This magazine is known for providing technical news and articles, interviews, and new-product listings, but we also provide a comprehensive Buyers Guide and, in this issue, our Worldwide Industrial Camera Directory. The directory is a particular favorite of our readers, since they can find, in one place, a guide to industrial cameras, whether CCD, CMOS, infrared, or x-ray. They can also sort through the available interfaces, including Camera Link and FireWire.
The directory this year contains 120 camera-manufacturing companies from North America, Europe, and Asia and lists up to 15 cameras from each company. The cameras are identified by product name, sensor type, color or mono, scan type, resolution, spectrum, interface, and frame rate. In addition to being part of our September issue, the directory is widely distributed at trade shows throughout the year and is available on the Web at www.vision-systems.com.
To supplement the list of camera manufacturers, you will find a series of articles that add some interesting perspectives on camera developments. In two articles about 2-D Data Matrix reading and verification, Tim Pastore of RVSI Acuity CiMatrix (Nashau, NH, USA; www.rvsi.com) and Justin Testa of Cognex (Natick, MA, USA; www.cognex.com) discuss technologies for this rapidly growing market. An article by Kevin Taylor of ISRA Vision Systems (Lansing, MI, USA; www.isravision.com) illustrates the importance of vision-guided robotics. In addition, editor Andy Wilson shows how color cameras can capture images using a number of different architectures, including Bayer filters, multiple CCDs, and a direct-image sensor. And, Greg Hollows of Edmund Industrial Optics (Barrington, NJ, USA; www.edmundoptics.com) describes how IR cameras can be used in machine-vision systems.
GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY
Starting with the dramatic image of an F/A-22 Raptor aircraft streaking from our front cover, the articles this month span every segment of the machine-vision industry, from aerospace and defense to automotive assembly lines and food and pharmaceutical inspection. Automating assembly of the F/A-22 fuselage will become increasingly important as production of this new-generation fighter ramps up. The primary contractor, Lockheed Martin (Marietta, GA, USA www.lockheedmartin.com), recently received an order for 22 more planes, bringing the total built or under assembly to 45, and more to come.
Every manufacturing industry is facing the demand for more speed and reliability. This is evident in our articles on inspecting food for color and appearance and quickening robot-based vision guidance with software. As Optel Vision’s Louis Roy notes in this month’s Business Views, such inspections place stringent requirements on vision systems that will only become more rigorous. Manufacturing automation is a harsh taskmaster, but machine-vision systems are rising to meet the demand.
