Moving the needle

Machine vision and imaging companies continue to raise the bar of innovation. Chances are that if you are reading this, you already know that. Still, if you are interested in reading about some specific examples, look no further than the honorees of our 2020 Innovators Awards. Submissions in the annual program were judged on originality; innovation; their impact on designers, systems integrators or users; whether they fulfilled a new market need; leveraged a novel technology and/or increased productivity.

This year was the most competitive and diverse awards program we’ve held to date. Once again, we only had one Platinum honoree. (See page 12 to find out the company and product.) Among the honorees this year are products and technologies such as TDI cameras, hyperspectral imaging, robots, embedded vision, SWIR cameras, artificial intelligence and deep learning, high-speed cameras, and 3D imaging. None of these are necessarily new technologies, but in reading the Awards article, it should become clear that these companies are advancing the technologies and helping to bring machine vision to new heights.

Throughout the rest of the issue we cover a wide range of topics and technologies, including a product focus article that highlights novel image sensors and lasers that power 3D imaging technologies on page 20, and a system from new company that was co-founded by Touradj Ebrahimi, who led the groups that developed the JPEG 2000 and MPEG-4 standards. This system combines multiple cameras and software for an immersive, high-resolution video system that aims to change the way people stream unscripted events like sports, concerts, or surveillance (page 13).

An article on page 15 highlights image fusion techniques used to integrate complementary information from multiple source images into one single image to enhance the viewing perception of the observer. By fusing visible and infrared image data, for example, it helps to reveal hidden information in a scene and works quite well for detecting concealed weapons.

Additional topics include an interview with a hyperspectral imaging and machine vision expert; high-speed imaging research; a smartphone program that enhances AI assistants with image processing; and an application involving unique image processing algorithms that increase drone reaction speeds.

As machine vision and imaging technologies continue to grow and advance, we intend to expand our coverage along with it. Are there certain applications or technologies you’d like to see covered in the magazine? Do you have an interesting application story you’d like to share with us? If so, we would like to hear from you! Please reach out directly with questions, comments, or suggestions at [email protected]. We hope you enjoy this issue and remain grateful for your readership!