PictBridge
Historical computing industry standard
PictBridge is a historical computing industry standard introduced in 2003 from the Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) for direct printing. It allows images to be printed directly from digital cameras to a printer, without them having to connect to each other. Its formal name is "Standard of Camera & Imaging Products Association CIPA DC-001, 2003 Digital Solutions for Imaging Devices". CIPA DC-001-2003 Rev. 2.0 has been published in 2007.
01Implementation
PictBridge is usually implemented using USB ports and the USB protocol. PictBridge-capable printers typically have a USB type A port, which is connected by cable to the USB port of a PictBridge-capable digital camera (usually a Mini-B USB cable). The user selects the images on the camera to print.
02Licensing
The PictBridge specification is not an open standard; it can only be obtained from CIPA after agreement not to disclose any information from the specification to others. In practice, that means PictBridge cannot be implemented as free and open-source software, other than by reverse engineering the protocol, if publishing source code of an implementation of the PictBridge standard is considered "disclosing information" from the specification.
A printer may implement functions similar to a PictBridge printer without the non-disclosure agreement merely by treating the camera's memory as a USB mass storage device, although the user interface for image selection would necessarily be on the printer rather than the camera in this case.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “PictBridge”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Pictbridge symbol.png by Unknown author, Fair use
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