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 camera
A digital camera, also called a digicam, is a camera that captures photographs in Digital data storage, digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Dig ...
s to a
printer, without having to connect the 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.
Implementation
PictBridge is typically implemented using
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...
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 (typically a Mini-B). The user selects the images on the camera to print.
Licensing
The PictBridge specification is not an
open standard
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a common prerequisite that open standards use an open license that provides for extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in their development due to ...
; it can only be obtained from CIPA after agreement not to disclose any information from the specification to others.
section 2.2 of the agreement
/ref> In practice, this means that PictBridge cannot be implemented as free and open source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...
, other than by reverse-engineering the protocol, if publishing source code of an implementation of the PictBridge standard is considered to count as "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.
See also
* Picture Transfer Protocol
* Digital Print Order Format
* Mopria Alliance
References
External links
CIPA PictBridge Standard Website
*
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230803191856/http://www.cipa.jp/pictbridge/CertifiedModels/PictBridgeCertifiedModels_E.html , date=2023-08-03
Digital photography
USB