Vision Systems Design adds value
George Kotelly
Executive Editor
This issue marks the third anniversary of Vision Systems Design. Since its inception in September 1996, this magazine has focused on meeting the technical-information needs of our readers. To help them do their jobs better, every issue adds value to its editorial by incorporating comprehensive, insightful, and expert knowledge that accentuates innovative products, systems, technologies, and applications targeted at industrial, scientific, medical, and military/aerospace markets. This editorial mission, a perspective that is not available from any other resource, is reinforced in this month`s contents.
A major industrial inspection task is how to examine insulated pipes for internal blockage and corrosion. Reports Larry Curran, a portable x-ray inspection system has been developed that can scan a pipe while it is in service. It gauges the wall thicknesses of pipes by collecting radiation-produced data pulse signals for image analysis. In another industrial application, shopping centers are seeking to detect theft and vandalism by installing video surveillance systems. Curran reports that the centers are using multiple cameras and imaging equipment to survey several large areas from a central site.
In the medical field, patients with neuromuscular diseases are now able to express themselves audibly, type out commands, and activate appliances with the assistance of an eye-goggle-mounted miniature video system. This system, says Curran, tracks, images, and analyzes the eye movements of a patient and subsequently triggers the desired result. For another medical application, John Haystead describes an automated teleradiology system that delivers high-capacity digital images via transmission networks for analysis by radiologists scattered among several terminal sites.
For high-volume medical and military image-processing systems, says R. Winn Hardin, image-compression chips offer better performance than software for embedded or high-speed applications by using dual-function memories that can simultaneously encode and decode separate data streams. He also finds that suppliers are combining several optical disks into a single jukebox station that sometimes surpasses the capacity and access speed of magnetic media.
