Introduction to WIA
The Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) interface is both an application programming interface (API) and a device driver interface (DDI). The WIA API is designed to allow applications to:
Run in a robust and stable environment.
Minimize interoperability problems.
Enumerate available image acquisition devices.
Create connections to multiple devices simultaneously.
Query properties of devices in a standard and expandable manner.
Acquire device data using standard and high performance transfer mechanisms.
Maintain image properties across data transfers.
Be notified of a wide variety of device events.
The WIA DDI is designed to minimize the amount of code a hardware vendor must write, while maintaining the flexibility to craft individual solutions. This is accomplished by:
Providing a standard device service library that performs most driver operations.
Promoting industry device communications standards, such as the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP), so that one WIA driver supports most WIA devices.
This section presents a brief overview of WIA in the following areas: