Pleora Announces Strategic Licensing Agreement with Cognex to Deliver Integrated, Best-in-Class Toolset for GigE-based Machine Vision Applications

New Platform Bundles Pleora's eBUS® Driver Suite with Cognex® VisionPro™ and CVL™ Development Software OTTAWA, June 4

OTTAWA, June 4 - Pleora Technologies, a leading supplier of Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) video connectivity products today announced a strategic licensing agreement with Cognex Corporation, the machine vision industry's leading software manufacturer, where Pleora's eBUS Driver Suite is now integrated with Cognex VisionPro and CVL (Cognex Vision Library) software.

Pleora's award-winning eBUS drivers optimize the performance of GigE Vision™-based applications by making almost all CPU resources in the PC available for valuable image processing rather than simple data transfer. Cognex VisionPro and CVL software provide designers with the hardware-independent, powerful, and feature-rich toolset needed for fast and flexible vision application development.

'Pleora's drivers for iPORT IP Engines have provided machine vision users with outstanding reliability and performance for years,' said George Chamberlain, President of Pleora Technologies. 'Cognex is the recognized leader in the machine vision industry and this partnership will extend the reach of GigE Vision in machine vision applications.'

'By bundling Pleora's eBUS drivers with Cognex VisionPro, we provide our users with a high performance GigE solution to match our high performance vision tools' said Scott Favreau, Director of PC Vision Product Development at Cognex.

Cognex began distributing Pleora's eBUS Driver Suite with Version 5.0 of Cognex VisionPro and 6.6 of Cognex CVL library. The eBUS Driver Suite is installed in the background with the Cognex applications, making the experience seamless for end users. The eBUS Driver Suite includes two drivers:

• The eBUS Universal Driver is ideal for most real-time vision applications. It runs on almost any vendor's NIC (Network Interface Card), handles all IP transport protocols - including ordinary network traffic AND the GigE Vision image and data streams.
• The eBUS Optimal Driver is ideal for applications with very heavy processing overhead. It runs on Intel's PRO/1000 family of NICs, handles all IP transport protocols - including ordinary network traffic AND GigE Vision image and data streams.

Pleora's eBUS drivers allow GigE NIC (network interface card/chip) hardware to emulate direct, bus-like transactions with PC subsystems at the kernel level. As a result, video streams with bit-rates up to 1 Gb/s can be transferred directly to PC memory using very few CPU resources. The remaining CPU resources can thus be used by the vision application for image processing and other tasks. For more information on Pleora's GigE Vision solutions, including the eBUS Driver Suite, visit www.pleora.com/gige/.

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The eBUS Driver Suite was awarded the Advanced Imaging Pro's 2007 People's Choice Award for best software.

About Pleora Technologies

Pleora Technologies Inc. is a global supplier of Ethernet video connectivity products for the broadcast, medical, machine vision, and security/surveillance industries. Pleora's award-winning iPORT and EtherCast product families transport imaging and video data in real time over low-cost Ethernet connections with extremely high performance. Pleora, a Frost & Sullivan Product Innovation Award-winner, is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. For more information, visit or website at: www.pleora.com.

About Cognex

Cognex Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and markets machine vision sensors and systems, or devices that can 'see.' Cognex vision sensors are used in factories around the world to automate the manufacture of a wide range of items and to assure their quality. Cognex is the world's leader in the machine vision industry, having shipped more than 400,000 machine vision systems, representing over $2 billion in cumulative revenue, since the company's founding in 1981. In addition to its corporate headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, Cognex also has regional offices and distributors located throughout North America, Japan, Europe, Asia and Latin America. For more information about Cognex, visit us on the web at www.cognex.com.

SOURCE Pleora Technologies