Issues

Browse our previous issues below, or browse and search for specific features or analysis & opinion.

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June/July 2021

Isotronic’s VialChecker multi-camera quality control machine. Credit: Isotronic and IDS

Feature

Vial statistics

8 June 2021

Greg Blackman explores quality control measures taken to make the glass bottles filled with vaccines

Using drones could enable visual aircraft inspections in under an hour. Credit: Mainblades

Feature

Final call for digital flight maintenance

8 June 2021

Matthew Dale takes a bird’s eye view of aircraft inspection, where drones equipped with vision are replacing manual checks

A tunable LED light source offers spectral reproduction. Credit: Pro-Lite Technology

Feature

Calibration across the spectrum

8 June 2021

Leslie Lyons, business development manager for light metrology at Pro-Lite Technology, says spectral camera calibration needs a spectrally tunable light source

April/May 2021

Outfield analyses aerial images of orchards using machine learning to predict crop yield

Feature

Sowing the seeds of digital tech

1 April 2021

Farmers are starting to reap the rewards of robotics and machine vision, as Keely Portway finds out

Feature

Power in the community

1 April 2021

Open source software has advanced to a point where it’s now a credible option for industrial imaging, Matthew Dale finds

Active Silicon’s 4xCXP-12 FireBird Coaxpress frame grabber (PCIe Gen3 x8)

Feature

Coaxpress gains fibre and 3D support

1 April 2021

Chris Beynon, Active Silicon’s CTO and technical chair of the Coaxpress committee, updates on the Coaxpress standard

The first colour image, captured by a CMV20000 sensor, to be sent back by the hazard cameras on the Perseverance rover after its landing on Mars on 18 February. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Analysis and opinion

The sensor stories behind the Mars Perseverance images

26 February 2021

Greg Blackman speaks to Guy Meynants, formerly of Cmosis, and Paul Jerram, of Teledyne e2v, about the history of the image sensors onboard the Mars rover

February/March 2021

Hyperspectral imaging can be used to check for blemishes on food packaging lines. Credit: Brillopak

Feature

Unlocking flexible production

18 February 2021

Matthew Dale finds out how vision is enabling smaller batch sizes to be processed on packaging lines

December 2020/January 2021

Feature

Plastic not fantastic

14 December 2020

Greg Blackman looks at how SWIR spectral imaging can help reduce plastic pollution, both through environmental surveys and by improving sorting in recycling plants

The highlighted objects on the left show scaling errors, rotation errors or translation errors, while the objects on the right are a truer representation. Credit: Zivid

Feature

Pick of the bunch

14 December 2020

Matthew Dale explores the new 3D vision tools that are enabling automated bin picking

Tropical Storm Frank off the south western coast of Baja California, captured by Ames Research Centre's HDVis camera mounted on Nasa's Global Hawk unmanned research aircraft. Credit: NASA/NOAA

Feature

Removing distortion with optical design

14 December 2020

Theia Technology’s Mark Peterson outlined the benefits of rectilinear lenses at AIA’s vision solutions conference. Greg Blackman reports

October/November 2020

MVTec’s deep learning tool provides means to label data simply and efficiently

Feature

Dealing with data

10 November 2020

Matthew Dale explores the software to simplify the management and labelling of deep learning data

Classification of nuts as good or bad using Specim’s FX17 camera

Feature

Super spectral in sight

10 November 2020

Optical design is crucial in enabling wider adoption of hyperspectral imaging, finds Andy Extance

Feature

True colours

10 November 2020

Keely Portway surveys the latest advances in colour imaging, creating fresh opportunities in certain applications

An Illustration of the surface of PAN fibres (left) and carbon fibres after spreading (right). Credit: Fraunhofer IGCV and Chromasens

Feature

Carbon fibre inspection takes flight

10 November 2020

Work is underway to build a vision system to detect defects in webs of composite materials

Vision Yearbook 2020/21

Feature

Investing in innovation

26 October 2020

Keely Portway looks at the trials and tribulations of bringing new technology to market, particularly in a pandemic

Analysis and opinion

Back to school

23 September 2020

As a new academic year begins, Greg Blackman finds out what students taking image processing courses in two universities have in store

Géraldine Andrieux, CEO of Blumorpho

Analysis and opinion

Winning investment in 2020

23 September 2020

Ahead of the Inpho Venture Summit in October, Blumorpho CEO, Géraldine Andrieux, discusses how startups should approach pitching for venture capital funding in these uncertain economic times

Some of Luminate's third cohort of startups. Credit: Luminate

Analysis and opinion

Startup class of 2020 continues to innovate

24 August 2020

On 14 September, 10 photonics startups from Luminate's business accelerator will present their technology during The Optical Society’s virtual conference. Greg Blackman asks Luminate MD, Sujatha Ramanujan, how these young companies are coping during Covid-19

August/September 2020

MVTec’s Halcon software library includes a deep learning OCR tool with pre-trained fonts from a wide range of industries. Credit: MVTec

Feature

Code critical

3 August 2020

Matthew Dale explores vision solutions for code reading and inspection in pharmaceutical production

Engineers at KYB in front of a pick-and-place solution for handling steel metal cylinders. Credit: Pickit

Feature

Green light for automation

3 August 2020

Car manufacturing has been hit hard by Covid-19, but the need for automation on production lines has not diminished, as Greg Blackman finds out

A point cloud of a National Research Council Canada artefact superimposed on a CAD model. Credit: NIST

Analysis and opinion

Robotics to benefit from 3D vision standard

31 July 2020

How do you choose a 3D vision system for a robot cell? Geraldine Cheok and Kamel Saidi at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA discuss an initiative to define standards for industrial 3D imaging

SWIR imaging can show bruising in fruit that wouldn't be evident with a visible camera. Credit: Sony

Analysis and opinion

Optics design challenge for SWIR

22 July 2020

Edmund Optics’s Thomas Armspach-Young and Boris Lange consider the optics needed to get the best out of Sony's new short-wave infrared image sensors

June/July 2020

Feature

Every grain counts

4 June 2020

How will the world feed 10 billion people by 2050 with no new land for agriculture? Greg Blackman speaks to machine builder Bühler about how optical sensing can maximise yield in grain processing

Two robots have been installed at Aalborg University Hospital in Denmark. Credit: Kuka

Feature

Helping hand for hospital testing labs

4 June 2020

Keely Portway looks at how robots are automating procedures in hospital testing laboratories, and how imaging underpins this

A setup for photometric stereo imaging in which multiple lights are used to illuminate an object from different directions. Credit: Advanced illumination

Feature

Guided by the light

4 June 2020

Matthew Dale explores the power of computational imaging, all made possible by clever illumination

April/May 2020

The panel discussion at the Embedded World trade fair

Feature

Power at the edge

15 April 2020

Matthew Dale looks at what it will take to increase the adoption of embedded vision

InGaAs and event-based sensors still rely on silicon CMOS readout ICs

Feature

Sense of purpose

15 April 2020

Greg Blackman explores the work being done on InGaAs sensors, along with other types of novel sensor that could find their way into the machine vision market

Analysis and opinion

Is vision ready for the cloud?

11 March 2020

Raghava Kashyapa, CEO of Indian vision firm Qualitas Technologies, writes about the benefits and challenges of implementing machine vision in the cloud – and what this holds for manufacturing in India

February/March 2020

The Harvesters (1565), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Feature

Wheat breeding gains from 3D data

24 February 2020

Greg Blackman speaks to Dr Richard Dudley about the National Physical Laboratory’s 3D imaging rig, which will be scanning wheat in crop breeding trials this summer

Cubert's Ultris 20 hyperspectral snapshot camera provides a more reliable alternative for aerial surveillance than conventional line scan cameras

Feature

Spectral snapping

24 February 2020

Matthew Dale explores the emerging alternatives to push broom hyperspectral imaging

Visualisation of the movements of road users in the city of Umeå. Besides counting the tracking over multiple counting lines, Viscando also analysed the tendency for traffic conflict. Credit: Viscando

Feature

Vision algorithms take control of traffic

12 February 2020

Greg Blackman explores the vision and AI technology transforming our roads, as the transport sector gathers for the Intertraffic Amsterdam trade fair

Pegnitz river in Nuremberg

Feature

Cutting-edge processing

12 February 2020

Vision technology will be one of the highlights at Embedded World in Nuremberg. Here, we preview what to expect

Panelists from left: Christian Vollrath, Wenglor Sensoric; Rainer Schönhaar, Balluff; Peter Keppler, Stemmer Imaging; Andreas Waldl, B&R; and Dr Klaus-Henning Noffz, Basler

Analysis and opinion

Vision not intuitive enough, say experts at SPS

11 February 2020

Anne Wendel, director of VDMA Machine Vision, reports from SPS 2019 in Nuremberg, where vision system simplicity was discussed

Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks. Copyright: The National Gallery, London

Analysis and opinion

Spectral imaging sheds light on Leonardo masterpiece

20 December 2019

Giorgia Marucci from Pro-Lite Technology visits the National Gallery in London to find out how hyperspectral imaging was used to reveal the history behind Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks

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