AUGUST 7--The UK Industrial Vision Association (UKIVA; Royston, UK;www.ukiva.org) is expanding its scope of activity to actively encourage companies involved in scientific imaging applications to become members. The UKIVA was established in 1992 as a not-for-profit trade organization whose prime objective was to promote the use of imaging in industry, but over the years has expanded to reflect the dynamics of the imaging world. In line with this latest initiative, the association has updated its logo to include the 'Imaging for Industry and Science.'
UKIVA director, Don Braggins, explained: "When the UKIVA was founded, the word 'Industrial' was included to differentiate the aims of the association from the very wide field of 'computer vision' activities. In recent years, we have embraced imaging in a much broader sense and expanded the association's scope to include x-ray and infrared imaging, as well as high-speed imaging. In addition, we have introduced a 'research' membership category, which is open to any organization involved in research or training in the area of industrial vision, as we are keen to encourage universities to produce as many vision-literate graduates as possible, and any way we can help promote the research activities will help toward that goal.
"Imaging has an enormous role to play in scientific applications," he continued, "from traditional image analysis (which was the starting point for industrial vision) to a host of microscopy techniques from infrared to fluorescence. Today, many of our component suppliers serve not only industrial and surveillance markets but also the scientific and academic areas, and in some cases, medical imaging markets as well, so it seems entirely natural that the association should now extend its umbrella to include the scientific community."