Vision 20/20 flashback: Vision Systems Design in August 2003

This year,Vision Systems Design celebrates its 20th anniversary. Throughout the year—as part of our Vision 20/20series— we are going to encourage people to think about where the imaging and machine vision industry could be headed in the next20 years, while also taking a look back at the past 20 years.

In the August 2003 editorial, Andy wrote that "If today's high-technology information resources are not up to par, the marketing efforts of some machine-vision and image-processing companies are also suffering." What he meant here, specifically, was that often times "marketing hype" can be misleading and oftentimes inaccurate, and that (at the time) marketing departments in high-technology companies should rethink their strategies. Technical information, according to Andy, must be decisively improved as to clarity, accuracy, and usefulness. I wonder where Andy stands on this now…

This issue’s cover story took a look atinfrared imaging. Specifically, contributing editor R. Winn Hardin wrote an article about how thermal imaging technologies are used to detect covert threats, objects, and suspects. He also made a prediction that ended up being accurate, in terms of increased adoption of thermal imaging.

He wrote: "Unlike standard image intensifiers that amplify low levels of visible light, thermal imagers are sensitive to infrared (IR) light and are not susceptible to 'blooming,' a condition caused when a bright-light source relative to the surrounding environment is directed at the intensifier, temporarily blinding it. Therefore, industries and government agencies expect to expand their use of thermal imagers in perimeter and threat detection, response to threat conditions, object and package inspection, and deception detection."

Additionally, Andy wrote that several market reports indicated that machine vision and automation product sales in some global regions should "increase markedly over the next few years." This provides for an interesting read, in terms of what the experts saw as key drivers of growth.

In addition to the infrared imaging article, feature article topics included an X-Ray imaging system, a medicine bottle inspection system, a high-speed video system, and imaging boards pushing into PC/104 format.

In this issue’s new products section, Andy covered—among a number of other new products—a smart camera, a flat-panel industrial computer, a CMOS camera, and imaging software.