PTP

What is PTP

PTP is Picture Transfer Protocol. It is a platform-independent and transport-independent standard for communicating with digital photography devices. It is composed of a set of standard operations, responses, events, device properties, and required behaviors for devices that wish to communicate in order to fulfill basic digital imaging connectivity scenarios. This allows for a common mechanism for transferring digital media files, controlling digital still cameras, and more. Until the standardization of PTP as PIMA 15740 in 2000, each digital camera vendor has had one or more proprietary protocols for doing the same thing different ways. Since then, PTP has been standardized internationally as ISO 15740:2005, which replaces PIMA 15740.

I3A remains committed to being the vehicle for US participation in future evolution of the standard. The benefits of PTP include:

  • Empowers third party developers to interface to digital cameras easily and uniformly.
  • Allowing platform and OS developers to build native support for PTP into their systems, removing the need for user-installed drivers for base functionality.
  • Requires only a small set of constructs, with many other features being optional
  • Enables camera vendors to leverage host drivers developed by others and support multiple transports using the same protocol
  • Allows vendors to extend the protocol to meet proprietary needs as necessary

PTP Transport

Currently, PTP has standard transport definitions for the following transports:

USB

  • USB-IF Device Working Group, Still Image Device Class
  • Download PDF

TCP/IP

  • PTP-IP IP Picture Transfer Protocol, version 1.0, Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA), Japan, Copyright 2005 by FotoNation Inc.
  • Learn more

PTP Products

Since its standardization in 2000, PTP has become very successful in digital imaging products as well as personal computer operating systems. Some examples of where PTP support can be found today:

  • Digital Cameras: In over 95% of consumer-targeted digital cameras sold in 2005 from virtually every major manufacturer
  • Microsoft Windows: Native in Microsoft Windows XP. PTP is also the foundation of Microsoft’s MTP (Media Transport Protocol), which extends PTP to support portable media center devices, and is being proposed as a new USB device class in the USB-IF for these device types
  • Apple Macintosh: Native in Macintosh OS X
  • Linux: Several open-source driver packages exist for Linux and similar Operating Systems
  • PictBridge: PTP is the underlying communication mechanism used by CIPA’s PictBridge, which enables the direct printing of photos over USB without the need for a PC
  • PTP Tools and Products: Several licensable tools exist to aid in the development of PTP-based solutions:

    PTP Vendor Extension Identifiers

    PTP provides a mechanism for vendor extensions. This allows device manufacturers with proprietary or licensable features to implement additional constructs in a standard fashion. This includes supporting customized operations, responses, events, object format codes, and device properties as needed.

    A vendor extension identifier is a unique 32-bit code assigned by I3A. If your organization wishes to be assigned a vendor extension identifier, please contact:

    Registered Vendor Extensions

    Number Company
         
    0×00000001   Eastman Kodak Company
    0×00000002   Seiko Epson
    0×00000003   Agilent Technologies, Inc
    0×00000004   Polaroid Corporation
    0×00000005   Agfa-Gevaert
    0×00000006   Microsoft Corporation
    0×00000007   Equinox Research Ltd
    0×00000008   ViewQuest Technologies
    0×00000009   STMicroelectronics
    0×0000000A   Nikon Corporation
    0×0000000B   Canon, Inc
    0×0000000C   FotoNation, Inc
    0×0000000D   PENTAX Corporation
    0×0000000E   Fuji Photo Film Co., LTD