As mentioned in my first "VISION show floor" article, the topic of the overall health of the machine vision industry was something that I wanted to ask everyone that I met. So for this, my second interview of the tradeshow, I was able to get the perspective of a company that develops laser and lighting products for machine vision applications.
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When speaking with Simon Stanley, Managing Director at ProPhotonix, about what seems to be a market that is on the rise, Stanley agreed, noting that the growing need for automation seems to be driving the market.
"From our end, we see that requirements and demands from our customers are increasing,"he said. "This seems to be the case across the industry."
Stanley explained that in addition to off-the-shelf components and products, ProPhotonix sees a lot of custom work. The company develops products based off customer needs, he explained. These include the Mini OEM light, the SpecBright line light, custom SpecBright lights, the Cobra Slim line light, and OEM line lights for outdoor use, all of which can be seen in the demonstration video below.
"Our customers are typically selling vision systems and we are responding to them,” he said. "We are working to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry."
Curious to see which markets or applications areas Stanley and his company might see as growth opportunities, I asked about this, and he noted that medical imaging represents a good opportunity, at least for his company.
"From our perspective, LED lighting is not well integrated into the medical imaging market," he said. "We've noticed this, and we expect to see growth there."
From there, our conversation turned to the question of the "next big thing." Specifically, I asked if there is a particular trend, application, or product in the next few years that he saw as the next big thing in the industry. Color imaging, he explained, represents a possible choice for this answer. Hyperspectral imaging, in particular, is something Stanley noted as having seen a lot of interest in from customers. This includes applications dealing with food and beverage inspection, factory automation, and other color imaging applications.
Stay tuned for my next "From the floor" article, which will be out soon.
View more information on ProPhotonix.
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