Wireless Image Transmission Initiative (WITI)
I3A formed the Wireless Image Transmission Initiative (WITI) in April of 2000 as a means to increase interoperability and accelerate the adoption of wireless technology in digital imaging devices, simplifying connectivity issues for vendors and end users alike. This initiative's participants worked together to identify potential technologies that would enable a quick and easy exchange of pictures, without the use of software or cables, between digital cameras, photo printers, PCs, and other imaging devices. They evaluated options for an infrastructure that would be highly reliable and capable of supporting wireless transmission of large, high-quality images.
The vision of WITI was a world in which a broad array of wireless, image-capable products were linked via current and future wireless communication technologies to make digital imaging solutions more pervasive and easier to use among consumers. This wireless world would possess the following characteristics:
- Seamless interoperability across multiple, open communication technologies
- Dramatically improved ease of use over prior wired solutions
- New wireless-enabled solutions that could never exist in the wired world
- Quality and usefulness of images uncompromised by the infrastructure
- Little knowledge and no awareness needed by consumers of the complexity of the technology in their pockets
- Security that consumers have confidence in
- Sufficient speed for solutions to be attractive and to become pervasive
- Ever-increasing speed and capability that link to the installed base
By creating a detailed yet clear explanation of the wireless terms, technologies and global infrastructure, WITI contributors provided digital imaging professionals with the direction needed to resolve barriers to market development and define the next generation of wireless imaging products and services.
In February of 2001, the group published “The Road to Wireless Imaging,” a white paper intended to accelerate learning and enable faster development of wireless imaging products, speeding market growth and development of solutions for end-users. Written in collaboration with Future Image Inc., the white paper provides an explanation of the state of the market and issues related to the wireless imaging infrastructure at the time of publication. The white paper, derived from Future Image's research study "Wireless Imaging 2001 — Overcoming the Challenges," presents a straightforward explanation of the complex technologies involved with wireless image transmission applications in two major chapters:
- The Wide Area Network
- Infrastructure and its issues for imaging, including bandwidth, latency, error correction, and more
- Wireless hand-held device issues including power, displays, OS, protocols, compression, etc. and their imaging opportunities
- Personal and Local Area Network technologies and concerns for imaging, including Bluetooth, IR and other standards
While the WITI Initiativehas concluded, I3A continues its work in mobile imaging with the Camera Phone Image Quality initiative within our Mobile Imaging Interest Group.
Download the WITI White Paper at no charge.
