodemaps are not thread safe
• Renamed getComponetOfPart() to getComponentOfPart(), the old name is kept as deprecated alias, and the component selector is restored after the call
• Images in YCbCr and YUV formats are only converted if the width is a multiple of 4, instead of writing beyond the end of a row

2.8.7 (2026-06-29)

• Added examples for streaming 2d and 3d data
• Added support for software triggering into gc_stream

2.8.6 (2026-06-03)

• don't try to install lintian overrides file via cmake

2.8.5 (2026-06-02)

• set CMP0045 policy to NEW to support newer cmake versions

2.8.4 (2026-05-07)

• Added noble arm64 jobs
• Add possibility to edit nodemap interactively in gc_stream before starting to stream

2.8.3 (2025-12-23)

• Added parameter to gc_stream to change the number of retrys

2.8.2 (2025-08-13)

• Added CI build job for noble and fixed lintian issues

2.8.1 (2025-07-31)

• Windows: Fixed build issue and report missing GenTL symbol if loading of transport layer fails due to missing symbols

2.8.0 (2025-03-24)

• Extended class for GenTL exceptions to access error codes and messages through seperate methods

2.7.0 (2024-12-02)

• Added possibility to receive module events for a device

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