Digital Cameras - Always have DCIM folder?

[gigemboy]

Not sure where to put this, but I am thinking about making a small image transfer program for digital cameras in VB.NET, but I have a question about the filesystems on these devices. For USB cameras (cameras that can transfer through USB cables), when you plug them in, the drive is listed as a removable disk drive. You can navigate this drive just like any other drive on your system, and am trying to figure out a way to know that any particular drive would happen to be a camera's drive.

I noticed that on the camera I tested, there is a root "DCIM" folder, which then contains a subfolder of the camera name, which contains the actual pictures stored on the camera's memory card. Is this "DCIM" folder always going to appear? Regardless of the manufacturer of the camera, as long as it is recognized as a USB storage device/removable disk? I know that for many cameras this is the case, but are there others which have some other root folder other than "DCIM"? If not, then its just a simple matter of enumerating the drives looking for that root folder, then just drilling down to the pictures. Any comments would be appreciated.

[szlamany]

A google for "digital camera DCIM folder standard" sure seems to indicate that the leaders are all using the DCIM folder standard. With some harder searching you might be able to pinpoint this to be an actual standard, but the links that get in the way might prove extensive...

What if I copy my camera contents to a CD drive and leave the DCIM folder on that drive - and that CD is in. Won't you stumble upon it while enumerating as well?

There must be a way to see that the "drive" is on a "camera"...

[gigemboy]

What if I copy my camera contents to a CD drive and leave the DCIM folder on that drive - and that CD is in. Won't you stumble upon it while enumerating as well?

Well probably so and I had anticipated that, but all the program is going to do is allow to copy the pictures to another location, and possibly doing a batch resize or convert, so even if thats the case, it should still work, finding pictures (even though its not on a "cam"). Its not a main concern, but I don't know of any other "definite" ways for it to show as a camera, since, after all, it is showing as a USB mass storage device to the O/S, and not a "camera", which again, is not a major concern of mine, but if there was a definite way, I don't know it.

It would show up as a "camera" if there was some sort of TWAIN or WIA driver installed for it, but Im not really wanting that, since the couple of cameras that I have and want to do this with are both seen through a regular USB mass storage device...