MVPro Media - Issue 1 - November 2016 by Clifton Media Lab

GREAT INSIGHT FROM SECTOR COMPANIES

ISSUE 1 - NOVEMBER 2016

INTERVIEWS WITH SOME OF THE INDUSTRYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LEADING PLAYERS

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ON THE EVE OF VISION, A BRAND NEW MEDIA PLATFORM FOR THE INDUSTRY

& EXHIBITION 27 April 2017 Arena MK, Milton Keynes

Join the new exciting Conference & Exhibition that brings you up to speed with the latest developments in the industrial machine vision and imaging world

technical vision seminars from beginner up to expert

Network with leading companies at the forefront of machine vision technology

Learn about what's coming next. Hear from industry experts and cutting edge vision research

Gain valuable insight into the latest technology and trends - prepare for expanding global competition

See real-world examples of how machine vision delivers value and creates competitive advantage

· 3D Vision · Soﬅware · Vision Basics · Camera Technology · Systems and Solutions · Image Sensors · Embedded Vision · Optics, Illumination & Laser Contact Chris Valdes (chris.valdes@ppma.co.uk) or ﬁnd out more on www.ukiva.org/MVC

FR at EE te t nd o

live demonstration stands

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CONTENTS 4

Welcome to MVPro

Industry News

What lies ahead for Basler?

Crowley to make its debut at VISION

MidOpt talks about StablEDGE and what’s around the corner

Catching up with a busy Greg Hollows of Edmund Optics

EMVA takes time out to answer some questions

AIA - The North American vision market: new opportunities abound

Imperx looks forward to VISION

CoaXPress leads the way for Euresys

Enclustra - putting the power of FPGAs into the hands of customers

IDT - cameras for most demanding environments

Variety is the spice of life for Scorpion

VISION Q&A: On the eve of the show

VISION Show Guide

Stemmer-Imaging - hyperspectral imaging – an evolutionary step forward

TeleDyne DALSA - polarization Line Scan Imaging: a new direction for machine vision

EVT - and once more: Image processing!

Gefasoft - state of the machine vision industry from an integrators point of view

MVPro is published by IFA Magazine Publications Ltd, The Tobacco Factory, Loft 3, Bristol BS3 1TF

SICK AG - intuitive and intelligent: 3D inspection made easy

Tel: +44 (0) 1179 089686

Best Scientific - new illumination system for viewing Biofilms

University Project - automatic weed imaging and analysis by machine vision

© 2016. All rights reserved ‘MVPro Media’ is a trademark of IFA Magazine Publications Limited. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any printed or electronic retrieval system without prior permission. All material has been carefully checked for accuracy, but no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies.

Welcome to MVPro Welcome, Willkommen, Bienvenue!

I’m delighted to introduce the launch issue of our print version of MVPro Media! And how timely to launch alongside The Vision Show in Stuttgart – Europe’s, if not arguably the world’s leading trade fair for imaging and vision technology. Imaging and machine vision technology is a global phenomenon that’s changing business around the world - enabling decision makers to make cost savings, improve efficiency and increase profits in their business. MVPro is dedicated to bringing you the most up to date news, products and applications within the sphere, keeping you informed and able to make good business decisions based on the latest technology. We all know that over the last ten years the global machine vision landscape has rapidly progressed and developed, in both product technology and applications, yet its media has not. The industry needed a new platform, one which reflected the huge opportunities and interesting challenges that lie ahead. I started my career in scientific and technical publishing and have always had close links to the vision industry. I then moved across to the equally demanding financial sector, creating titles which have reached their target readership among the UK’s premier adviser groups, in the most demanding of financial market times. And now we are ready to embark on a new challenge: helping to take the machine vision industry forward into the multimedia future. We are proud to introduce MVPro Media: – website, magazine and social media, our innovative and collaborative multi-media platform designed to disseminate state of the art research and products far more effectively. It puts the industry forward in the digital age. What’s more, it caters for a truly pan-European audience. MVPro Magazine is specifically intended for the next generation of thought leaders, engineers and developers, across academia and industry who have grown up in the digital age and for whom old fashioned trade-titles are no longer the most effective means of communication. It allows a unique knowledge exchange opportunity and a rare chance to create a new community. We look forward to working with you. Best wishes,

Alex

Alex Sullivan Publishing Director, MVPro

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Note from the editor Raising the bar for media within machine vision

Dear reader, A warm welcome to this, the very first issue of MVPro Magazine. Our publisher Alex has already given you the important facts regarding our objectives and our ambition to become the leading media in what is a truly exciting sector. I’d just like to expand upon that welcome and look forward to meeting as many of you as possible over the coming years. We’ve set up MVPro Magazine to be a two-way street, wanting to establish a dialogue with as many industry figures and companies as possible. We’ve also launched on the eve of the world’s largest machine vision show, held every two years in Stuttgart. VISION will give us a crucial window upon the industry and set the tone for the next few years. The MVPro Media team will be out in force during the show and we’ll be digesting as much as we can for our second issue. VISION naturally enough features in a big way throughout the magazine and we start our look at the show from the centre-spread with an interview with the team doing all the organising. We then give you a complete list of companies exhibiting at the show which you can use to keep track of who you want to see and where they are. We’ll also pick-out some must-sees. As well as VISION, this action packed first issue includes pages of the latest news, and features a contribution from EMVA and their US counterparts AIA. We also have a number of interviews with senior industry figures, including a great chat with Basler Marketing Director Henning Tiarks who updates us on their year so far and what he expects for 2017. And just to add a bit of spice, we look at hyperspectral imaging. What’s all the fuss about and is this going to keep us entranced over the next few years. We hope you enjoy this first issue and please, keep sending us your news and images, we want to hear it all. We’ve had a great response already and please keep it coming. I look forward to meeting you soon, if you're going to VISION, the MVPro team will be on stand E 105. All the best,

Neil

Neil Martin Editor, MVPro

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VISIT AT BO US OTH 1E42

A NEW VISION OF VALUE. CATCH A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE OF SIGHT. ONLY FROM BASLER. ONLY AT VISION. Innovation is the foundation of success. Through our long history of groundbreaking development, Basler has become the world market leader in industrial cameras. And at this year’s VISION show, you can see for yourself how our latest innovations are shifting the focus of the future. We’re expanding our already extensive portfolio of leading-edge and highly reliable products by introducing revolutionary Time-of-Flight (ToF) and Embedded Vision solutions. Both of these unique offerings enable you to capture precision imaging with a cost-effective system, delivering the exceptional value and superior quality expected from Basler. At VISION, we’re giving you the chance to get hands-on with our latest imaging innovations, experience the best value for your money, and learn why Basler is the most trusted brand in imaging. See our unique vision of value at baslerweb.com/vision2016.

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FLIR SYSTEMS ACQUIRES POINT GREY RESEARCH FOR $253M CASH

FLIR Systems, a world leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of sensor systems, has acquired Point Grey Research, a leading developer of machine vision cameras, for $253m in cash. In a statement, FLIR said that addition of the Point Grey business will augment their existing OEM cores and components business by adding a broad range of visible spectrum machine vision cameras and solutions. What’s more, the FLIR thermal sensor technology, with its ability to remotely measure temperature, see through factory obscurants and accurately detect and characterize human activity in retail settings, will extend Point Grey’s product range into new application spaces. President and CEO of FLIR Andy Teich said: “We’re excited to add the broad range of innovative

E MVA N ETWORKI NG EVE NT TAKES PLACE ON 7 NOVE M BE R: I NTE RNATIONAL VISION N IGHT 2016 EMVA is holding its preVISION bash at the Benz Plenum restaurant on 7 November, 2016. The Plenum is situated in the heart of Stuttgart and is part of the newly renovated

products from Point Grey to FLIR as together we have a unique capability to create advanced sensing solutions for the broad machine vision market, “Thermal imaging technology provides vision systems customers an alternative imaging spectrum that offers a rich, largely untapped layer of information that can be further leveraged. Point Grey’s global presence and credibility in industrial vision systems provides a strong platform for us to integrate our leading thermal technology. Point Grey is a proven, high-performing business with an impressive set of products, customers, processes, and people, all of which we see as being highly synergistic and strategically significant to FLIR.“We welcome the Point Grey employees to FLIR and look forward to creating highly valuable solutions for a wide array of intelligent imaging applications.”

state parliament building of Baden Württemberg. It has magnificent views of Stuttgart castle which boasts gardens, the opera and the city lake. International Vision Night, hosted by the EMVA, is a key part of the show’s social programme and sets out to give those attending the show a networking opportunity. It’s a chance, says EMVA, for CEOs, managing

directors, corporate strategists, marketing and technical managers and representatives of press and media, to rub shoulders and get prepared for VISION 2016.

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EMVA SAYS HELLO TO IMAGING.MARKET Imaging.market joined the EMVA in the summer. The Munich based consultancy and business services company was founded this year by engineers Dr Ronald Mueller and Sourav Dutta. Both have a decade of experience in machine vision. They say that they have built up a platform designed to simplify and accelerate the product selection process for imaging customers. Services offered by the company include market research, project management, sales, social media and web design. A company statement says: “Imaging.market simplifies and

MAJOR U PDATE FOR SP1 STE REO VISION SYSTE M

accelerates the generation of customer leads for the listed manufacturers. To constantly increase the value for customers and suppliers, the team of Imaging.market is continuously adding new products and usability features to the platform.” Products include Area Scan, Board-level Camera, Cable & Connector, CCD (sensor technology), CMOS (sensor technology), Colour, Fixed Focal Length, Framegrabber, High Speed, Industry-specific Software, LED, Library, Light Controller, Monochrome, NIR, Scientific and Smart Camera.

Nerian Vision Technologies has issued a major update for its SP1 stereo vision system. The company says that the update almost doubles the supported image resolution, up to 1440 x 1072 pixels. The new firmware gives the user a choice between a high processing rate, or a high image resolution. SP1 is Nerian’s solution for a stereo matching in real time. It allows for depth perception and 3D reconstruction. What’s more, unlike other sensors for depth detection, such as time-of-flight cameras, or structured light stereovision, it is a purely passive process. It can therefore be used in daylight outdoors. Nerian says it has invested a great deal of time and effort into optimizing and fine-tuning of its algorithms, ensuring that the SP1 quality depth data is delivered at a simultaneously high processing rate. SP1 can be used for a number of industrial applications and the FPGA design can also licensed as IP Core.

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DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATIVE FUSION PROCESS HELPED BY ULTRA HIGH-SPEED FRAMING CAMERA

A high-speed framing camera from Specialised Imaging has been bought by Oxford-based First Light Fusion to study and develop its alternative approach to inertial confinement fusion based upon an aspherical cavity collapse process. Specialised Imaging designs, manufactures, services and supplies ultra-highspeed imaging systems and components for industrial, defence and scientific applications. The model supplied to First Light Fusion is the SIMX16 camera. First Light Fusion, which was a spin-out from the University of Oxford in 2011, is developing a novel process for achieving practical and affordable fusion energy. The company believes it has the potential to dramatically shorten the timescale and cost of achieving practical, and affordable fusion energy. Physicist Hugo Doyle at First Light Fusion said: “We use an 8 km/s gas gun as a research

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tool to drive the aspherical collapse process. This allows us to reach fusion relevant temperatures and densities by taking advantage of the resulting instabilities. With interactions taking place in less than 100 nanoseconds we required a high performance optical imaging camera with exposure time at an even faster rate to remove motion blur and allow us to benchmark our predictive hydrodynamic simulations.

“Currently we use the SIMX16 camera with a backlighting laser to image through our target and watch the shock propogate and interact with our targets. This allows us to watch the overall hydrodynamics of the process and compare with simulations. In future we plan to connect the SIMX16 to our visible light spectrometer and obtain light emission information enabling us to see the temperature of our plasma over time and space.

“We chose the SIMX16 camera not only because it can capture images at 1 billion frames / second but it uniquely allows us to acquire 16 images with independent control over the timing and gain for each image. This has allowed us to build a film in a single shot of several events of different brightness. This advantage is particularly important to us as our experiments have a low repitition rate. Previously to obtain this data we would have had to carry out 16 shots and interpolate the data – a long process.

“The support from Specialised Imaging is first-class. When contacting them for assistance they often turn up the following day to check that everything is working optimally. We value their product and support so much that this is the second SIMX camera we have used.” Specialised Imaging SIM ultra high-speed framing cameras are capable of capturing up to 32 images at one billion frames per second; capturing visual data from even the most fleeting of phenomena.

IN-SIGHT 2000 SERIES

THE POWER OF IN-SIGHT WITH THE EASE-OF-USE AND AFFORDABILITY OF A VISION SENSOR

COGNEX.COM/IS2000

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UV LENSES FOR AUTOMATIC RETURN FIRE SYSTEM

An optimised AR coated, 10.5mm diameter UV lenses for an automatic return fire system has been designed by Resolve Optics. The lenses is used together with a solar blind filter stack operating over a bandwidth of 240 to 280 nm. Automatic return fire systems are currently being developed mainly for military and law enforcement applications. The idea is that the system locates fire from weapons using a variety of sensors and automatically returns a ballistic response. For this application, Resolve Optics had to supply eight mounted lenses which were

N EW CAM E RA LI N K BOARD FOR LOW PROFI LE E NCLOSU RES

Active Silicon, a leading manufacturer of imaging products, embedded systems and custom solutions, has developed a new form-factor camera link board for low profile enclosures which is designed to fit in small embedded PC enclosures and rackmount cases.

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required to provide a 360° view. This enables the system to detect the UV from muzzle flashes, identify its location and return fire to that location automatically. The specialist f2.8 lenses is ruggedly constructed and is able to provide high resolution UV images from ten metre to infinity with minimal distortion. Resolve Optics designs and supplies radiationresistant lenses and lenses systems that generate high quality images for some of the most demanding applications.

The FireBird Camera Link Frame Grabber (1xCLD2PE4L) supports the latest v2.0 Camera Link interface. It has a half-length PCI Express form-factor and comes complete with either low profile, or full height bracket options.

latest FPGA families, DDR3 memory and has a fast Gen2 PCI Express interface. It is supported by Active Silicon’s PHX software development kit. This also allows for easy migration for customers using Phoenix frame grabbers.

The new model is part of the FireBird frame grabber family and is designed, say Active Silicon, for ultimate performance which provides the very fastest image acquisition without any CPU intervention. It uses the

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STEMMER IMAGING ADDS IN NEW SERIES OF ENTRY-LEVEL 3D PROFILE SENSOR

N EW AUTOMATE D I NSPECTION CE LL FOR CAR I N DUSTRY A new end of line automated car inspection and conformance cell have been introduced by Industrial Vision Systems (IVS), a developer and supplier of machine vision solutions to the automotive industry. The IVS-ELCi aims to allow car manufacturers to automate repetitive and critical inspection tasks covering entire vehicles. This has the effect, says IVS, of freeing up operators from more mundane tasks allowing them to focus on other areas of the business. The IVS-ELCi makes use of up to 50 sensors for a complete 360-degree check of every vehicle. It automatically saves images and data which provides evidence for the manufacturer. This protects them against potential recalls, or warranty claims. The cell boasts adaptable artificial intelligence vision sensors. These provide critical quality inspection criteria across the entire vehicle build cycle.

New entry-level 3D profile sensors have been introduced by Stemmer Imaging. The LMI Gocator 2100 Series replace the existing Gocator 2000 models. According to Stemmer Imaging, the new series combines improved VGA sensors with a host of other improvements in size, connectivity and measurement tools, at a competitive price point. Stemmer Imaging hopes to bring advanced 3D smart imaging capabilities to a wider market with the new 2100. The new models feature a number of improvements, including a smaller footprint

for easier integration into tight spaces and existing control systems; standardized connectors and cables for reduced system complexity; and, low latency communication with Gigabit Ethernet communication. Supporting the package is Gocator Firmware 4 which provides the latest measurement tools. The 2100 series is available in five models with a measurement range from 80 to 800mm. The series is also fully scalable, meaning that multiple sensors can be seamlessly linked together to handle wider targets. Upgrades to other Gocator models, including the 2300 series, are also available.

Director at Industrial Vision Systems Earl Yardley said: “Having highly accurate information and added peace of mind in the final vehicle acceptance stages is a primary concern for every manufacturer operating in the automotive industry. Our new IVS-ELCi system allows manufacturers to rest assured in the knowledge that quality control is being handled accurately and automatically utilising the very latest in cutting edge machine vision technology. This enables their employees to step away from the inspection tasks to focus on other elements of the production process which will eventually improve the overall performance of the business.”

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KOEISHA CAMERA GETS NEW INTERFACES FROM AIVION Munich-based Aivion, a leader of video processing hardware, has introduced new interfaces for the Koeisha Full HD Camera module KSM203L-F. The new interfaces come with the product names: TL7550, TL7551 and TL6535. Model TL7550 is a combi board complete with two HD-SDI and one HMDI interface, and the interface series supports 1080p (30Hz, 25Hz), 720p (60Hz, 50Hz, 30Hz, 15Hz) and 1080i (60Hz, 50Hz). Camera control is achieved via a PC, RS485, RS232, or serial 3.3V TTL interface. And, Sony’s VISCA protocol based software can be used.

final one in the interface series, TL6335, supports UBS 3.0 and streams uncompressed full HD video (1080p) at 30 frames per second. It is USB Video Class (UVC) compliant, allowing direct “plug and play” without installing drivers. The Full HD Block camera from Koeisha (model number KSM203L-F) comes with the

latest Sony IMX236 Exmor CMOS Sensor and a 20x zoom lens, and is designed provide a superior image quality and an exceptional precision even in poorly lighted environments. It is typically used for day and night monitoring, night time monitoring with IR light, license plate monitoring, flood monitoring, road and railway monitoring, and airport and harbour monitoring.

Model TL7551 supports the video outputs HD-SDI. Model TL7552 supports HDMI. The

TECH NOLOGY RECOGN ISES OBJ ECTS ON CONVEYOR BE LT I N ANY POSITION German-based EVT Eye Vision Technology has introduced a recent invention which recognises various objects on a conveyor belt in any position, without teaching-in. Called EyeSense Presence, it’s based on the Time of Flight technology (including integrated illumination of the camera which emits infrared impulses) and the EyeVision platform which provides the evaluation software. The system works via a sensor which measures the time that light needs to be reflected back from the object. From that data, the light source and the image recording are synchronized, and in this way, the distance can be extracted and calculated from the image data. The company says that the EyeVision software is suited for images within the field of factory automation and is ideal for optimising production processes,

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3D dimensioning, scanning, inspection and bin-picking. Customers can choose between two versions of the Time of Flight sensor: The EyeSense PresenceBT and the EyeSense PresenceBA. The BT version comes with a resolution of 160×120 (around 40Hz, with a range of 0,1-3m) and BA with 640×480 (20Hz, with a range of 0,0-13m). The EyeSense Presence system is based on the Linux operating system, boasts a quad-core processor and has storage space of 1GB. It also has a variety of interfaces including USB, Ethernet, RS232, HDMI and digital IO!

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PIRANHA FAMILY BOOSTED WITH INDUSTRY'S FIRST 8K AND 16K COLOUR CMOS TDI CAMREAS

Teledyne Dalsa has added new multi-line colour CMOS TDI cameras to its Piranha XL family.

rows in total, by employing Teledyne DALSA’s most advanced CMOS sensor architecture.

They are the industry’s first 8k and 16k colour CMOS TDI cameras, and achieve line rates of up to 70 kHdz for high sensitivity and high-speed colour imaging.

Teledyne Dalsa’s Xtium CLHS frame grabber system, when combined with the cameras, means that system designers can hope for reduced inspection and manufacturing costs, and the reliable transfer of information at extreme speeds.

The range of Piranha XL cameras boast multi-line colour CMOS TDI (Time Delay and Integration) technology, and are said to deliver unprecedented speed and responsivity with low noise in a compact design. The new models deliver high sensitivity for colour imaging using four rows per RGB channel for 12

WORLD'S FI RST AUTOMOTIVE DRIVE R MON ITORI NG COM PUTE R CH I P Seeing Machines has unveiled the world’s first automotive driver monitoring computer chip. Quoted on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market and based in the US, Seeing Machines designs and develops vision-based Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) for the transport and automotive industries. It has now introduced its first generation FOVIO embedded hardware chip, the first phase of development. The company believes this a world first

Product Manager Xing-Fei He said: “Piranha XL cameras are field-proven for the most demanding imaging applications, including flat panel display and printed circuit board inspection. The new colour models deliver high-speed, high quality colour imaging and a competitive advantage to OEMs whose imperative is 100% print inspection, among other applications.”

in DMS performance and price optimised hardware platforms that will deliver physiological and psychometric monitoring to passenger cars, commercial transport, and ultimately for the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. CEO of Seeing Machines Ken Kroeger said: “I am delighted to announce the introduction of our FOVIO DMS Chip which, as a World first, further cements Seeing Machines’ position as global leader in the Driver Monitoring industry. The FOVIO Chip will greatly reduce the cost of DMS deployment, helping to accelerate not just our growth but mass market

uptake of DMS technology in general. This product will become the key offering of FOVIO, our new stand-alone automotive business that is currently being structured and staffed.” The FOVIO chip performs all of the functions of an electronic system and is a system in package (SiP), comprising a number of integrated circuits enclosed in a single module (package).

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MATRIX VISION CELEBRATES 30 YEARS

I M PE RX ESCAPES SE RIOUS DAMAGE Imperx had to shut down for two days as Hurricane Matthew swept nearby. The company, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida, escaped serious damage as the storm – which caused the evacuation of over two million people from the coastal areas of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina – swept close by. Company staff spent days preparing for the storm’s arrival, but damage was limited to fallen trees.

Matrix Vision is celebrating 30 years as a leading manufacturer of digital cameras for both industrial machine vision and non-industrial applications. It exhibited its products at the PPMA show at the NEC, Birmingham, alongside its distributor Alrad Imaging.

• being suited for quality inspections and labelling verification applications;

Likely to attract interest at the show is the mvBlueGEMINI, the company’s new smart camera, and the working concept of their IP67 stainless steel smart camera.

• on-board software using wizards and simple tool box.

The mvBlueGEMINI is a smart camera which boasts a number of key features, including:

CH I N ESE DE LEGATION STOPS TO SE E RAYLASE

• a powerful hardware optimised to work with their large 1280 x 1024 pixel image sensor – four times bigger than most competitors;

The IP67 stainless steel smart camera, currently working as a concept model, is suitable for harsh environments and washdown areas, and will be on show for the first time.

through Germany to meet companies and discuss opportunities for co-operation.

A Chinese delegation from the city of Dongying visited Raylase’s headquarters in Wessling near Munich on 8th August.

Raylase’s own Chinese subsidiary is based in Shenzhen and has been operational for over ten years.

The 27-strong delegation was hosted by Dongying major Mr Zhao Haozhi and was made up of urban representatives of a number of Chinese companies. The delegation was touring

Raylase develops components for the fast deflection and modulation of laser beams, and develops and manufactures a series of different modules and solutions for the integration in devices and machines.

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CFO Gregory Pangburn said: “Imperx and staff were extremely lucky to have been left unscathed by Hurricane Matthew and we thank our loyal end users for their patience during our two days of closure. “We have a great team here at Imperx and they prepared for the worst but, thankfully we came through with no real serious damage or injuries.” Imperx is once open for business and operating normally. The company manufactures high performance cameras for industrial, military, medical and municipal applications.

What lies ahead for Basler? Editor Neil Martin caught up with Basler Industrial Cameras Marketing Director Henning Tiarks. They discussed the state of the market and how it’s changing, what Basler has planned for VISION, and future prospects for the company itself.

I got hold of Henning just before noon and he was on good form, promising to delay his lunch if our allotted time ran over. I’ll let you know what happened to the lunch arrangements at the end of the piece!

example, one can definitely say that transfer CCDs are really over and if we look at the new designs currently, nine out of ten go for CMOS.”

Based in Ahrensburg, Germany, Basler is one of the leaders in the vision technology market, developing and manufacturing quality industrial cameras for a wide range of applications. Ahrensburg is part of the greater Hamburg Metropolitan area and from its headquarters there, Basler conducts its business via multiple subsidiaries and representative offices in Europe, the United States and Asia.

Another trend is the relentless march of USB 3.0. Henning notes that when they first introduced USB 3.0: “We were not expecting USB 3.0 to be relevant for complex multi-camera systems. But what happened is that customers like USB 3.0 so much that they even deploy them in very complex, typically factory automation systems, and also in multi-camera applications. The acceptance of USB 3.0 is bigger than we expected.”

Frankfurt Stock Exchange Created in 1988 and quoted on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Basler can claim to be the world’s largest unit volume producer of digital cameras for industrial applications. Its cameras are mainly used in industrial mass production, medical technology, the life sciences, retail applications, as well as in intelligent traffic systems. On the eve of VISION and nearing the end of 2016, Henning is well-placed to air his views on where the market is currently heading. But, we touched first on technology trends:

USB 3.0

As for the big step in terms of customers’ vision systems, Henning says everyone is coming from the situation of a PC and a camera, which has been the case for the last 20 years. And that over the generations they have made the systems smaller and smaller. “But now we see that we are coming into a kind of deadlock situation. It will not go down in terms of cost as it had gone down, in terms of the PC and camera, as it has done over the last 20 years. So, you need to decide whether you want to stay on PC based architecture, or are you going on let’s say the embedded architecture.”

“I think this year we will see a lot of trends that that we have seen for years, but that are now materializing, especially on the sensor side. For

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The conversation then turned to how the market is changing. “From a market point of view, we see that typical machine vision factory floor based applications still grow, but the overall growth of this field is not as fast as it has been in the last years. It used to be eight to ten per cent, sometimes above ten per cent. This was typically driven by China, especially from all the phone and tablet production related business." More Normal Levels He goes on to explain that the market has returned to more normal levels, of around six to eight per cent growth. But, he is seeing a definite switch from the factory market, where there are still new developments, to a strong and emerging medical market: “Medical is growing heavily in the automation, and this is also where we start to have a nice share. “But in terms of our products, we are also seeing that the medical market being more relevant for the industry itself. The medical market will influence product designs in the future more than it has done in the past. Everyone used to be concentrating on making the perfect product for the factory floor and medical would participate if they could use it; nowadays they provide more influence to the product design itself.” Henning says that the relevance of the factory market is still big, of course, but it’s likely that the rate of growth will fall, whilst medical will grow, as will its influence, and this will trigger companies to develop more products for the medical sector.

VISION At VISION, Henning admits that they will be doing things differently this time. They are making a conscious move away from showing a hundred cameras from which the customer can choose if they have the right level of knowledge. The new approach is to leave aside the approach of here’s a nice camera and a nice sensor, and explain what they can deliver in terms of quality and service, what they describe as “…total cost of ownership…” “We now think in terms of accessories, cables and systems set-up, not just cameras and lenses; how can we make that more cost effective for the customer and what we really want to achieve is a total cost of ownership competence.” Henning uses an example where they can go to a lenses manufacturer for a particular design, which can ultimately save 30 per cent on materials, a saving which is passed onto their customers. Besides that Basler will show their product and service line-up for answering and driving the embedded vision trend which is about to have a huge impact on the vision industry. We finish the interview talking about what sort of year Basler has had and what’s in store for 2017. “This year has been very good, with good growth in China and also good growth in Europe and the US. We don’t see any effect from Brexit; the big question is China. Nobody really knows about China and we have to take a realistic view.” Henning reckons that for Basler, 2017 should be comparable in terms of performance to 2016. Oh, and yes, Henning got to go to his lunch on time.

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MAKE CAKES... READY GO

CONNECTING YOUR VISION BUY ONLINE AT WWW.LAPPGROUP.CO.UK

Ansell 3000 Pro Vision Scan

Crowley to make its debut at VISION Neil Martin talks to Cheri Baker, Director of Communications, and Rich Jackson, MACHCAM 71 Channel Manager, on why The Crowley Company has decided to make a foray into the machine vison industry. Although established in 1980, the Crowley Company is a newcomer to the machine vision industry and will be displaying its latest camera, the MACHCAM 71MP, for the first time at VISION. Crowley is headquartered in Frederick, Maryland (US) and also has offices and hardware manufacturing facilities in San Dimas, California (US) and Basingstoke, Hampshire (UK). The company is a capture hardware (scanner) manufacturer, distributor and service bureau for the archives and records management industries. It offers a complete range of digital and analog solutions for imaging technology and film

MANUFACTURERS

processing. Clients range from Universities with special collections to the U.S. National Archives. The move into a new industry came about because of the MACHCAM 71MP. Rich explains: “We developed the MACHCAM 71MP camera for installation in our own future capture products and soon realized that the applications for such high resolution capture go far beyond our corner of the imaging industry. “That's why we stepped into this market. We build some of our products and we’ll continue to build more. We will supply horizontally this high-mega pixel camera into our own products and while doing that, so that we can get some economies of scale, it seemed like a natural step to add it to

DISTRIBUTORS

END-USERS

When the Details are Critical, See More, Do More with the New MP Machine Vision Camera The Crowley Company has designed the programmable features of the CHR70M sensor into two easilyimplemented 71MP custom machine vision cameras: the MACHCAM 71C and the MACHCAM 71M. Key Features: • RGB color and monochrome models • Lightweight 3.25” x 3.25” x 2.5” case • USB 3.0 compatible • 10000 x 7096 active pixels • Software development kit included • Meets NARA, Metamorfoze and FADGI preservation guidelines • F-mount standard; custom mounts as requested

Industry Applications: LCD/PCB Inspection Scientific Imaging Aeronautics Packaging and Inspection Transportation Law Enforcement Military More

To learn more or to request a demonstration, call (240) 215-0224 or email machcam@thecrowleycompany.com.

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The company’s move into the machine vision sector is viewed with enthusiasm. Cheri takes over: “It’s always exciting to have a new outlook, so entering into the world of machine vision has been an adventure. There’s a learning curve, but we have the basis of knowledge to make it a relatively small leap and believe that our archival experience will enhance the machine vision capabilities and vice versa.”

the vision market, which I believe is a tremendous growth opportunity. “Manufacturers are more and more concerned about quality control. People have been using smaller mega pixel cameras and they've been using them in quadrants of four, or nine, or even more, to get the kind of quality they can get with this single camera. “Through several field tests with machine-vision end-users and manufacturers, we’ve enhanced the original design of the MACHCAM 71 to become an effective tool, particularly in detail inspection applications such as substrates and circuit boards. It is also being tested in the archives market for highend digital preservation efforts.”

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In terms of the future, Crowley is confident that they can build on the success they’ve enjoyed this year. The core business of digitization and preservation is strong, and both scanner sales and imaging services have been on the rise. Now they are looking forward to a repeat in the machine vision market. “We first introduced the MACHCAM 71 at the AIA Vision Show in May and have since signed several distributors worldwide, sent out units for field tests and received more than 100 expressions of interest. This tells us that the market is interested and we’re committed to working with the MV end-users to engineer a product that is both affordable and offers a competitive advantage over other 71MP cameras; which, at this time, are very few.” We’ll catch up with the team at VISION to see how they are getting on.

MidOpt talks about StablEDGE and what’s around the corner Neil Martin catches up with the team at Midwest Optical Systems and talks about their innovative StablE DGE filter technology, and future prospects.

Checking in with the MidOpt team in Palatine, Illinois, found them in good form, looking forward to VISION and providing an update on their ranges. I was grabbing some time with Barry Warzak, President, and Vicki Vassallo, Director of Marketing & Business Development. The company develops and manufactures filters for industrial imaging to ensure the required image quality for monochrome and colour vision systems. Barry kicked off with their current focus at what will feature at their VISION booth: “We’ll be showcasing our StablEDGE filter technology. It’s one thing that sets MidOpt apart from all other filter manufacturers.

“Let’s face it, space being allotted for industrial vision systems is generally not getting larger. The pressure over time will continue to be to make them increasingly more compact. This is why lenses will continue to be smaller and focal lengths shorter. MidOpt filters are extremely unique to the marketplace, designed to be spectrally and mechanically compatible with short focal length (<12mm) lenses - the majority of lenses that are now being incorporated in vision systems used throughout the world.” MidOpt is promising a colourful live demonstrations which, they say, will dramatically emphasize the difference between MidOpt filters and all other

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The conversation moved onto business and how things were going for MidOpt, and the general market, for the remainder of 2016 and into 2017. Barry says that the company growth will continue, driven by a number of key developments, designed to improve product quality, availability and lead time. These include robotic assembly, adoption of other advanced fabrication methods currently not employed elsewhere, and greater control of the production planning process along with improved segregation and more detailed identification of production lot characteristics. Other factors contributing to the growth include greater product diversity and an expanded offering of filter types for a growing number of newer applications.

As for what markets are proving the most exciting looking forward, Barry explains: “While machine vision remains a large market for MidOpt and robotic applications naturally are a subset of that, new related markets includes drone applications, particularly for agricultural inspection. “This primarily involves single, dual and triple bandpass filters for NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) aerial drone surveying, often mounted on MidOpt-supplied S-mount board camera lenses. These allow single sensor imaging using inexpensive consumer-type cameras. MidOpt also offers diffuse reflectance targets for calibrating those cameras. Other filters such as linear polarizers, very broad and spectrally flat neutral density filters and slip mount adapters are also being offered for aerial imaging.” So, don’t forget to check out their colourful live demonstrations whilst at VISION – I’ve got my seat booked.

Transmission (%)

The market for MidOpt business is roughly divided 60% US, 35% Europe and 5% Asia. The company supplies to around 30 countries and in terms of

percentage growth, Europe has seen the greatest rise. Barry puts that down to adopting some new distributor arrangements on the continent and Vicki adds that the focus here is building a strong brand awareness.

100

Transmission (%)

filters that may be offered by other exhibitors at VISION. Vicki adds: “When people see the live demonstrations, people kind of go wow; it’s all pretty dramatic, it’s very colourful.” And the various mounting configurations that only MidOpt offers allow these designs to be incorporated in a far wider variety of applications than has previously been possible.

60 50 40 30 20

40 30

10 425

525

625

Wavelength (nm) Typical

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10 0

725

425

525

625

725

Wavelength (nm) Typical

Catching up with a busy

Greg Hollows of Edmund Optics Neil Martin eventually catches up with Greg Hollows, Director, Imaging Business Unit, at Edmund Optics, and asks him how it’s going at the moment.

It took a while to get hold of Greg, such was his busy schedule that week, but we managed to grab some time before he jumped on yet another flight during a hectic few days. So, my first question, are you busy at the moment, seemed a bit superfluous. But, his answer came quickly: “Business is very strong right now and I’m on the move visiting customers. While it started off a bit slower this year, across the board, things have certainly picked up nicely in the second half of the year.” As for their own business, he explains that the trend is for everything to move very quickly now, with customers pushing the pace: “Sensors change so rapidly, and the cycle of the customers’ applications is getting shorter every day, which means that solutions have to be determined and deployed rapidly. While we will always have a wide range of products we have developed, going forward, we will be focusing on creating products that can be quickly adapted to meet customers’ needs today and into the future.” We move on to VISION and what Edmund Optics will be bringing to the forefront at the show. The focus, says Greg, is on a number of new products and launches.

“Another new product we will be highlighting is our award winning, new flexible lens series, the Cx Lenses. These lenses were created to give the customer a high level of flexibility to install everything from filters and custom apertures, to liquid lenses for dynamic focus. This will lead to a wide range of rapid prototyping of solutions to difficult problems, while working with products which are already in a volume production environment. This will also allow for rapid deployment in volume once a solution is created. Both the TitanTL™ line and Cx Series can be easily customized to dial into a customer’s specific needs.” The company will also be demonstrating a few new products in order to get early market feedback. I finish the interview asking about Brexit (I’m getting bored even asking the question these days) and Greg, like most executives in the industry, doesn’t let the UK’s future departure from the EU keep him awake at night: “Other than currency effects, due to the weakening GBP, their appears to be little effect at this time.”

“We have a new line of large telecentric lenses, The TitanTL™ Series, that we are launching at the show this year. They cover a wide range of sensor formats while providing large fields of view. They are designed in a fashion that will allow us to quickly produce additional products to address new sensors as they come on the market.”

I left Greg to drive to the airport and endure yet another security screening on his way to his next flight.

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European Machine Vision Associaion E MVA General Secretary Thomas Lübkemeier takes some time out to answer our questions

EMVA is 13 years old now with members from 22 countries, how has the association changed over that time? In its 13 years of existence the EMVA has evolved into the voice of the European machine vision industry. One milestone in the association’s history certainly was the separation from its former host, the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association in 2012. Membership has substantially increased in the last years. Since its independence, the EMVA has successfully strengthened its membership benefits. This year alone we had debuts in Italy with the first Parma Vision Night on the evening before the SPS IPC Drives show, with the first Control Vision Talks during all show days of Control 2016 in Stuttgart and the first European Machine Vision Forum which brought together experts from the industry and the academic sector to learn from each other and to accelerate innovation by translating new research results into practice.

How proactive is association in helping to shape the future of the industry? Let me just give one example here: One key mandate of the EMVA is to foster standardization in the industry. Here we work very closely in the G3 initiative with other vision associations from North America, China, Germany and Japan in order to push standardization, to avoid double developments and to recognize upcoming technological trends. The outcome of these efforts will be shown at VISION 2016 where the EMVA once again will take the organisational lead in setting up the “International Machine Vision Standards” stand. One major trend for the future will be the development from stand-alone solutions towards vision applications being embedded into other systems. Here we actively seek for partnerships and have taken responsibility within the Future Standard Forum to further explore two possible standard candidates for the embedded use case.

What is the Brexit feedback that the association is getting from its members? Economies always suffer from uncertain conditions, which is surely the case due to the Brexit. So far we have not received feedback from our members indicating that the vision sector would be affected more than others. Vision companies being

successful on international level are used to operate under the various local conditions.

What is the association looking forward to being showcased at Vision in November? As mentioned before the EMVA exhibits as leading organizer at the International Machine Vision Standards Booth (no. 1B11). The most commonly used digital interface standards in the industry in their current version will be displayed and machine vision experts stand by for advice on which standard best fits to a certain application.

How has the EMVA Market Report 2016 – UK and Ireland - been received? Especially the EMVA members receiving the report free of charge very much appreciate this specific and detailed input. Within the various geographic European markets, vision technology comes in all kinds of flavours, depending on many local factors such as the dominant industrial sectors and services, the level of organization amongst the players, and to what extent research takes place in computer vision and how it is linked to the market players. Recognizing these significant differences nation to nation, the EMVA maps these markets separately step by step. The latest edition on machine vision in the UK and Ireland is part of that series and is a very valuable tool for all those who want to establish business relations in these areas and for instance look for a detailed list of all players that are active there.

The EMVA Market Report 2016 talks about the industry’s evolving eco-system – how advanced is that? The eco system we describe in the country reports includes vision associations and cluster organizations; vision research, education and HR; as well as trade shows, conferences and special press. All those factors vary from market to market and also depend on the overall market size.

We see that Tolga Birdal received the 2016 European Machine Vision Association's Young Professional Award in June – how important are such awards to the industry? The annual award honours the outstanding and innovative work of a student or a young professional in the field of machine vision or image processing. Obviously it is a top priority goal

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of the European Machine Vision Association to further support innovation in the machine vision industry, to contribute to the important aspect of dedicated machine vision education and to provide a bridge between research and industry. With the annual Young Professional Award the EMVA intends to specifically encourage students to focus on challenges in the field of machine vision and to apply latest research results and findings in computer vision to the practical needs of theÂ industry.

Is the industry able to hire the right levels of talent and expertise? With the strongly increasing use of vision technologies in all types of industry the demand for well-educated specialists is ever growing. The association plays an important role in channelling and communicating industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs for the education of researchers and practitioners to the relevant institutions. The EMVA has started several initiatives to strengthen that exchange and is working on new concepts regarding the education of vision engineers.

What is relationship between academia andÂ industry? Due to the heterogeneous structure of the different markets in Europe there cannot be a general answer to this question. However, in its ambition to support interaction between industry and the academic sector on a European level the EMVA as a first step has set up the annual European Machine Vision Forum. This two day conference event took place for the first time in September 2016 and aims to foster interaction between the machine vision industry and academic research.

The EMVA exhibits as leading organizer at the International Machine Vision Standards Booth (no. 1B11) mvpromedia.eu

The North American vision market: New opportunities abound AIA Director of Market Analysis Alex Shikany gives his view on the industry across the pond

Interest in vision and related automation is at an all-time high in North America. Governments are investigating how and when to spend resources to facilitate growth, consumers are interested in deploying the new technologies, and manufacturers are selling innovative products in record quantities. As we move forward, machine vision will experience significant growth in North America because of its role as an enabling technology in the ever-increasing Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). As technologies converge and areas like embedded vision begin creeping into machine vision applications, manufacturers are being forced to innovate. One key challenge facing vision manufacturers is the ability to satisfy the increase in demand for higher bandwidth operations, which often require the employment of cameras with increased resolution and speed. With each passing year, customers in North America expect to receive more functionality from their machine vision purchase for a lower price. The convergence of these two trends will continue adding pressure to vision manufacturers, distributors, and integrators

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alike to deliver feature-rich solutions for a modest price. There are many opportunities emerging in nonmanufacturing industries for vision and imaging in North America. These opportunities, while plentiful, present unique challenges to machine vision manufacturers. For example, non-manufacturing market segments typically demand cameras with the ability to change focus and aperture, while operating in differing ambient conditions. Conversely, traditional manufacturing markets typically prefer cameras with a fixed focus, distance, and lighting. The vision market is overcoming these challenges, however, and non-manufacturing industries such as life sciences, agriculture, traffic, security, and surveillance, will continue to offer gainful opportunities for solution providers. Moving forward, vision companies that develop solutions that meet the needs of a diverse set of customers will be rewarded for their efforts in North America. North America has consistently been one of the strongest regions in the world for machine vision growth, and the industry expects this to continue in the near future. With a healthy manufacturing sector and a growing interest in automation, North America is expected to be one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most attractive business environments for sales of machine vision solutions in the next three to five years.

Imperx looks forward to VISION Imperx is looking forward to VISION and says it has been very busy since the last time the show took place. Neil Martin finds out what’s in store from the manufacturer of high performance cameras for industrial, military, medical and municipal applications. At the start of my chat with Keith Wetzel, Director of New Product Development at Imperx, I had to ask how distracting an experience it was awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Matthew a few weeks back. In the end, the storm which had caused so much destruction further north, did not hit the company at its Boca Raton base and damage was limited to up-rooted trees. Keith says, “This was my first hurricane living in S. Florida so I was quite distracted and concerned, but I was amazed at how calmly my colleagues went about their business while following our Hurricane Preparedness plan. We were prepared for the worst, but were very fortunate and didn’t even lose power here.” At Vision, the big news for Imperx is their expanded range of CMOS cameras which, according to Keith, is going to “pleasantly surprise customers.” He explains: “The big news at Imperx is CMOS cameras. Imperx will be expanding its Cheetah line of CMOS cameras to include high resolution ON Semiconductor Python CMOS image sensors and Sony Pregius CMOS image sensors with resolutions ranging from 2MP to 25MP.”

But although the company’s CMOS cameras will dominate Imperx’s Vision Show booth, Keith says that for those users needing the utmost in image quality, they will also introduce their latest ultra-high resolution CCD product line called Tiger.” Visitors to the Imperx booth will be able to see a live demo of the first Tiger product: the Tiger T8882 47MP CCD camera. For those users looking for simpler, higher performance interfaces, Imperx will be demonstrating their 25MP Cheetah C5180 CMOS camera with the latest USB3 Vision (U3V) interface. What’s more, to help customers who want to record 60 fps HD video, Imperx will also be demonstrating a 3GSDI interface on their Cheetah C2020 camera using a Sony Pregius image sensor. To explain what’s driving current innovation and development at Imperx, President and CEO Petko Dinev sums it up this way: “Business has been robust and we’ve had double digit growth through the last several years. We are plowing back this success into our people and into innovative, robust products so we can continue to provide superior value to our clients.” As evidence of recent expansion, Imperx has recently been adding staff and more space to its headquarters. As for the future, Keith has the final word: “While overall we see a bright future, we do see change coming to the industrial camera market and we acknowledge that there may be some regional winners and losers. Overall, however, Imperx sees continued global growth through 2016 and into 2017 in its core business: high quality, ruggedized, reliable cameras, frame grabbers and imaging solutions.”

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CoaXPress leads the way for Euresys We hear from Marc Damhaut, CEO of Euresys, who sees great growth from the company's CoaXPress products

With its headquarters in Belgium, the US (California) and Asia (Singapore), Euresys pitches itself as a leading a leading manufacturer of image and video acquisition components, acquisition COTS boards and image processing software. Via its own offices and large distributor network, it provides solutions and support to OEMs and system integrators worldwide. The company has been around for more than 25 years and operates in the machine vision, healthcare, ITS and video surveillance markets. Year-on-Year Growth of 200% CEO Marc Damhaut says that its CoaXPress products are growing 200% year-on-year: “We initially saw a strong demand for high-bandwidth applications (high resolution/ high frame rate) in electronic and semiconductor applications. These applications are now coming true and generating quantity sales, along with further requests for multiple-PC and multiple-camera applications. “To answer these demands, we have just released the Coaxlink Quad G3 DF, a CoaXPress frame grabber that allows to distribute the image processing workload among several host PCs, and the InterPC C2C-Link adapter, an accessory that eases the synchronization of cameras, even when they are connected to frame grabbers in different PCs.” VISION As for VISION, Euresys will use the show as an opportunity to portray itself as a leader in CoaXPress. Damhaut again: “We will show recently launched products: the Coaxlink Quad G3 DF and the InterPC C2C-Link adapter and the Coaxlink Duo PCIe/104 which will be showcased in a drone application.

There will be a demonstration of a brand new 8-connection CoaXPress camera from Vieworks working with our Coaxlink Quad G3. “We will also preview three 2017 products: the Coaxlink Quad 3D-LLE, a CoaXPress frame grabber that performs on-board 3D laser line detection at 25 Gbps with zero CPU load. EasyOCR2, Open eVision's next generation OCR (Optical Character Recognition) library for industrial applications and the Picolo.net HD1, a low latency 1080p60 H.265 IP video encoder. “And we will show prototypes of CXP10 (at 10 Gbps) and CXP12 (at 12.5 Gbps) CoaXPress interfaces.” Exciting Market CoaXPress is proving an exciting market for Euresys. It has sold a number of Coaxlink cards for video transmission and recording applications where CoaXPress is used. This is because of its ubiquitous coaxial cable and the ability of the protocol to transmit zero-latency uncompressed high-resolution video, while supplying power and controlling the camera. Damhaut is confident that this direction will be rewarding for the company: “These features of CoaXPress are opening new markets and we expect to benefit from that opportunity with the imminent launch of the Coaxlink Duo PCIe/104, a ruggedized, extended-temperature-range CoaXPress frame grabber for embedded video in military, industrial, and mission-critical applications.” This confidence leads Euresys to predict that 2016 will be a good year for the company. Damhaut expects double digit growth worldwide, with a strong emphasis on northern Asia sales.

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Putting the power of FPGAs into the hands of customers Martin Heimlicher tells MVPro Magazine what Enclustra plans for VISION.

the Mercury+ XU1, built around the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+. Both modules combine features such as fast DDR4 ECC SDRAM, eMMC flash, quad SPI flash, Gigabit Ethernet, USB, a real time clock and power supply into a package with a footprint smaller than a credit card. All Enclustra modules are optimized for industrial applications and long term availability.

Martin Heimlicher is founder and President of Enclustra, an FPGA design service company based in Zurich, Switzerland. It provides services covering the whole range of FPGA-based system development, from high-speed hardware and HDL firmware, through to embedded software, from specification and implementation through to prototype production. Enclustra’s mission at VISION is to put the power of FPGAs into the hands of their customers. Heimlicher says: “FPGAs combine many features that make them the technology of choice for all kinds of vision applications; their inherent parallel architecture makes them the perfect fit for many image processing algorithms. Flexible I/O architecture allows an image sensor (or several, even) to be directly connected to the FPGA, which reduces system complexity, and at the same time increases throughput and lowers latency. “The combination of an FPGA fabric and ARM processors in today’s system-on-chip devices opens up even more options, and can pack more processing power and flexibility into a single chip than could have been imagined feasible a few years ago.” He goes on to say that for CPU-centric embedded applications, computers on modules (COMs) have been proven to reduce time to market and lower development cost significantly; because of Enclustra’s FPGA and SoC modules, this now also holds true for FPGA-based applications. Enclustra will also use VISION to showcase its two newest, most powerful SoC modules: the Mercury+ AA1, based on the Altera Arria 10, and

Heimlicher again: “Enclustra also offers a comprehensive ecosystem for its modules, offering all required hardware, software and support materials – our aim is to provide absolutely everything the customer needs to get up and running as quickly as possible. The Mercury+ PE1 base board, for our new Mercury+ modules, is the other element of a complete development platform. We also provide detailed documentation and reference designs to make it easy to get started, in addition to the user manuals, free schematics, 3D models and PCB footprints. The icing on the cake is the Enclustra Build Environment, which lets a customer get a Linux build configured and cooking in minutes."v Enclustra also offers IP cores optimized for FPGAs, such as the Display Controller, which enables the addition of a display to any FPGA design, or the FPGA Manager IP solution, which allows for efficient data transfer between a host and a FPGA over different interface standards like USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet and PCI-Express. Also at Vision, and in collaboration with partners, different solutions for vision applications will be on show. Sensor to Image will be showing the Machine Vision Development Kit for Enclustra modules, using the Mercury form factor, and Pleora Technologies offers its GigE Vision IP Core development kit, with Enclustra Mars AX3 FPGA module and Mars EB1 base board. In addition to these IP cores, the embedded software specialist Antmicro has developed a 4K vision camera based on the Mercury+ XU1 , which will also be on display.

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Cameras for most demanding environments A chat with David Rudeforth of I DT (U K) reveals a company whose products are used at the sharp end of the aerospace and automotive industries. You get the feeling when talking to David Rudeforth of Integrated Design Tools (IDT, UK), that the company’s claim that their cameras are for some of the most demanding environments is no idle boast. David runs the UK operation of IDT Inc from his office in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. The company develops and manufactures highspeed cameras and integrated systems, all made in the US. They are used in a wide range of industries, from auto-safety testing through to medical research and filmmaking. They have also been used in outer space. I start our chat by asking him which markets are proving the most exciting looking forward. Aerospace and automotive is the answer, and David quickly provides some background as to how his products are being used. In both sectors it’s R&D based so, for example, in aerospace the company’s cameras are used on the wings of fighter aircraft to watch the deployment of missiles. “The problem here is keeping the cameras cool in an environment with such thin air. Also, they are not allowed to have battery packs. So they rely on the aircraft’s power, which switches off as soon as it lands. So all the images have to be held on a built in SD and downloaded later.

a wide range of angles. The cameras can survive g-forces of 200 g. “Although not as big a market as it used to be, car manufacturers cannot rely on software solutions. They still have to crash cars to satisfy various NCAP legislation around the world.” David believes that for him, the automotive market will remain healthy for some time to come, and highlights Jaguar Land Rover as a particular example of a sector company in expansion mode. Apart from the two main sectors of aerospace and automotive, IDT’s cameras are also used in the media sector and again, it’s their size which gives them an edge. Although capable of 1000 fps and 4k resolution, they are around three inches squared, which compares with competitor’s products the size of shoe-boxes says David. As for future prospects, David is candid: “After a very successful last two years, there is a feeling of quietness, as large companies are thinking twice about expansion, following the vote to leave the EU. I’m sure we will be fine either way, but hopefully the uncertainty will end soon, so we can all move on.” A sentiment no doubt shared by many companies within the industry.

David stresses that this is all research and development, commissioned by the missile manufacturers and taking place over the comparative safety of English soil, and not in some of the world’s battle fields. However, the bulk of the company’s current business is the automotive market and this focusses on car crash testing. IDT’s CrashCam cameras, says David, are smaller than competitor’s products and can be located in the smallest of places, allowing crash testers to view the resulting damage from

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Variety is spice of life for Scorpion Paul Wilson explains to Neil Martin how Scorpion Vision has developed over the years to run an online store for the machine vision industry and represent a number of key companies via distributorships

Scorpion Vision provides its clients with a variety of machine vision systems and machine vision expertise, much of it via its modern ecommerce website.

Paul Wilson remains in charge of Scorpion and I asked him first, how do customers in the machine vision sector take to doing business via their ecommerce website.

The company was originally formed in 2004 by Paul Wilson to represent Oslo-based Tordivel within the UK market, and focus on promoting, selling and supporting Scorpion Vision Software.

“We get an interesting mix of customers to the ecommerce site. In fact we get the whole spectrum of industry using the web shop. From hobbyists, to academia and all the way to machine builders who buy components for their imaging projects. A web shop enquiry is often the precursor to a more extended conversation with the customer as we invite them to ask for assistance when they are selecting their components. So it's not a sell and forget ecommerce web site in the traditional sense, it's more of a value add experience!"

To finance the operation in the early days, an ecommerce store was set up, not commonplace in the industry at that time. The relationship blossomed and Tordivel acquired Scorpion, and the online store was instead in further to sell a range of imaging products to UK industry. From there Scorpion has built up a number of key distributorships which started with Unibrain of Greece, a provider of Firewire (1394) technology and now also a manufacturer of industrial USB3 (USB3Vision) products. Next on-board was PixeLINK of Canada, a manufacturer of imaging technology and in 2010, Scorpion became the UK distributor for The Imaging Source, a global manufacturer of industrial cameras with a presence both in Germany and the Far East. Last year the roster was bolstered with the addition of Smartek cameras.

Paul is travelling to VISION and will be splitting his time between PixeLINK and The Imaging Source, and he’ll also be located on the Polytech stand demonstrating the Scorpion Stinger camera automation products. Paul is keen to highlight the PixeLINK range of cameras that are equipped with liquid lenses for very fast focusing and will also be singing the praises of The Imaging Source’s diverse range of camera products, including some very low cost devices. As for the future prospects of Scorpion, Paul is upbeat. “We have a number of growing international sales which will be taking up a lot of my time. There is an increased push to automate labour intensive production and we supply our machine building partners with OEM products for this purpose."

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The images depict industrial cameras with the following features: -

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Emphasising innovation at

Your guide to

VISION the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading vision trade fair 8th to 10th November 2016

Stuttgart

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VISION Q&A: On the eve of the show Here’s a quick Q&A with Teamleader Florian Niethammer at VISION organisers Landesmesse Stuttgart GmbH on the eve of the industry’s largest trade show. 1. How has VISION changed over the years? VISION has grown with the industry over the past 30 years and has developed alongside it. It started as a small event, but once again this year we expect over 400 exhibitor companies from across the globe, and assume that we will once again top the previous event's result. 2. Is Vision still the world’s leading machine vision trade fair? I believe that I can answer this question in good faith in the affirmative. The international character of VISION, with almost 60% of exhibitors coming from abroad, coupled with the fact that the key players from the industry are all gathered at VISION and synchronise the launch of their innovations to the event, all paint a very clear picture. 3. Any changes for VISION 2016? Apart from the latest technical trends, we are noticing that VISION is also becoming even more international this year. We are experiencing striking growth, particularly with companies from the Asian region, specifically from China, who are ever more confidently showcasing their products on the European market. 4. Have number of exhibitors increased? Once again we will welcome over 400 companies to VISION and are confident that we will again announce a new exhibitor record in November. 5. New exhibitors for VISION 2016? There will be many exciting new exhibitors attending VISION for the first time, including ifm electronic, Robert Bosch GmbH and D-Soric.

in terms of guaranteeing 100% product quality. However, machine vision is not just growing in importance in industrial sectors, as also highlighted at VISION and by the visitor numbers. 7. Biggest milestone in show’s history? Our 25th anniversary in 2012 was certainly one of the biggest milestones since I have been looking after VISION. 8. Biggest challenge in show’s history? Changing the frequency of the trade fair in 2013 from an annual event to a biannual event was undoubtedly a challenge that we faced together with the industry. 9. How proactive is the show in helping to shape the future of the industry? We work very closely with the key associations and the industry itself. Jointly with the industry, we will be giving space at VISION to the future issues in the industry and hope to grow with it. 10. In your view, what have been the biggest changes in the industry over the last decade? Machine vision products are becoming smaller, cheaper, higher performance, simpler to configure and therefore relevant for a much larger group of users. 11. What are the biggest challenges going forward for the industry? It will undoubtedly be a challenge over the coming years to make new non-industrial target groups even more aware of machine vision.

6. Do you expect more attendees this year?

12. What more excites VISION as it looks ahead to new technology?

Machine vision is becoming increasingly indispensable for more and more industries, on the one hand in connection with Industry 4.0 or

In our opinion, this year's VISION has three main technological 'hot' topics: embedded vision, 3D machine vision and hyperspectral imaging.

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13. How will Brexit affect the industry? The current uncertainty will undoubtedly have a negative impact on business relations between Europe and the UK.

17. Are start-ups in the industry increasing, or decreasing?

14. Any Brexit feedback from exhibitors?

We notice a steady increase of young start-ups in machine vision. The BMWi-funded shared stand for young innovative companies reflects this very well and is regularly sold out.

Business will be significantly tougher for certain exhibitors, as we have already noted.

18. How has social media changed the way people work/ members communicate?

15. What are you most looking forward to being showcased at Vision in November?

In my view, social media has succeeded in linking more closely and bringing together the machine vision sector, which was already very well networked internationally.

However, we are particularly thrilled about the above 'hot' topics, the new companies exhibiting for the first time and the many new start-ups that have just entered the sector. 16. Do you think the industry is able to hire the right levels of talent and expertise? Like almost all industrial sectors, machine vision also faces the challenge of finding talented young people. VISION will therefore feature "Young Talent" days, on which students from Darmstadt University will attend their course and learn about the underlying career prospects, at the same time as being shown around VISION.

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19. Which country do you see as having the most pioneers in the industry? I would say that there have been, and are, pioneers in machine vision from all industrial nations. German companies have undoubtedly played an important role, as they were called upon from the outset to develop innovative solutions with their users, due to their often close proximity to the key players from the automotive and mechanical engineering sectors.

Here’s our guide to VISION We list the companies who are attending and their stand numbers, and pick out some of those who will be attracting attention. As we all know VISION is the world's leading machine vision trade fair and, as the organisers say, is not just the marketplace for component manufacturers, but it is also a platform for system suppliers and integrators. There are a number of new companies attending for the first time, including Bosch, di-soric Solutions and ifm electronic. Team Manager of VISION Florian Niethammer says: “The demand is huge. It is therefore unsurprising that even companies, whose core business focuses on other sectors, have invested more seriously in machine vision in recent years. VISION has therefore gained new exhibitors in 2016. These are companies, who wish to reposition, or increasingly position, themselves and their expertise in industrial machine vision.”

All exhibitors in Hall 1, unless otherwise marked E 105

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A 58

3D-One BV

Look out for a new camera from 3D-ONE for hyperspectral imaging featuring IMEC’s sensor technology.

D 82

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH

B 05

AKEO PLUS SAS

H 32

Alliance Vision

F 62

ALLIED Vision Technologies GmbH

J 19

Allison Park Group, Inc. (APG)

speeds of up to 200 kHz. Consequently, the C5-1280-GigE is claimed to be the fastest 3D sensor with megapixel resolution on the market.

E 82

ATD Electronique S.A.

C 22

attentra GmbH

D 02

autoVimation GmbH

J 18

ACM Coatings GmbH

H 52

Active Silicon Ltd.

I 42

Alma Technologies

J 37

Ayase Europe GmbH

E 83

Adaptive Vision

C 91

Altera Europe

A 04

AZURE Photonics Co., Ltd

G 68

ADIMEC Advanced Image

G 18

Alysium-Tech GmbH

F 18

A 20

ANDANTA GmbH

BAP Image Systems GmbH

I 64

Andon Electronics Corporation

E 42

BASLER AG

Adimec is demonstrating several new CoaXPress cameras, including a new multi-camera solution, the Norite N-5A100 camera. This is a five megapixel camera based on Python5000 in a 29x29x43mm format. For developers of vision systems with multiple cameras, such as side-view cameras for 3D SPI, AOI and metrology, the N-5A100 cameras offer reduced system complexity at a guaranteed 105 fps throughput per camera.

G 51

ADLINK Technology (Europe) GmbH

F 33

Advanced Illumination, Inc.

B 07.0

ADVANTECH Europe B.V.

A 03

AHF analysentechnik AG

A 71

AIA

A 44

AOS Technologies AG

B 80

Aphesa SPRL

B 43

APROTECH GmbH

I 68

AQSENSE S.L.

J 11

ARTRAY Co., Ltd.

A 33

aSpect Systems GmbH

F 54

AT - Automation Technology GmbH

Automation Technology launches its newest model of the successful C5 series. This 3D sensor applies the lasertriangulation principle for the scanning of objects and features a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixel with measurement

Don’t forget to read our interview with Basler’s Director of Marketing Henning Tiarks. At VISION, Basler will be showing a wide range of innovative products and solutions, all geared towards product reliability, camera performance, growing cost sensitivity and embedded vision. High on the Basler agenda will be the latest ace models which are outfitted with Sony's powerful IMX sensors as well as CMOS sensors from the latest generation of the PYTHON series from ON Semiconductor. There will be live demonstrations of the PGI feature set — Basler's unique in-camera image optimization — and of the Basler ToF camera, the first industrial Time-ofFlight camera with VGA resolution in the mid-market price segment. There will also be a live presentation on how to achieve size and cost-optimized system integration using embedded vision.

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F 32

Baumer GmbH

F 11

B 02

beratungsgruppe wirth + partner

COHERENT (Deutschland) GmbH

J 32

J 23

Best Scientific Couplers Ltd. Hear from boss Eric Best who’s featured in the magazine.

COMOSS Electronic Co., Ltd. Compar AG

G 52

Components Express, Inc. (cei)

B 10

Bi-Ber GmbH & Co. Engineering KG

J 71

A 53

Birger Engineering, Inc.

Corning Optical Communications LLC

H 88

COSYCO GmbH

A 05

BitFlow, Inc. (and H88)

C 14

CoSynth GmbH & Co. KG

A 01

Bluetechnix Group

A 16

C 16

Bosch Healthcare Solutions GmbH

COVISYS Computer Vision Systems GmbH

J 12

Critical Link, LLC

A 13

CSEM Centre Suisse

G 62

CSIG Machine Vision Industry Union (CMVU)

B 14

CTMV GmbH & Co. KG

F 12

CVR Lighting

Bosch will be featuring one of its three mobile collaborative assistance systems from the APAS family in Stuttgart. The APAS inspector features a high-resolution high-speed camera and innovative 3D process. Using replaceable test modules, the inspection unit can be used in the most diverse production contexts.

C 18

B 07.7

BRESSNER Technology GmbH

I 13

Daheng New Epoch Technology, Inc.

H 32

Büchner Lichtsysteme GmbH

J 13

DAQ SYSTEM Co, Ltd.

A 14

C.R.S. iiMotion GmbH

D 61

Datalogic Automation Srl

C 74

Caeleste CVBA

D 33

DCM Sistemes, SL

J 63

Cambridge Electronic Industries Ltd.

H 85

Delta Optical Thin Film A/S

I 81

Canon Europa N.V.

F 82

Deltatec S.A.

B 17

di-soric Solutions GmbH & Co. KG

G 34

Carl Zeiss AG

J 52

Cavitar Ltd.

A 55

CBC (Europe) GmbH

E 53

CCS Europe N.V.

I 61

CDA GmbH

H 01

CEA-Leti

G 85

Chroma Technology GmbH

1 C 61

Chromasens GmbH

J 85

Chronocam

H 46

CMOSIS BVBA

1 D 72

Cognex Germany, Inc.

Another VISION first-timer is disoric Solutions is a sister company of the sensor manufacturer di-soric GmbH & Co. It sees itself as a unique complete provider in the machine vision, identification and integration sector. It has now significantly extended its product range with products such as Machine Vision 4.0 and ID Hammer.

I 67

Dream Chip Technologies GmbH

A 36

DSP Valley

J 72

Dynamax Imaging, LLC.

B 88

e-con Systems India Pvt Ltd

E 17

e2v technologies plc

E 41

Edmund Optics GmbH

Edmund Optics will feature a number of products at VISION. They have a new line of large telecentric lenses, The Titan Series, that are being launched at the show. They cover a wide range of sensor formats while providing large fields of view. They are designed in a fashion that will allow them to quickly produce additional products to address new sensors as they come on the market. Another new product they highlight is their new flexible lens series, the Cx Lenses. These were created to give the customer a high level of flexibility to install everything from filters and custom apertures, to liquid lenses for dynamic focus. Also check out their UC Series of fixed focal length lens family. The UC’s are specifically designed to work with the tiny pixels on today smaller sensors. They offer the highest of performance while meeting the low cost targets required by the market.

I 56

EDT | Engineering Design Team, Inc.

I 51

EFFILUX

F 81

Emergent Vision Technologies Inc.

B 11

EMVA European Machine Vision Association

We ask the EMVA some questions and they give us some answers. It makes good reading, here in the magazine.

C 84

Enclustra GmbH

Included in a strong line-up of products is the company’s two newest and most powerful SoC modules: the Mercury+ AA1, based on the Altera Arria 10, and the Mercury+ XU1, built around the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+. There’s also collaboration with partners. Sensor to Image will be showing the Machine Vision Development Kit for Enclustra modules, using the Mercury form factor, and Pleora Technologies offers its GigE Vision IP Core development kit, with Enclustra Mars AX3 FPGA module and Mars EB1 base board. In addition to these IP cores, the embedded software specialist AntMicro has developed a 4K vision camera based on the Mercury+ XU1 , which will also be on display.

F 72

Ensenso GmbH

B 72.1

EnShape GmbH

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A 58

Entner Electronics KG

G 42

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung

J 35

Gpixel Changchun Optotech Inc.

D 12

Euclid Labs s.r.l.

D 73

B 25

GS Vitec GmbH

C 74

EURECA Messtechnik GmbH

Fraunhofer-Institut für Mikroelektronische

I 75

A 22

Guangzhou Chiopt Optotech Co., Ltd.

D 35

EURESYS s.a.

Fraunhofer-Institut für Photonische

H 15

FUJIFILM Europe GmbH

G 17

HAMAMATSU PHOTONICS

B 52

Hangzhou HIKVISION Digital Technology Co,Ltd

J 14

Harting Deutschland GmbH & Co.KG

C 81

Heliotis AG

H 31

High Speed Vision GmbH

G 83

HIRAKAWA HEWTECH CORP.

C 36

Hitachi Kokusai Electric

B 09

HongKong Vico Technology Limited

F 72

IDS Imaging Development

Euresys says it will use the show as an opportunity to portray itself as a leader in CoaXPress. They will showcase some recently launched products, including the Coaxlink Quad G3 DF and the InterPC C2CLink adapter and the Coaxlink Duo PCIe/104 ( in a drone application). There will be a demonstration of a brand new 8-connection CoaXPress camera from Vieworks working with their Coaxlink Quad G3.They will also preview three 2017 products: the Coaxlink Quad 3D-LLE, a CoaXPress frame grabber that performs on-board 3D laser line detection at 25 Gbps with zero CPU load. EasyOCR2, Open eVision's next generation OCR (Optical Character Recognition) library for industrial applications and the Picolo. net HD1, a low latency 1080p60 H.265 IP video encoder. And they will show prototypes of CXP-10 (at 10 Gbps) and CXP12 (at 12.5 Gbps) CoaXPress interfaces.”

B 82

Europa Science Ltd.

I 85

EverPro Technologies Company Ltd.

D 83

eVision Systems GmbH

A 63

EVT Eye Vision Technology GmbH We have a guest article from EVT – check it out now in the magazine.

F 86

Fairchild Imaging

A 62

FALCON Illumination MV GmbH & Co. KG

Starring at the FUJIFILM EUROPE booth is the new Fujinon HF-12M series. These are top-of-the-range machine vision lenses for use in inspection and measurement applications in production lines.The HF-12M lenses can resolve the high resolution of up to12 megapixels with a pixel pitch of 2.1µm. All models of the new series maintain the high level of even sharpness from the image center up to the corners and compensate for the resolution degradation that typically occurs when changing working distance, or aperture value. This enables the consistent delivery of high-resolution images even under varying installation and shooting conditions at the manufacturing frontline.

H 76

FYLA

D 52

Gardasoft Vision Ltd.

Turning on the light at VISION is Gardasoft who will have a series of demonstrations running at the VISION Show, illustrating the wide range of capabilities offered by the Triniti intelligent lighting platform. These will include consistent/adaptive lighting control and multi-pulsing and safe overdriving of LED lighting. Further enhancements to the Triniti platform will be demonstrated through an automatic focusing demonstration, where Gardasoft’s new TR-CL Series of single channel industrial Lens Controllers provide very accurate and repeatable control of Optotune EL-1030 and EL-16-40 focus-tunable lenses.

B 16

GBS Gesellschaft für Bildund

C 13

GedonSoft GmbH

B 20

GEFASOFT Automatisierung

A 12

Faseroptik Henning GmbH

B 54

FESTO AG & Co. KG

A 72.4

First Light Imaging

C 54

FISBA AG

H 72

FLIR Commercial Systems BVBA

I 11

GiDEL Ltd.

G 82

Fotonic

B 65

Global Laser Ltd.

D 41

FRAMOS GmbH

J 54

Gooch & Housego

G 89

Frankfurt Laser Company

A 41

GOYO Optical Inc.

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We have a contribution from GEFASOFT in the magazine.

Industrial camera manufacturer IDS Imaging Development Systems will be introducing a number of new camera series featuring USB 3.1 and GigE connectors. The focus will be on more powerful sensors, robust housing and connection technology, as well as on a simple integration of the cameras. Visitors will see impressive application demos, and a wide range of solutions from classical machine vision and 3D robot vision to embedded vision and ITS applications.

G 12

IDT - Integrated Design Tools Inc. The new CrashCam Mini will be showcased.

E 10

ifm electronic GmbH

First-timers at VISION ifm will focus on 3D camera technology which they have developed in conjunction with its subsidiary pmdtechnologies.

C 52

igus® GmbH

I 48

II-VI Deutschland GmbH

C 62

iiM AG measurement + engineering

C 90

illunis LLC

B 41

IMAGO Technologies GmbH

I 58

IMEC Belgium vzw

A 68

I 31

E 01

IMM Photonics GmbH

Kithara Software GmbH

Microscan Systems BV

B 22

Kolektor Orodjarna d.o.o.

G 53

Midwest Optical Systems, Inc.

G 81

Konradin-Verlag

I 62

Kowa Optimed Deutschland GmbH

E 86

Kuvio Automation Ltd

C 20

Lang GmbH & Co. KG

F 12

Laser 2000 GmbH

C 33

LASER COMPONENTS GmbH

Impuls Imaging GmbH

I 16

Leistungselektronik JENA GmbH

D 74

Mikrop AG

D 74

IMT Masken und Teilungen AG

F 22

Lensation GmbH

E 52

Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V.

B 12

in-situ GmbH

C 28

LEONI protec cable systems GmbH

E 71

Moritex Corporation

A 25.2

Infinitegra, Inc.

J 78

LFoundry S.r.l

J 69

MRTech SK s.r.o.

B 27

inno-spec GmbH

H 51

E 64

MTD GmbH

J 56

Intekplus Co., Ltd.

LMI Technologies GmbH

E 72

MVTec Software GmbH

Lobre srl

H 81 / 88 Imperx Inc. Headline act is their expanded range of CMOS cameras. Imperx will be expanding its Cheetah line of CMOS cameras to include high resolution ON Semiconductor Python CMOS image sensors and Sony Pregius CMOS image sensors with resolutions ranging from 2MP to 25MP. They will also introduce their latest ultra-high resolution CCD product line called Tiger. There will a live demo of the first Tiger product: the Tiger T8882 47MP CCD camera.

C 11

G 91

Intenta GmbH

C 85

I 32

Intercon 1

H 11

LOT-QuantumDesign GmbH

I 18

IO Industries Inc.

F 79

A 17

IOI Technology Corporation

Lumenera Corporation

J 76

Luxima Technology LLC

J 36

LVS Co., Ltd.

H 88

M3H2 GmbH

A 18

Math & Tech Engineering GmbH

E 12

MATRIX VISION GmbH

F 21

Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd.

J 67

Iridian Spectral Technologies Ltd.

Top of the list for MidOpt is their optical filters. These are specifically designed to be less susceptible to effects from angular shifting when placed in front of short focal length (<12 mm) camera lenses. The benefit is that the short focal length means less space is needed, allowing for more compact inspection layouts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a growing trend in the machine vision imagining process. Contrast can be lost towards the edges of images, when using a traditional coated interference filter in more compressed configurations.

MVTec will be showing version 13 of its image processing software HALCON. VISION forms part of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World Tour which is being organized by MVTec's international sales partners. HALCON, which has only just been released, provides a new user-friendly texture inspection capability. This version optimizes surface-based 3D matching in flat objects, as it now uses edge information in addition to 3D point clouds. This optimizes applications for picking boxes. A new method for the high-quality reconstruction of 3D objects, using multiple cameras, is also available. This method uses the information from all camera angles at the same time, producing more robust results than conventional stereo approaches. By using the cameras, the method also allows an object to be reconstructed and printed in 3D (additive manufacturing/reverse engineering).

B 72.4

iritos

G 12

IS - Imaging Solutions GmbH

C 30

ISRA VISION AG

D 18

ISW Industrielle Sensorsysteme

F 52

JAI A/S

J 55

Jargy Co., Ltd.

D 30

MaxxVision GmbH

J 65

JD Photo Data

B 72.6

MBJ Imaging GmbH

A 51

Myutron Inc.

G 14

JenCam GmbH

B 21

MESURE-SYSTEMS 3D

J 53

NAC Deutschland GmbH

G 72

Jos. Schneider Optische Werke GmbH

D 54

Metaphase Technologies Inc.

H 10

Nathaniel Group, Inc.

F 34

Kappa optronics GmbH

H 38

Navitar, Inc.

B 72.9

Metrilus GmbH

E 71

I 52

KAYA Instruments

B 90

MICROBOX GmbH

Neopt - Eagle Industry Co., Ltd.

D 32

KEYENCE Deutschland GmbH

H 80

Microchip Technology Ireland

B 07.8

Neousys Technology Inc.

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B 72.0

Nerian Vision Technologies

Nerian has just issued a major update for its SP1 stereo vision system which, it says, almost doubles the supported image resolution, up to 1440 x 1072 pixels. The new firmware gives the user a choice between a high processing rate, or a high image resolution. SP1 is Nerian’s solution for a stereo matching in real time. It allows for depth perception and 3D reconstruction. What’s more, unlike other sensors for depth detection, such as time-of-flight cameras, or structured light stereovision, it is a purely passive process. It can therefore be used in daylight outdoors.

F 14

Optronis GmbH

On show will be the new CamPerform CP 70-1, a high-performance, highspeed camera for high end automation in the machine vision sector and 2D/3D AOI applications. Built with a compact design and with a high degree of light sensitivity, it’s aimed at users of highspeed 2D/3D measuring technology and in the factory automation sector. The company says it can achieve speeds of up to 200,000 fps at the lowest resolution and 1000 fps at the maximum sensor resolution of 1280 x 1024.

F 84

PPMA Ltd.

C 88

PR Sys Design

J 12

Princeton Infrared Technologies, Inc.

B 72.3

Q.VITEC GmbH

H 66

Qioptiq Photonics GmbH & Co. KG

A 52

Quest Innovations B.V.

E 32

RAUSCHER GmbH

F 12

Osela Inc.

B 72.2

Raytrix GmbH

I 22

Resolve Optics Ltd.

J 15

REVOX, Inc.

C 07

RH Engineering

G 15

RICOH IMAGING DEUTSCHLAND GmbH

D 62

NET New Electronic Technology GmbH

G 13

Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH

A 25.3

NetVision Corp.

G 32

PCO AG

C 26

NeuroCheck GmbH

D 81

I 44

New Imaging Technologies (NIT)

Perception Park GmbH

A 72.7

PHLOX SA

H 78

New Infrared Technologies, Ltd.

C 83

Photoneo s.r.o.

H 32

ROBswiss

A 42

Photonfocus AG

I 12

Newnex Technology Corp.

A 19

D 01

Photonics Media / Laurin Publishing Co., Inc.

Route One Publishing Ltd

A 72.2

NEXVISION SAS

C 23

SAC Sirius Advanced Cybernetics GmbH

I 72

NIP Co., Ltd.

A 02

Schäfter + Kirchhoff GmbH

I 34

Photron (Europe) Ltd.

H 67

PHYTEC Messtechnik GmbH

I 80

PixeLINK Inc.

I 71

PIXELTEQ

G 11

planistar Lichttechnik GmbH

F 31

Pleora Technologies Inc.

F 83

Nippon Electro-Sensory Devices Corp. (NED)

F 15

NorPix, Inc. (and H88)

E 107

Novus Media Today Group, LLC (EO)

A 72.3

Noxant

H 74

Octonus Finland Oy

B 84

odos imaging ltd

E 10

pmdtechnologies ag

C 32

ON Semiconductor Belgium BVBA

I 37

POG Präzisionsoptik Gera GmbH

A 09

OPT Machine Vision Tech Co., Ltd.

B 42

Point Grey Research, Inc.

H 71

Optics Balzers GmbH

H 86

Optics.org (Spie Events Europe)

I 43

Optikron GmbH

A 72.1

OPTIS

F 44/H32 Opto Engineering Srl A 31

OPTOMOTIVE d.o.o.

A 61

Optotune Switzerland AG

Point Grey will use VISION to showcase advanced camera technology to address real-life imaging problems and emerging vision applications. It will unveil a brand new 10 GigE camera family and showcase the benefits and opportunities 10 Gigabit Ethernet offers to machine vision. The new series of GigE Visioncompliant products will feature the latest global shutter CMOS technology and leverage 10 GigE’s high data rates to maximize sensor resolutions and frame rates.

A 72.0

POLE OPTITEC

C 31

Polytec GmbH

Featured will be the new USB 3.0 Color Line Scan Camera with 3 x 7456 Pixels and excellent Cost-PerformanceRelationship. The wide range of line scan cameras by Schäfter+Kirchhoff for industrial use was enhanced by a new color line scan camera with USB 3.0 interface. The SK22768U3TOC-LA has a triple-line sensor inside with 3 x 7456 pixels (RGB). This makes the camera suitable for high-resolution scanning tasks in solar, wood and printing industry. The pixel size is 4.7 x 4,7µm². For the relatively short sensor length of 35 mm, there is a wide range of high-quality lenses.

J 43

SCHÖLLY FIBEROPTIC GMBH

A 11

SEE FAST TECHNOLOGIES

H 62

SensoPart Industriesensorik GmbH

F 80

Sensor Technologies Europe, LLC

A 43

Sensor to Image GmbH

B 07

Shanghai RuiShi

mvpromedia.eu

A 15

ShapeCrafter AS

I 65

Shenzhen Gigalight Technology Co., Ltd

B 07.9

Shenzhen JHC Technology

B 62

SICK Vertriebs-GmbH There's an article from SICK in the magazine

B 07.10

Siemens AG

C 72

Silicon Software GmbH

A 72.0

SILIOS TECHNOLOGIES

H 12

Sill Optics GmbH & Co. KG

E 51

Smart Vision Lights

D 42

Smartek Vision d.o.o.

G 74

SmartRay GmbH

I 41

Sofradir SAS

D 31

SONY Europe Ltd.

J 73

Specialised Imaging Ltd.

B 07.2

Spectra GmbH & Co. KG

B 86

Spectral Devices Inc.

F 22

SPO Standard & Precision Optics Inc.

J 79

SpotOptics s.r.l.

E 52

Stemmber-Imaging (and D56, F53) Have a read of our article from Stemmer on hyperspectral imaging.

the art on-board processing features. Light weight and shutterless, Calibir features radiometric performance, providing temperature data to inform critical decision-making across a growing number of applications. Easyto-use development tools allow users to quickly create an operator interface or integrate with factory systems and industrial robots. Also on show the industry’s first colour CMOS TDI camera. The new Piranha XL Color line scan cameras are built around Teledyne DALSA’s advanced multiline CMOS TDI color image sensor and deliver colour imaging with high speed, high resolution, high responsivity and low noise.

D 88 The Crowley Company, Inc. Top billing at Crowley goes to the MACHCAM 71MP Machine Vision Camera. It’s available in two models, monochrome (MACHCAM 71M) and color (MACHCAM 71C). Using a CMOSIS sensor as its base, Crowley engineers have developed a small camera with a big impact – the case measures only 83 x 83 x 63.5 mm – and can be easily implemented into machine vision applications. The camera package includes: camera; software development kit; installation software; and manual and source code files.

D 51

The Imaging Source Europe GmbH

D 85

VectorBlox Computing Inc.

A 21

Vereinigte Fachverlage GmbH

B 15

ViconT GmbH

D 44

Videology Imaging Solutions

B 33

ViDi Systems SA

B 03

ViduTech

D 53

Vieworks Co., Ltd.

D 11

Visio Nerf S.A.

B 13

VISIOLASER

B 18

Visiomatica S.L.

H 35

Vision & Control GmbH

F 42

Vision Components GmbH

B 01

Vision fOr Vision

C 12

Vision Kronemeyer

H 20

Vision Research Europe

C 01

Vision S.r.L.

Tichawa Vision GmbH

E 112

Vision Systems Design Magazine

J 34

TOPAG Lasertechnik GmbH

I 55

ViSiTOOL Peter Stange

F 12

TORDIVEL AS

G 93

VIT Ltd.

E 31

Toshiba Teli Corporation

A 32

VRmagic GmbH

H 13

VST Europe B.V.

I 15

wenglor sensoric GmbH

E 103

WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA (EC)

G 44

Xenics nv

I 78

Xiamen Leading Optics Co., Ltd.

C 82

Xilinx Ltd.

C 51

XIMEA GmbH

B 32

Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., LTD.

Stil SA

E 71

SVS-VISTEK GmbH

I 82

TowerJazz

B 34

Swarovski Optik KG

H 09

TPL Vision SARL

B 18

SYSMAQ S.L.

F 08

Trioptics GmbH

A 37

TAG Optics, Inc.

J 33

H 56

Tamron Europe GmbH

Tucsen Photonics Co., Ltd.

H 43

TWIGA SAS

B 64

Tattile S.r.L.

A 24

UTPVision S.r.L.

E 110

TeDo-Verlag GmbH

I 76

1 E 62

Teledyne DALSA

Varioptic Business Unit of Parrot

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Vecow Co., Ltd.

H 42

A 72.5

Canadian Teledyne Dalsa will showcase a number of products. These include its small, low-power, LWIR camera platform, Calibir. This microbolometerbased platform covers wavelengths from 8-14 µm and supports a variety of camera interfaces, lenses and state of

B 07.5

A 73/D07 VDMA Industrielle Bildverarbeitung e.V.

Hyperspectral imaging – an evolutionary step forward Stemmer-Imaging says that they have made an evolutionary step within the field of hyperspectral imaging. We hear it direct from the company.

With the compact FX10 hyperspectral cameras from Specim, the new SWIR Goldeye G-033 cameras from Allied Vision and the complete CVS HyperInspect systems, STEMMER IMAGING is exhibiting multi-purpose possibilities for hyperspectral imaging at VISION 2016. In relation to the development of imaging from monochrome via colour to 3-D image capture, this technology represents the next evolutionary step: Machine Vision 4.0. Hyperspectral imaging mainly differs from image processing in the visible, UV or IR range in that more than 100 different wavelengths are used for the analysis of the results. This always requires the use of a spectrograph, which splits the light containing different wavelengths into its spectrum. This spectrum is subsequently captured via the sensors of the cameras employed and allows an analysis of the inspection objects. In the field of hyperspectral imaging, STEMMER IMAGING has compact FX10 hyperspectral cameras from Specim and the complete CVS HyperInspect system in its product range. Specim The FX10 hyperspectral cameras from the Finnish manufacturer, Specim, were developed for the wavelength range of 400 to 1000 nm and are characterised by the feature that the spectrograph is integrated into the camera housing. Due to a patented process, however, the new FX10 exhibits an extremely small size of only 150 x 85 x 71 mm. Users of this new camera series have the option to select and evaluate those wavelengths out of a total of 220 that are best suited to a particular application, based on the material properties of the inspection object. The number of selected wavelengths has a direct influence on the speed of the solution: the lower the number of wavelengths selected for the inspection, the faster the evaluation. If the user utilises all 220 wavelengths, then the maximum capture speed of the Specim FX10 is around 330 frames per second. If a capture of only 20 wavelengths is required, then 2830 frames per second are possible, and if 5 wavelengths are selected in 3 different ranges, 6510 frames per second can be achieved. CameraLink is currently

used as the interface for the image data transport; models with a GigE connection are also expected to be available from the end of 2016. Highlights Other highlights of the FX10 include specially adapted C-mount optics, an outstanding signalto-noise ratio of 600:1 as well as calibration by the manufacturer. This guarantees identical results even if a camera module has to be replaced due to a failure or maintenance of the system. The FX10 hyperspectral cameras from Specim, including imaging software and SDK, have been available from STEMMER IMAGING since mid-2016, where users can also procure the necessary frame grabbers and cables from a single source, which significantly facilitates entry into hyperspectral imaging. Together with Austrian company Perception Park, STEMMER IMAGING has developed a solution for hyperspectral imaging in the SWIR range from 900 to 1700 nm. The basis of the CVS HyperInspect vision system is a generic, intuitively configurable data processing platform from Perception Park, which provides scientific methods for analysing hyperspectral image data in encapsulated form. With this software users have the option, without expert knowledge of spectroscopy and chemometrics, to make use of hyperspectral vision systems and their results. This software serves as the basis for the systems that STEMMER IMAGING extends to form complete hyperspectral systems by the addition of hardware components such as suitable CMOS and InGaAs industrial cameras, illuminations, lenses, frame grabber cards and imaging computers. Hyperspectral vision systems analyse the molecular properties of the inspection objects and create a “chemical fingerprint” of the materials. Through the evaluation of over 100 wavelengths, they open up further areas of application that cannot be solved with conventional systems. Examples of uses for this technology are the classification of plastics during recycling, applications in the food sector and also the identification of materials of all kinds that exhibit virtually no differences in the real image, for instance in mining, in the pharmaceutical industry or in the medical sector, amongst others.

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High Speed SWIR Hyperspectral Cameras With uniform sensitivity in the short wave infrared (SWIR) spectrum from 900 – 1700 nm, high frame rates and small pixel size, the Goldeye G-033 cameras from Allied Vision are ideally suited to hyperspectral imaging applications. With the addition of a spectrograph to separate the wavelengths reaching the camera, the Goldeye G-033 becomes a powerful hyperspectral imager. The 900 – 1700 nm region of the spectrum is particularly important for hyperspectral imaging since this is where many of the unique absorption bands occur that feature in the ‘chemical footprint’ of organic materials. The Goldeye G-033 cameras feature a VGA (640 x 512 pixel) high sensitivity InGaAs sensor. The sensor

benefits from active thermoelectric cooling to reduce noise and enable a constant image quality. Goldeye cameras can be operated at very high frame rates (up to 301 fps at full resolution in 12-bit mode) and capture outstanding low-noise images. Available in GigE or CameraLink (CL) versions, Goldeye cameras have the same compact and ruggedized housing (55 mm x 55 mm x 78 mm) and feature set. This includes non uniformity correction and pixel defect and background correction for the sensor as well as camera features such as automatic exposure time control and trigger control. Comprehensive I/O control options simplify the connection to image processing software such as the Perception Studio ‘colour chemical imaging’ software from Perception Park for hyperspectral imaging. CL versions have a standardised Camera Link interface including GenCP support and GigE versions feature a standardised GigE Vision interface including Power over Ethernet. In addition, both model types offer a choice of lens mounts (C, F, M42), simplified filter integration, as well as multiple camera mounting options to ease the system integration.

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Polarization Line Scan Imaging: A new direction for machine vision Matthias Sonder, from TeleDyne DALSA, discusses a new direction for machine vision. Light is an electromagnetic wave—the electric field moves in one direction, the magnetic field in another. As a result, the three fundamental properties of light are: intensity, wavelength and polarization. In terms of machine vision, these three properties represent what can be described as the past, present, and future of imaging (Figure 1). The majority of cameras used today, and in the recent past, rely on monochrome or color imaging. A monochrome camera is used to measure the intensity of light over a broadband spectrum at pixel level, while a color is used to detect the intensities of light at the red, green and blue band. Multi-, Hyper- or Extended Spectral imaging systems enable detection of wavebands that extend beyond the human vision, such as X-Ray, UV, NIR or SWIR. A polarization camera adds a new dimension to this, capturing the intensity of light at multiple polarization states. New technology in cameras, which can “see” changes in the angle of the electrical field, will measure the intensity of light at multiple polarization states, extending vision capability beyond the conventional (intensity and wavelength) to this third dimension of light processing: polarization. Benefits of Polarization Cameras Polarization offers numerous benefits, not only detecting geometry and surface, but measuring physical properties that are not detectable using conventional imaging. In machine vision, it can

be used to enhance contrast for objects that are difficult to distinguish otherwise. When combined with phase detection, polarization imaging is much more sensitive than conventional imaging. Because they are highly sensitive to any change in an object, a polarization camera can enhance contrast to reveal issues that would have been difficult to distinguish otherwise, including birefringence, stress, roughness, thickness, and more. If, for example, the physical properties of an object change due to a defect, that change will impact the polarization state; viewed as an image from a polarization camera, the defect or defective area will appear with much higher contrast when compared to traditional imaging techniques. Filters to Make the Invisible Visible Conventional sensors, like the human eye, cannot “see” light polarization, so a polarization filter is placed in front of the image sensor on a traditional camera. The camera generates an image in which the polarization property is translated into intensity to provide a visual representation of the otherwise invisible polarized image. Placing multiple filters, similar to color bands, allows more accurate representation of the polarization angle. Figure 2 shows a “color-coded” polarization image of a plastic ruler (a, on the left) and a conventional image of the same ruler (b, on the right). The polarization image reveals the stress of the plastic molecules within the ruler that is undetectable in the conventional image.

Figure 1. The past, present, and future of imaging: monochrome cameras rely on intensity or brightness, color cameras on the wavelength or color, and polarization cameras on changes in the polarization state to reveal potential issues with an object.

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Figure 2. A plastic ruler is viewed using a polarization camera (a) and a conventional camera (b). Color coding in the polarization camera makes visible the stress in the ruler. Another example of polarization is the measurement of sugar concentration in liquids. Syrup and honey producers require sucrose to be the dominant sugar type to avoid crystallization. Today this is a manual, off-line process. A polarization camera can measure the concentration of this (polarizing) sugar in-situ, at high speed and fully automated. First Polarization Line Scan Camera While polarization is still relatively new to imaging, system developers anticipate the greatest benefits of the technology will be revealed by line scan cameras that capture images of multiple polarization states. Teledyne DALSA has integrated this technology into the world’s first line scan polarization camera. The ability to use this imaging modality in a continuous manner, with easier lighting requirements, will allow innovative system integrators to create new uses for the technology. With this added ability, these vision systems can now capture different polarization states per pixel and detect birefringence, stress, composition, thickness and surface morphology, making polarization ideal for manufacturers of materials and objects that require intense attention to detail, like glass, optical films, semiconductors, electronics, biomedicine, sensing and security. Sensor Architecture Teledyne DALSA’s Piranha4 polarization camera (Figure 3) incorporates a CMOS sensor with a quadlinear architecture. A micropolarizer array consisting of nanowires placed on top of the silicon. The nanowires have a pitch fine enough to deliver visible light polarization and an orientation to provide 0°, 135° and 90° polarization respectively, on the first three linear arrays. The intensity of the filtered light is recorded by the underlying arrays. The fourth channel is an unfiltered array, which captures the total intensity, equivalent to a conventional imager, while the gaps in between the active arrays reduce spatial crosstalk.

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Figure 3. Schematic of Teledyne DALSA’s Piranha polarization camera sensor architecture. Applications for Polarization Cameras So, what can polarization do that monochrome and color machine vision cameras cannot? Cameras equipped with polarizing filters will be ideally suited for a range of applications, including those used for sorting and defect detection tasks. In the case of raw material processing, for example, line scan cameras with polarization will be able to highlight foreign objects with higher contrast. Plastics in a mix of natural material or certain thin films can be made highly visible when using polarizing techniques. Similarly, polarization technology will be able to pinpoint defects, such as mechanical stress, fissures, or cracks, in materials like glass, carbon fiber, and plastic, as seen in the ruler in Figure 2. Beyond the traditional machine vision space, applications in the healthcare realm could prove to be game-changers. Advances in sensor design and production have allowed researchers to create relatively small, low power, integrated CMOS image sensors that can detect both visible and polarized light at high frame rates. The resulting camera package can fit onto an endoscope, allowing noninvasive tumor imaging that also doesn’t require the compromises of an MRI or CT scan. Researchers are also exploring a polarization camera that could detect cancer, which is not easily visible to the human eye or with conventional imaging solutions. Cancerous tissue looks almost identical to healthy tissue except for its disorganized structures that scatter light differently. Additionally, satellite imaging, security and defense applications could benefit from polarization cameras, and also use it to complement thermal imaging. Just like human tissue, fog, clouds, dust, and water all scatter light in ways that prevent clear imaging with conventional means. Polarization can open the door to more reliable optical imaging in these kinds of scattering media. In summary, the potential is great and there is still work to be done. The filters used with image sensors are small and require highly precise production, and developers are working to ensure accuracy and affordability in an elegant solution for many demanding applications.

And once more: Image processing! Recent trends for Machine Vision from CEO of Eye Vision Technology Michael Beising. EVT Eye Vision Technology is focusing nowadays on 3D technology and thermal imaging. There have been some major developments in application solutions with these techniques. The EyeVision software now can handle 3D point clouds, supports different 3D sensors and thermal imaging cameras. Also EVT has developed the first smart thermal imaging camera in the world. The long term aim is to offer complete machine vision solutions with an easy-to-handle EyeVision software on smart cameras, vision sensors and PCbased systems. Since several years now – or is it a decade already? - the application areas for image processing systems have spread enormously. On the one hand industrial cameras, as e.g. smart cameras have become faster, more robust and, what’s more, their resolution has increased. Also the 3D sensors have improved and developed, so that they have outgrown their childhood diseases. And on the other hand, the machine vision software is also developing steadily. A few years ago only engineers with programming knowledge could create inspection programs. Whereas now even user without programming skills can put together inspection programs, for their application, with software which is easy-to-handle. Due to the drag-and-drop functions or other intuitively selfexplanatory software functions, simple components can put together to a complex total flow. This is a major improvement, because all machine vision systems, no matter if smart camera, or PCbased system, depend on their software. These vary from a simple interface driver, which can only captures images, up to the use of complex pattern matching tools. So the selection of the hardware and software has a major role in image processing circles and the increasing demands of production plants have had a huge influence on the development of machine vision systems. But some must-haves in image processing have not and maybe will never change. There are defects, which can lead to material faults, which can be avoided because of better lenses, new technologies and the higher resolution of industrial cameras and whose detection is of utmost importance. So, as nowadays the camera sees more than the human eye, the demands on

product quality has changed as well. Or was it vice versa and the demands have influenced the development of machine vision? New are the applications, which can be solved with using a 3D sensor and 3D command set to measure the point cloud. Concerning 3D there are different methods, which can be useful for different applications. For example a Time-ofFlight sensor has a technique similar to radar and therefore is mostly used for 3D-object detection, but not for accurate measurements. Applications for Time-of-Flight sensors are e.g. automatic loading and unloading of boxes or containers with a robot, or measurement of volume with EyeSens Volume or presence check with EyeSens Presence. A fringe projection 3D sensor, allows fast measurement. The high speed of the fringe projection is very useful for the inspection of completeness, form deviation, position of component parts or volume measurement. But the most common technique is the laser line scan with on-board preprocessing. The 3D laser profile measurement is based on the principal of triangulation. For a typical setup the laser is positioned directly above the object and the camera is positioned with an angle of 30° to the laser. A laser triangulation sensor has significant advantages that it is good for a detailed measurement. An example would be the inspection of pins on a connector. There one can measure the wobble circle and pin depth. When capturing a 3D image from a connector, one can see very clearly if the pin is bent or if the pin is set too deep into the connector or if it is sticking out too far. This is

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because the inspection program not only measures the pin-peaks in x- and y-direction but also in z-direction. Relatively new are terms such as e.g. "nondestructive testing". Due to the new development of thermal imaging in machine vision, it is now possible to detect the quality of a product, according to the temperature, without changing the product, or to say, without â&#x20AC;&#x17E;damagingâ&#x20AC;&#x153; the product. Thermal imaging cameras capture data such as e.g. if a seal edge is completely gasketed or if fibre-reinforced composites are broken inside. This means that for example in the food & beverage industry the inspection of packaging sealing, fill level or the temperature of perishables is a significant part of quality control. Up to now some quality characteristics could only be checked by taking samples. Nowadays, a continuous inspection of all products is possible, thanks to thermal imaging. To inspect a nontransparent plastic bottle and its contents, often thermal imaging cameras are used. And whats more, the label print, the flawlessness of the exterior and fill level of the bottle can be inspected at the same instant. This then results in a higher process efficiency and productive capacity with checked quality. The thermal imaging camera recognizes the radiation of the temperature of the liquid inside the bottle. The IR-image is then evaluated via a machine vision software. The definite benefit: instead of having to take samples and insert them into measuring plants to control the quality of the product, the image processing system is integrated into the production process and measures each component, without having to reduce the production flow and speed.

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In fact it is an old-established demand on machine vision, to keep up with the increasing production speed. A legitimate questions therefore would be: can machine vision systems keep up with the constantly decreasing cycle time of production plants? Especially because machine vision need a lot of computing time. Hence, to solve complex applications, more and more powerful processing power is necessary. It is therefore essential to mention that, compared to the production speed, the image processing systems benefit from the disproportionately fast growing computing power of processors. One example for a fast production process is the pressing technique. In the past a punching machine has produced about 25 pieces per second. Now the punch press can produce up to 40 pieces per second. This means an increase of about 60 %. During the same period the computing power has increased by 3000 %. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true that the applications have become more complex and need more computing time, but not to the same extent as the computing power. Therefore the available computing power is more than sufficient for the bigger part of machine vision applications. That is the reason why today smart cameras are used for machine vision solutions. The computing power of smart camera processors is much less than then those of PC-systems, but still many times higher than the production speed. And finally, one should mention that image processing is now part of everyday life. Every smart phone now can capture images, save data from captured business cards into the address book, etc.

State of the machine vision industry from an integrators point of view Georg Schlaffer of GE FASOFT Automatisierung und Software GmbH provides an insightful update.

Machine vision is a key technology to drive automation in industrial manufacturing and assembly lines, and is a ‘must-have’ to meet steadily increasing quality requirements that make a 100% inspection in-between process steps inevitable. As a result, a number of basic machine vision applications like part presence, part location and identification or dimensional measurements became standard tools that are available in ‘ready to use’ machine vision systems. Such off the shelf machine vision systems – either smart camera systems or PC based installations – can be setup, installed and programmed by practically any user with some basic technical skills. You no longer need to be a trained machine vision expert to implement these basic applications in your manufacturing line. But as soon as your application get’s off the standard path, you want to talk to an expert. Reasons could be the need for sophisticated image processing algorithms in surface analysis, fast capturing or higher resolving cameras, the combination of multiple views (= cameras) in one control station, or just a specific communications protocol to the machine controller or a MES system. Typically, those requirements cannot be met with a user-friendly and simple ‘drag&drop’ programming interface. Machine vision integrators have the expertise and knowledge to select and apply the right illumination (and LED driver electronics),

optics and camera sensors and deliver a suitable image data processing strategy to implement an application specific, reliable and robust solution. These more sophisticated machine vision applications typically are customized solutions with one single or just a few installations per project. So the integrator needs to find the right balance between cost and level of customization. Best case he has a toolkit available that allows to minimize the customization effort while providing maximum flexibility in selection of vision hardware and software. In the case of GEFASOFT, we have developed the Viper.NET framework that handles most of the repetitive integration work of a customized project and supports. With Viper.NET, it is quite simple and quick to embed machine vision into an automation context, with support of many communication protocols or camera interfaces. The machine vision engineer can dedicate his time to develop the inspection strategy and implement the vision application based on Cognex VisionPro and MVTec Halcon libraries. Thanks to well established standards in the vision industry (e.g. GigE vision camera interfaces) virtually any hardware can be used within the Viper.NET framework. And because of the modular architecture of Viper.NET, new or future hardware (e.g. a camera sensor for 3D acquisition) or customer specific interfaces (e.g. to a MES system) can be quickly adapted. By using a vision application development framework like Viper.NET, the use of a large variety of technology (illumination, cameras, 3D sensors, etc. ) from different suppliers becomes manageable and enables the integrator to select the best fitting components per project. And latest technologies

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like 3D machine vision with more and more sensor suppliers evolving become more accessible.

base and find new cooperation partners that can benefit from the advantages of Viper.NET.

Another advantage is that effective machine vision application development drives down cost, especially in multi-camera installations. One single processing PC hosts all the applications of the connected camera stations, reducing costs for wiring (user interface, central I/O) and licenses for the vision library.

The ideal cooperation partners and customers are machine vision integrators and machine builder that do have some experience with Cognex VisionPro.

Expectations for Vision 2016 The Viper.NET framework is the result of more than 20 years of experience in machine vision integration at GEFASOFT. Initially developed on top of the Cognex VisionPro image processing software, it has been extended to support MVTec Halcon as well. This very unique combination of two very well established industrial machine vision libraries under the hood of a fieldtested integration framework is very attractive to machine vision integrators. The Vision show in Stuttgart is the perfect place to get in touch with vision integrators and show the product. We hope to expand our existing customer

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Outlook for GEFASOFT Even though 3D is the hot topic all over in trade shows and the press, there are not many 3D machine vision applications in the field yet. Part of it is because a lot of projects that started in 3D in fact can be handled with a smart 2D approach, keeping risk and cost controlled. For the other part, 3D image processing and analysis tools are not yet as user-friendly as they need to be. This applies to calibration of 3D systems as well as analysis of point clouds, filtering or visualization. While the machine vision expert is certainly able to setup a 3D application today, the challenge is the usability of such a 3D application by the average end user in the customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s factory. My expectation is that we will see more and more 3D applications being implemented at customers over the next 12-18 months, as sensors get more robust, powerful and affordable. And vision libraries will provide more efficient 3D tools for the integrators. GEFASOFT is at Vision 2016 in Stuttgart, booth B20 in hall 1.

Intuitive and intelligent: 3D inspection made easy Andreas Behrens, Head of Marketing & Sales Barcode – RFI D – Vision at SICK AG, talks about how 3D inspection can be made easy. Volume and dimension measurement, height and completeness monitoring, counting and positioning objects – wherever the efficient inspection of 3D object geometries is crucial, the TriSpector1000 configurable vision sensor from SICK offers versatile and high-availability solutions. The intuitive operation, high level of integration compatibility, and factory-calibrated 3D data output as mm values ensure easy execution of a wide range of inspection tasks. With the TriSpector1000, even complex inspections can be carried out quickly, easily, and with a high degree of availability. Three different variants for a variety of work areas – 56 mm…116 mm, 141 mm…514 mm, and 321 mm…1,121 mm – ensure optimal execution of tasks and integration of the sensor into the machine environment. The single-housing concept ensures geometric stability and precision in measuring scenarios. 3D image detection of moving objects by means of laser triangulation does not depend on object properties, background influences, or factors related to illumination and ambient light. At the same time, it records up to 2,000 3D profiles per second – high-resolution measurement results that are converted by the vision sensor into mm values and output for immediate further processing. This

allows mechanical engineers and integrators to duplicate identical inspection tasks quickly and easily, and enables the user to replace a device without any delay through the use of stored data and configurations, should it be necessary. The data output via digital outputs and the Gigabit Ethernet interface enable fast responses, wherever necessary, by means of processing and machine control. No more programming: Inspection by reference image comparison Configuration using the intuitive user interface without any issues: The four integrated image analysis tools of the TriSpector1000 – the Shape Locator, the Area tool, the Find Plane tool, and the Blob Finder – enable the location, verification, and analysis of objects and their properties, appropriate to the application in question. All tools can be operated easily using the SOPAS configuration software from SICK. Shape Locator uses a reference image to ascertain the 3D shape of an object detected in the process by the TriSpector1000. With the Area tool, the vision sensor ascertains whether there are parts present and performs measurements to determine whether they are in the correct quantity and height. This tool uses the position and alignment detected by the Shape Locator (e.g., of a box) in order to position the measurement windows

The TriSpector1000 allows you to effectively manage numerous inspections of dimensions, quality, and completeness

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The four integrated image analysis tools of the TriSpector1000 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Shape Locator, the Area tool, the Find Plane tool, and the Blob Finder â&#x20AC;&#x201C; enable the location, verification, and analysis of objects and their properties, appropriate to the application in question

onto the correct area of the object. The Find Plane tool manages inspection tasks in which the angle of surfaces (e.g., a correctly applied screw top) is determined by OK and NOK. With the Blob Finder tool, the TriSpector1000 locates objects within a user-defined size range, regardless of their shape. For example, this allows the sensor to reliably check for the presence of various parts in the sorting tray of folding boxes, and at the same time to recognize where something may be missing. Thanks to the intuitive user interface, the operator can easily start up and operate the TriSpector1000 because all tools feature maximum user friendliness and flexibility, and also offer a variety of inspection solutions, particularly when combined with each other.

various alignments and positions on the conveyor as necessary. Measuring windows are positioned over the various fields using the Area tool. The data of the Shape Locator is used for tracing these individual fields depending on the actual position of the box, and for checking its contents. If the contents are missing completely, this is reported as an error. If it is underfilled, a packaging stage upstream may be faulty; if it is overfilled, this may lead to a fault in a downstream process, e.g., when sealing the packaging. In this way, 3D inspection with the TriSpector1000 detects and avoids errors in the packaging process.

Ideal for food, pharmaceutical, and packaging inspection

Whether it is the high variance of parts, demanding object properties, fast processes, adverse ambient conditions, or stringent requirements for measurement accuracy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; thanks to its intuitive operation, intelligent inspection capabilities, and integrated image analysis, the configurable TriSpector1000 is the ideal solution for meeting even the most complex requirements of 3D inspection in an uncomplicated manner.

Among other uses, the TriSpector1000 allows you to effectively manage numerous inspections of dimensions, quality, and completeness in the food, pharmaceutical and packaging industries. In terms of fittings, the vision sensor is amply equipped: It features a rugged, anodized aluminum housing resistant to a variety of media, offers the choice between IP 65 or IP 67 enclosure rating, and is available with a front screen made from either glass or break-proof plastic. Thanks to laser triangulation, measurement is ensured regardless of color, shape, brightness, and surface structure, as well as the gloss properties of chocolates, biscuits, pills, tablets, and small parts. Moreover, intensity data can be recorded by the sensor, allowing it to check for the presence of labels or imprinted patterns.

Even complex 3D inspections easily carried out

TriSpector1000 from SICK for capturing and evaluating 3D images directly

Virtually every inspection process can be set up step by step with little effort. The correct version of the TriSpector1000 is selected and mounted according to the mounting situation and the working distance. When setting up the tools, the configuration interface visualizes the settings and alignment of the measuring window and laser sensor. The movement speed of the conveyor is recorded by the encoder and automatically taken into account in the TriSpector1000 when calculating the 3D profiles. Next, the required inspection tools are activated. The Shape Locator tool records the reference object (e.g., a box of biscuits) and detects

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New illumination vystem for viewing Biofilms Boss of Best Scientific Dr Eric Best discusses how his company wants to bridge the gap between the biological and material sciences with their specially designed microscope.

Best Scientific has taken their successful development of the EDIC microscope system and applied it to the rapid detection of Biofilms on opaque, curved, natural or manmade substances without the need for cover slips and oil. EDIC or Episcopic Differential Interference Contrast microscopy along with EPI-Fluorescence is an illumination technique which allows a user to view a direct sample of biofilms. This system has been used to successfully visualise the 3D biofilm structure, for analysis.

images it supplies, can allow scientists to further analyse biofilms to solve the problems associated with them. Simultaneously discovering other situations where they can be of a benefit. An example of this microscope system is currently being used by Southampton University in an investigation to Biofilm growth inside of hospital catheters. These tubes are used to deliver treatment or remove unwanted fluids from the body. In doing so, inadvertently provide a hydrated surface for biofilms to form. More research would be beneficial to discover potential cleaning or prevention of biofilms on such surfaces, which can be potentially infectious to the patient. They have also been found present on various other implanted medical devices. Best Scientific have now provided an Episcopic Research level Polarizing system at Southampton University with both slider-type analyser rotatable through 360 degrees. With Senarmont compensator incorporating a ¼ λ plate and a 546nm (1λ) tint plate (first order red) for analyses this system has now enabled the crystal structure in the catheters to be analysed for further Research to be carried out.

Biofilms, simply put is where bacteria colonise on a hydrated surface, including both natural and manmade, to build the foundation of a city of living microbes. It’s widely known that they can create problems in the medical and industrial fields as well as being potentially beneficial in environmental clean ups. Best Scientific hope that the development of this new illumination technique with the topographical

Biofilms are also abundant in the industrial sector where processes involve watercooling and liquids traveling through pipelines. These surfaces are heavily hydrated and are at great risk of infection from biofilms. Such as the example of the Alaskan pipeline oil spill at Prudhoe Bay in 2006. The cause of this was established to be bacterial corrosion which had formed from sediment in the pipe. This reduced the flow and eventually formed a small breach. The result of this was 267,000 gallons of oil leaking out over the snow covered land. Incidents like this also have a great threat to the financial market. Reducing output and flow of oil pipelines and closures for maintenance have caused price spikes in the cost for oil which has great knock-on effects. As both of the above examples show that biofilms typically grow in areas very difficult to access. The price of maintaining infrastructure is so high maybe

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more research and a better understanding of biofilm would be beneficial. Best Scientific want to bridge the gap between the Biological and material Sciences with our specially designed microscope. We want to help researchers: • learn more about the attachment, growth and dispersal of biofilms; • discover Biofilm prevention techniques; • develop removal techniques for existing biofilms; • understand how growth can be stopped or slowed with changes of environment; • develop higher quality biofilm free medical devices; • prevent environmental damage by industrial sectors; • propose alternative maintenance procedures for biofilm susceptible equipment.

Automatic weed imaging and analysis by machine vision Machine vision is being used for precision weeding.

A collaborative project between UWE Bristol and Harper-Adams University aims to detect the locations of out-of-row weed clusters from 3D images and GPS data.

The precise determination of weed patch locations is made possible by CMV methods for high framerate 3D detection of broad-leaf and grass weeds in maize crops. The images are analysed to find the main growing stem (the meristem) to within 1-2mm.

A typical maize field, captured while in late “establishment” and early “vegetative” growth stages

3D reconstruction resulting from a 4-source photometric stereo scan of an artificially planted weed bed

The team working on the project build a 3D reconstruction from a four-source photometric stereo scan of an artificially planted weed bed. The techniques then used means the team can determine the structure of the weeds from surface information and to identify the locations of the crucial parts of the weed. This then allows the use of efficient, targeted weed killing techniques such as precision spraying or heat-treatment.

The backdrop to the study is that agricultural techniques for management of weeds in crop fields often involve the wide-scale spraying of herbicides. This, says the team, is expensive both economically and environmentally. What’s more, an increasing global population requires an increasing crop output, which in turn requires more efficient use of existing agricultural land.

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Read The Dots

SureDot SureDot New! Matrox SureDotOCRâ&#x201E;˘

Innovative OCR technology for reading challenging dot-matrix text Matrox SureDotOCR is specifically designed to address the challenges with reading dotmatrix text produced in practice by industrial inkjet printers and dot peen markers at manufacturing line rates. It eliminates the need for case-specific image pre-processing, is straightforward to use and reliably reads information despite text distortion and orientation as well as uneven backgrounds and illumination.

Learn more about SureDotOCR www.matrox.com/suredotocr/mvpro

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A final thank you MVPro aimed to rasie the bar for machine vision industry media: this has been made possible due to overwelming support from our industry experts

The support and encouragement from our customers and colleagues within the machine vision industry has turned the last six months into the most extraordinary journey for us here in the MVPro team. Engaging with design engineers and system integrators, right the way through to the end-users and manufacturers, reinforcing how machine vision has become such a key technology in the area of manufacturing and quality control due to increasing customer demands. And it quickly became apparent to me how MVProâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s multimedia platform and our innovative approach will significantly enhance business revenue building opportunities in this ever changing industry. I would like to thank everyone for their ongoing support to ensure MVPro is an ultimate success for its readers and customers. And we are looking forward to enhancing brands, and building new relationships, as we move into 2017. You will find MVPro in Stuttgart at VISION (stand E105) where we will be launching our first publication with big smiles on our faces. We look forward to seeing you there,

Cally

Cally Bennett MVPro

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