Finding resources and services
This issue is our annual Vision Systems Design Buyers Guide for developers of machine-vision and image-processing systems. Incorporating a Buyers Guide into the March issue provides our readers with the most comprehensive listing of OEM suppliers of vision and image-processing equipment available. The printed version is complemented by a complete, searchable version online here.
The Buyers Guide contains a Product Guide to products and the companies offering these products; a Vendor Directory, which provides a worldwide list of manufacturers and manufacturers reps; and directories for system-integration services and systems integrators. The products are grouped alphabetically in general categories, with the detailed breakdown of each product category clearly marked, as you can see in the Table of Contents on p. 3.
Once again, our Buyers Guide lists hundreds of companies in more than 50 product categories, including solid-state cameras, optics, lighting, add-in boards, monitors, automation equipment, and software and provides readers with an easy-to-use reference manual. Our growing directories of system-integration services and systems integrators should prove especially useful to OEM vendors and end users who want to commission a systems integrator to develop a networked, computer-based automated machine-vision system.
Trend Lines
Rather than our usual lineup of departments, columns, and features, we are providing a series of articles that discuss or illustrate some of the most important emerging trends in machine vision. For example, Ram Narayanswamy and his colleagues at CDM Optics (Boulder, CO, USA) discuss how wavefront-coded imaging can enhance machine vision and image processing with a combination of signal processing and custom lenses. Future alternatives to the Camera Link interface are discussed by Joseph Sgro and Paul Stanton of FastVision (Nashua, NH, USA), although they make it clear that Camera Link will be the high-speed standard of choice for considerable time to come. And Lawrence Brown of FLIR Systems (N. Billerica, MA, USA) shows why the infrared spectrum is being used for an increasing number of industrial processes.
As I frequently state in this column, if you have a vision-system case study that you are prepared to discuss in detail by writing an article or working with us to develop one, please let me know. If you have new products, please send them to us at [email protected]. The Buyers Guide comes out only once a year, but the coverage of vision systems goes on all year long.
W. Conard Holton
Editor in Chief
[email protected]