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Special Features Highlights 2007 p3 of 4:

• Software extracts key content from images
  Advancements in imaging technologies are producing vast amounts of data that can overwhelm analysts. A team of engineers, computer scientists, and physicists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Livermore, CA, USA; www.llnl.gov) has developed a new extraction system, the Image Content Engine, which allows analysts to search volumes of data in a timely manner by guiding them to areas in the images that likely contain the objects for which they are searching.
• Vision system checks beverage cans for defects
  British packaging company Rexam (London, UK; www.rexam.com) needed a vision system to inspect 100% of its containers in its North American beverage-can plant. To check for inside-can defects and to inspect cans with mixed labels, the company chose Applied Vision (Akron, OH, USA; www.appliedvision.com) and its VTRAC intelligent machine software, which enables the system to pinpoint the component causing a defect.
• Terahertz technology assists Canadian forestry industry
  Researchers at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC; Prince George, BC, Canada; www.unbc.ca) are using terahertz technology to create imaging devices that provide forest operations with the ability to see inside wood and determine the fiber quality of logs and processed wood products.
• Hyperlens may enable nanoscale optical imaging
  Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA, USA; www.berkeley.edu) have developed a "hyperlens" that brings them one major step closer to the goal of nanoscale optical imaging.
• Modular cameras make system integration easier
  Off-the-shelf and custom modules can be combined for a range of machine-vision applications.
• Imagers speed holographic-data retrieval
  Micromirrors and CMOS imagers combine to write and read digital data.
• Paper rolls centered with machine vision
  Norske Skog (Lysaker, Norway; www.norskeskog.com), a producer of paper for newsprint and magazines, has 22 paper mills worldwide. Its Tasman mill at Kawerau, New Zealand, produces more than 300,000 tons a year. Paper is manufactured in wide rolls and then slit while rewinding onto cardboard tubes. These shorter rolls are sized specifically for printing presses. Keeping the rolls balanced as they are rewound onto the cores is a significant control challenge.
• Vision system identifies auto parts
  Perkins Engines Company (Peterborough, UK; www.perkins.com), a manufacturer of diesel engines, needed to track precise details on the characteristics of fuel injectors to maximize performance and reduce emissions. Laser-marked Data Matrix 2-D barcodes identify the performance characteristics of each injector, which must be installed in the proper engine during production.
• Machine vision reads electricity meters
  The Shanghai Power Corporation (Shanghai, China) has undertaken a 5--10-year program to replace old kilowatt/hour meters with more accurate models, but to do so the utility must record and store the final readings from the old meters. In 2005, the utility contracted with Microview Science & Technologies (Beijing, China; www.microview.com) to develop a vision system that images the old meters after they have been packed in cartons.
• GigE Vision and GenICam: Image processing at a watershed
  The image-processing industry finds itself at a crucial technological watershed. According to many experts, the coming new interface standard GigE Vision (Gigabit Ethernet for Machine Vision) and the closely associated generic software interface GenICam (Generic Interface for Cameras) will give new impetus to the industrial image-processing sector in the near future.

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