byAndy Wilson, editor
[email protected]
In developing new products, many software vendors leverage simple point, neighborhood, and global algorithms such as histogram equalization and Fourier analysis in their products—functions that are now commonplace and well documented, having been developed and used extensively over the past 50 years.
Newer and more novel algorithms dealing with image transformation, mapping, pattern matching, and image classification are also well-documented in journals such as the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI).
Using these algorithms or variations of them has allowed software vendors to offer more comprehensive tools to their customers. For machine vision and image processing these developments now allow more sophisticated tasks such as stereo mapping, color classification, and image warping to be performed.
Customers of this software will benefit greatly since they will not be burdened with the task of developing the tools themselves. Despite the advantages and benefits provided by the software, however, most vendors are highly reluctant to specify which algorithms are used in these implementations, fearing patent infringement and competitive pressure. But as a journalist covering high technology, that’s just the sort of detail that I want to provide to our readers.
Many of those in marketing whom I interview use clever ways to avoid revealing this information. Instead, they prefer only to explain the advantages and benefits their products bring to the end user, and not how they were actually designed.
Conversations with such folks always remind me of the classic scene in George Pal’s 1960 motion picture The Time Machine, in which our hero Rod Taylor is asked how his invention works. “This lever in front controls movement. Forward pressure sends the machine into the future, backward pressure into the past,” is Taylor’s reply. While this might be an explanation of how to control the machine, it’s not a description of its operating principle!
In the fullness of time
My thirst for knowledge has brought some surprising reactions from those at companies I visit. On one occasion, halfway though an interview with a military defense contractor, my hosts discovered that I was not an American citizen. All my notes were then duly confiscated and I was escorted toward the exit post-haste.
On another visit, I happened to arrive early for an interview with senior management. Since they had not yet arrived, I duly waltzed into the engineering department and proceeded to interrogate a senior engineer. He was only too willing to discuss the components used in the system and how he had developed the software. I made copious notes that unfortunately you will never read as an article in Vision Systems Design. After the management arrived, they discovered what I had accomplished and, to put it mildly, were not amused. As you can imagine, the rest of the interview was rather uncomfortable.
Believing in fair and honest reporting, I always submit my articles to the engineers and marketing folks who have helped me along the way. On numerous occasions, many of the technical aspects of the articles have been severely edited, rendering them little more than a detailed product description.
Hardware and software vendors must realize, though, that they need to provide more than simple descriptions of the advantages and benefits to “sell” their products to the media. While I do not expect these revelations to include source code and Gerber files, I would like a little more than a description of which lever is used to control movement.
