Machine vision is generally understood as image processing for industrial applications, as opposed to the so-called non-industrial applications of for example medicine, surveillance, traffic, entertainment, to name only a few. However, also these areas are in fact industries, only not production oriented ones. And the term Machine Vision could also be understood as “machines that see”, whatever they see in whichever industry or application as long as it is an automated process. This broadening of a definition would directly lead to a huge broadening of what is today considered the Machine Vision Market and a large group of additional players could be suddenly seen on the field.

Is this useful or not ? For a trade journal ? For an association ?

Let´s face the question by taking a closer look into these other areas of application for the technologies we usually cover with INSPECT (www.inspect-online.com).

The INSPECT magazine 03/08 is focused on a wide range of different applications beyond production. Besides the target of generating profit quite a few of these applications directly or indirectly provide for a safer world, a cleaner environment or improved medical treatment. The combination of fast 3D stereo tracking in combination with tissue simulation in virtual reality for example allows for the first time ever to practice eye surgery until proficiency is reached like pilots practice mastering the airplane before their first real take-off. With the increase of age-related eye problems if only by the shift in the age pyramid, millions of us will be very happy about this in the future.

A totally different and yet machine vision empowered tool to make our world a safer place is the equally respected and loathed speed control. Speed measurement, number plate recognition and driver face capturing are all optical and machine vision tasks. As much as these curbside boxes cost us frequent drivers and as much as we might curse it for again getting us in the one moment of lowered attention, I think we still agree that thousands of lives are saved because of the presence of these speed cameras.

Recycling is one way to get our energy balance back on track and glass recycling yields especially high potential. Did you know that with each ton of recycled glass the emission of greenhouse gasses is reduced by 200 kilograms ? This, however, is only made possible by very fast and highly accurate optical sorting of the secondary raw material.

These and many more equally important equally interesting applications are covered with the magazine. Among them also the meanwhile famous Stasi (i.e. Ministry for State Security, German Democratic Republic) puzzle, the vision empowered reconstruction of 45 Million torn or shredded Stasi documents. A topic very intertwined with our country´s recent history, yet not as German as one could think at first glance.

So coming back to the question: does the definition of Machine Vision need to be extended? Why don´t you share your thoughts on this and other “vision related” matters with other experts either here or in our newly established INSPECT community at http://network.inspect-online.com.

Looking forward to meet you there,

Gabriele Jansen