WIA
More info
- Creator
- Microsoft
- Released
- 2000
- Type
- Device API
Microsoft's driver API that let Windows talk to scanners and digital cameras without every program writing its own hardware code.
Windows Image Acquisition shipped with Windows Me in 2000 as Microsoft's answer to the older, cross-platform TWAIN. The difference is in the division of labour: WIA is a system service, the device maker writes a small minidriver, and applications call a shared COM interface instead of each one talking to the hardware directly. An image comes back the same way whether the source is a flatbed scanner or a camera.
WIA 2.0 was rebuilt on top of the newer driver model in Windows Vista (2006). TWAIN nonetheless lived on in professional tools such as Photoshop, where fine-grained control of the scanner mattered more than the convenience.