Your take: Hottest vision topics of 2015

In our last poll, we asked whether or not people thought that machine vision sales would continue to grow in 2015. Since most people (83%) indicated yes, I wanted to get an idea of some of the contributions or potential "hot topic" areas that could help the global industry achieve this.

While the topics I list below do not cover each and every application or market segment, they represent areas that could potentially see growth, and have definitely seen increased interest and technological advancement as of late.

Robotics: Areport released by The Boston Consulting Group indicates that global spending on robotics is expected to more than quadruple from just over $15 billion in 2010 to approximately $67 billion by 2015 at a 10.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The report cites such reasons as advancing technologies, increased use, and more affordable price points.

UAVs: If you’ve been following the Vision Systems Design blog, you’ll know that there is a lot going on in the world of unmanned aerial vehicles. A recent “UAV roundup” that I wrote covers a number of the latest headlines in the world of drones, including an FAA settlement with the first case in which the agency attempted to impose a fine for commercial UAV usage; President Obama’s statement on UAVs after one crash landed at the White House, and the latest round of Section 333 exemptions granted by the FAA.

Embedded vision: A particularly interesting session at the recent A3 Business Forum was entitled “Machines That See: New Opportunities in Embedded Vision,” by Jeff Bier of the Embedded Vision Alliance. In his presentation, Bier discussed the proliferation of embedded vision in such commercial products as Dyson 360 Robot Vacuum, while also highlighting some of the challenges of implementing embedded vision.

Life sciences: Recent statistics released by the AIA indicate that during the first nine months of 2014, total sales of machine vision components and systems increased 12% from the previous year to $1.65 billion, which represents the best nine month start by the market since the AIA began tracking results five years ago. This can be attributed in part, according to AIA President, to increased interest for machine vision products outside of the factory, including life sciences and security.

3D imaging: Always a hot topic on our site, 3D imaging is certainly something that could have a sizeable impact on machine vision sales in 2015. In a recent article, Andy wrote: “Many different 3D techniques and products are now available for object recognition, classification and analysis.” In the article, he described a number of different techniques for obtaining 3D information, some of which are on the cutting edge, including passive imaging, motion stereo, shape from shading, structured light, and Time of Flight. In addition, a number of the people I met with during VISION 2014 told me that 3D imaging could be the “next big thing” in 2015. (See here, and here).

Poll closed. View results here.