Messe Stuttgart, organizer of the biannual Vision exhibition, announced the formal cancellation of Vision 2020 due to ongoing travel and social restrictions. The decision came after a period of intense consultation with exhibitors during which it was concluded that the traditional high-quality of the event could not be guaranteed in the current circumstances.

While the decision to cancel the event cannot be entirely unexpected, the loss of the premier exhibition for vision technology from the 2020 calendar will be felt by many in the industry as a further negative consequence of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The Vision show typically attracts over 500 exhibiting companies and over 10,000 visitors, serving as a showcase for innovation in all areas of vision technology, as well as the central forum for promoting the growth of the vision industry and global standardization initiatives.

In tandem with the decision to cancel Vision 2020, Messe Stuttgart announced that they are seeking the support of the vision industry to help understand the impact of the cancellation in 2020 and capture the needs of the industry as they plan for future events and discuss potential formats.

Industry Survey from Vision 2020 Organizers

Messe Stuttgart has requested industry feedback from all stakeholders, whether previous exhibitors or attendees of Vision, or simply end-users of vision technology by completing a short, fully anonymous, survey.

The EMVA fully supports this initiative and recognizes the open approach shown by Messe Stuttgart in understanding how best to respond to the needs of the vision industry.

The survey will close on Wednesday July 15th, and we encourage everyone to take the chance to make their views known and support Messe Stuttgart in this effort.

Links to the survey:

in German    |    in English

‘Trust in the Age of Fake Realities – Why the Virtual Economy needs more Common Sense’

EMVA is pleased to announce Dr. Stephan Sigrist as keynote speaker at the EMVA Virtual Business Conference, 26 June 2020.

Dr. Stephan Sigrist, founder and head of the W.I.R.E. think tank has spent many years analysing interdisciplinary developments in business and society, focusing on the implications of digitisation in the life sciences, financial services, media, infrastructure and mobility.

He is the publisher of the ABSTRAKT book series, author of a number of publications and a keynote speaker at international conferences.

What Stephan’s keynote is about:

The post corona normality is defined by a massive acceleration of the digital transformation. This means a further growth of the platform economy and more virtual exchange than ever before as a foundation for more efficiency. But with this shift, there is also a reinforcement of challenges: AI based discrimination, more fake news but most of all deep fakes challenging the foundation of the data-based economy: trust.

As a consequence, we need to rethink the next generation of business models and redefine innovation in a holistic perspective. To do this, we need to build up a differentiated understanding of digital innovation and strengthen common sense.

Don’t miss the outstanding opportunity to join the 18th edition of EMVA’s Business Conference and click the below for all details.

* Income from registration fees will be donated to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, led by the WHO

Agenda / Speaker / Registration

The EMVA Vision Knowledge Center is the hub for relevant topics in the vision industry

The EMVA Vision Knowledge Center is a hub of expertise and the meeting point for relevant technical and environmental topics in the vision industry. It benefits from the enormous amount of valuable documented contributions collected over the years at the numerous EMVA events now being available on the EMVA website.

The EMVA Vision Knowledge Center provides access to high-quality webinars, videos, technical papers and presentations on technology, applications and ecology which are of great interest to the vision tech network.

Spend a moment in the Vision Technology area and see what Jonathan Hou says about “Embedded Learning and the Evolution of Machine Vision.

Jonathan Hou is Chief Technical Officer with Pleora Technologies, a lead supplier of video interface solutions for the industrial automation, security and defense, and medical imaging markets.

Jonathan will discuss the trend toward embedded machine learning in vision systems, in particular its impact on vision software choices. He also looks at how machine learning could help us in a new era of cloud-based “inspection as a service” opportunities, as well as hardware and software implications that designers and integrators should consider for vision systems that interact with artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Watch the presentation here …

The Future of Vision lies in the hands of the Young Professionals.

The EMVA Young Professional Award is an annual award to honor the outstanding and innovative work of a student or a young professional in the field of machine vision or computer vision.

The 2016 EMVA Young Professional Award was awarded to Tolga Birdal, for his work “Reconstruction via Detection: Efficient and Automatic Reconstruction from Unorganized 3D Scans.”

See Tolga’s presentation here…

Pantaley Dimitrov and Dr. Chris Yates, President EMVA, will be presenting at EMVA Virtual Business Conference 2020

Be prepared for an exciting programme of the first EMVA Virtual Business Conference, June 26th, 2020. Presentations from leaders and innovators in our industry will present relevant topics such as 3D Vision, Autonomous Navigation, Deep Learning, Photonics and more.

EMVA is pleased to present two top speakers who will address

‘B2B Selling in Remote Mode’ and ‘EMVA Vision Standards – Executive Summary’

‘B2B Selling in Remote Mode’

Pantaley Dimitrov is a Senior Director responsible for the B2B Technology and Industrial practice at Simon-Kucher & Partners.

He has over 10 years of consulting experience in sales, marketing, pricing and digitalization. In his several years as project manager he conceptually designed and accompanied the implementation of a large number of projects. His customers include ABB, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, KÄRCHER, Krauss Maffei, Netstal, Pepperl+Fuchs and many others.

Besides the professional experience at Simon-Kucher, Mr. Dimitrov is involved in a medium-sized e-commerce platform for industrial goods.

‘EMVA Vision Standards – Executive Summary’

Dr. Chris Yates, President of the EMVA

Chris Yates is President of the European Machine Vision Association since January 2020, having served on the Board of Directors since 2018, and has responsibility within the EMVA board for liaison to the global standards hosted by the EMVA. Chris is also Director at Vision Ventures, the leading independent M&A firm operating internationally with a dedicated focus on corporate transactions in the scope of vision technology.

Previously Chris has was the founder and CEO of Scottish industrial 3D time-of-flight specialist Odos Imaging, prior to the acquisition of the company by Rockwell Automation in November 2017. Until March 2020 Chris was Director of Advanced Technology at the Safety, Sensing, and Connectivity Business of Rockwell Automation.

Abstract:

The EVMA hosts several important global standards included GenICam – providing a generic programming interface to hardware devices, EMVA1288 – providing a unified method to measure, compute, and present the performance of image sensors and cameras, as well as the more recent Open Optics Camera Interface and emVision standards. Chris will provide a non-technical overview of the various standards, where and why they are important, their status today,  and what we can expect for future developments.

Don’t miss the outstanding opportunity to join the 18th edition of EMVA’s Business Conference and click the below for all details.

* Income from registration fees will be donated to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, led by the WHO

Agenda / Speaker / Registration

Matija Kopić and François Simoens will be presenting at EMVA Virtual Business Conference 2020

Be prepared for an exciting programme of the first EMVA Virtual Business Conference, June 26th, 2020. Presentations from leaders and innovators in our industry will present relevant topics such as 3D Vision, Autonomous Navigation, Deep Learning, Photonics and more.

EMVA is pleased to present two top speakers who will address

‘Vision-based Autonomous Navigation’ and ‘Photonics & Machine Vision’

‘Vision-based Autonomous Navigation’

Matija Kopić built his first startup, Farmeron, in 2012, and the company grew into one of the most known startups in Croatia.

In 2017, he co-founded the robotics and AI company Gideon Brothers, one of the global pioneers developing autonomy technology for industrial environments based on 3D visual perception.

Abstract of Matija Kopic´s presentation:

The presentation will focus on the fundamental components of an AI-based 3D Visual Autonomy for mobile robots, while also addressing the benefits of such technology in the more automated economy of the future.

Recent advances in Perception Sensors, Computer Vision, ML, Edge and Cloud Computing are rapidly propelling mobile robots to new levels of productivity, reliability, and safety. COVID-19 has exacerbated these trends, accelerating the need for mobile robots to help humans.

‘Photonics & Machine Vision’

François Simoens carried out seven years of research in the accelerator field at CEA Saclay, before joining CEA-Leti in Grenoble in 2003 with the position of program manager and expert in infrared and THz sensors.

From 2015 to 2018, Francois has been the Marketing and Strategy Manager for the imaging technologies and systems developed at Leti from X-ray to Far-Infrared. Since 2019 he acts as the Director of the LETI strategic program named ‘miniaturized LIDAR – CPS’.….

Don’t miss the outstanding opportunity to join the 18th edition of EMVA’s Business Conference and click the below for all details.

* Income from registration fees will be donated to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, led by the WHO

Agenda / Speaker / Registration

Jürgen Beyerer and Bruno Maisonnier will be presenting at EMVA Virtual Business Conference 2020

Be prepared for an exciting programme of the first EMVA Virtual Business Conference, June 26th, 2020. Presentations from leaders and innovators in our industry will present relevant topics such as 3D Vision, Autonomous Navigation, Deep Learning, Photonics and more.

EMVA is pleased to present two top speakers who will address

‘Artificial Intelligence’ in the context of Qualty Control and Inspection.

‘Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Automated Visual Inspection’

Dr. Ing. Jürgen Beyerer is a full professor for informatics at the Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) since March 2004 and director of the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation (IOSB) in Ettlingen, Karlsruhe, Ilmenau, Lemgo, and Görlitz. He is Spokesman of the Fraunhofer Group for Defense and Security VVS and he is member of acatech, National Academy of Science and Engineering. Furthermore, he is Head of team 7 of the platform „Lernende Systeme“ and Spokesman of the Competence Center Robotic Systems for Decontamination in Hazardous Environments (ROBDEKON).

Research interests include automated visual inspection, signal and image processing, pattern recognition, metrology, information theory, machine learning, security, system theory, autonomous systems and automation.

Abstract of Jürgen Beyerer´s presentation:

In his presentation Jürgen Beyerer will address, how ML approaches can be used in Automated Visual Inspection (AVI). Questions that will be discussed are inter alia: What are the potentials of ML-methods in AVI? How can sufficiently enough data be amassed necessary for deep learning? How can data be augmented synthetically? How can prior knowledge be exploited in order to cope with little data? How can AI-approaches help to design complex AVI-systems?

‘Artificial Intelligence Learning at the Edge — Application to Integration-Free Quality Control’

French serial entrepreneur and innovator, Bruno Maisonnier is founder and CEO of AnotherBrain, world category leader in 3rd generation AI, and the Founder & ex-CEO of Aldebaran Robotics.

Passionate about technology and the way it can improve people’s everyday lives, in 2017, Bruno founded AnotherBrain, startup which brings Organic AITM, a new generation of artificial intelligence which is bio-inspired, explainable and self-learning. In 2005, Bruno developed from scratch Aldebaran Robotics, which became the world leader in humanoid robotics. Sold to a Japanese giant in 2015, the company became SoftBank Robotics.

Abstract of Bruno Maisonnier´s presentation:

Today the mainstream of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is based on fully supervised deep neural networks. Mainly used on classification tasks, they brought a major disruption in terms of performance with respect to traditional rules-based computer vision solutions. Nevertheless, because of the complexity of data gathering and supervision, they still require specialists, i.e. data scientists to train the solution offline and only inference is applied on the edge. As a result, most of current AI solutions fail to deliver the promise of artificial intelligence, i.e. a system that is able to be trained and operated directly by the end user. While this may still be a good answer to issues involving generic data like cars or pedestrians for which huge datasets exist on the cloud, AnotherBrain believes that applications where data is very scarce and specific to the customer require a new approach, a third generation of Artificial Intelligence.

This talk is dedicated to the review of this solution and its technical contributions to the field of automatic quality control.

Don’t miss the outstanding opportunity to join the 18th edition of EMVA’s Business Conference and click the below for all details.

* Income from registration fees will be donated to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, led by the WHO

Agenda / Speaker / Registration

The European Commission is opening a call to contribute to the fight against Covid19.

In this webinar John Magan, Deputy Head of the Photonics Unit at the European Commission, outlines the content of the call and will answer your questions on this. The webinar will take place on May 15th, 12pm. Register here: https://www.photonics21.org/events-workshops/2020/05/2020_05_Webinar_EC_Covid_call.php

Photonics21 aims to establish Europe as a leader in the development and deployment of photonics technologies within the various applications fields such as ICT, lighting, industrial manufacturing, life science, safety as well as in education and training. EMVA is pleased that Dr.-Ing. Dirk Berndt has been elected to the Board of Stakeholders (BoS) of Photonics21 in his function as member of the EMVA board of directors. The Board of Stakeholders is the main decision-making body of the European Technology Platform (ETP) Photonics21.

EMVA President Chris Yates discussed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the machine vision industry in a live panel webinar on April 15 hosted by IMVEurope together with Jeff Burstein, Allan Anderson, and Anne Wendel, from the AIA, UKIVA, and VDMA associations.

In his opening statement Chris strongly acknowledged the contribution and efforts made by front line staff to the people directly and indirectly affected by this pandemic.

With regards to industrial production he highlighted the ability for manufacturing supply chains to more rapidly reorganize to provide necessary goods to address the crisis; thanks to the flexibility in automation as one of the promises of Industry 4.0. Looking at the vision industry the panelists stressed the positive role of vision technology in fighting the pandemic, be it in automated lab systems for example in vaccine processing and testing; in thermal imaging to control the body temperature in highly frequented places; or in the multiple camera based inspection systems of pharmaceuticals and medical goods.

Chris noted: “Several initiatives have been started with the goal to leverage recent developments in AI/deep learning to rapidly make a classification of CT scans of patient chest and lung areas; amongst them the European Imaging COVID-19 AI Initiative.”

Quite a few EMVA members reported that demand remains strong and projects are continuing for the time being. Nevertheless, Chris said out that the Corona epidemic will without doubt have negative business impacts on the wider economy. While clear picture of the impact is not yet to be seen, Chris Yates pointed towards two major areas to have in focus during the crisis. One is liquidity:

“Certainly impacts will be different across companies since the vision industry serves many different customer sectors, hence a reasonable entrepreneurial decision would be to set a focus on conserving cash as a rational response to uncertainty.”

The second area Chris highlighted is to have a close look at the supply chain.

“Machine vision has the advantage to normally order in relatively low to medium volumes. However, bearing in mind that one large unknown still is the lockdown period one has to keep good contact to the suppliers and, if the liquidity allows maybe raise stock to buffer future shortages.”

Chris also joined in with the other panelists in highlighting the importance to retain the workforce as long as possible in order to be able to serve rising demand quickly after the crisis.

Chris outlined the overall goals for the EMVA as an association during this period to support the EMVA members and the wider vision community in whichever way possible during the crisis; and that the vision industry is well placed to emerge strongly and able to quickly support the needs of wider markets. Immediate reactions of the EMVA include the transformation of the EMVA Business Conference to be held online in virtual form on 26 June; but also online training seminars and exams to acquire the EMVA1288 standard certification. In addition, the EMVA will release a series of videos of previous conferences and events so that can catch up on recent events and insights in quiet spells – particularly the second embedded vision Europe conference held last November.

“Most importantly, we will highly intensify our direct contact to the members in order to directly understand their needs and start with market research activities in order to grasp the dimension of the Corona crisis for the vision community”, said Chris Yates.

In his closing remark the EMVA President said:

“Overall I see that on the macro scale the proposition of automation in general and vision sensing for automation is undiminished. Whilst the effects of the crisis will certainly affect us all, our businesses, and attitudes, the fundamental drivers of the industry remain, and in many cases are strengthened.”

Wednesday 15 April 2020 @ 3pm (UK), 4pm (Europe), 10am (ET)

Imaging and Machine Vision Europe will host a live panel discussion featuring leading figures from industry bodies around the world to discuss vision’s response to the Covid 19 crisis.

Chris Yates, President EMVA, will be one of the invited speakers. Live panel webinar registration:

https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1300110&tp_key=3ca077a71d&sti=imvenewsletter

We all are well aware that the global coronavirus pandemic is affecting our private and business life in such a significant way most of us never experienced before. Our thoughts remain with those who are ill and those working at the forefront of efforts to contain the pandemic.

Earlier in the year preparations for a successful 18th edition of EMVA’s annual Business Conference, 25 – 27 June 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria, were well advanced, the conference program almost completed and with more than 60 registrants already end of February, we were again looking forward to a successful and enjoyable event.

Obviously the EMVA event team has been in contact with local authorities and monitored closely the international situation for the last weeks. Now, based on the high dynamics of the pandemic development it will come as no surprise that we must formally cancel the EMVA Business Conference 2020 in Sofia.

Already registered attendees as well as conference sponsors will be contacted directly with regards to refunding their payments. It is our intention to simply delay the Business Conference by one year and visit Sofia in 2021.

18th EMVA Business Conference in Online Format

The EMVA Conference, besides relevant technical and market driven presentations, is characterized by meeting the peers in a pleasant setup. Personal conversations, exchanging ideas, laughing and enjoying the valuable time together is what makes this event a true annual highlight.

Therefore, whoever joined an EMVA Business Conference in one of Europe’s main capitals the last 17 years would be able to confirm that this special mood cannot simply be shifted to or even be substituted by an online event format.

Nevertheless, and especially as nearly all opportunities for technology exchange and to meet are taken away in these times, the EMVA is working on setting up the 18th Business Conference with a reduced programme in an online format to take place at Friday, June 26th, 2020.

The online conference event will provide technical insights by presentations and networking opportunities through pre-scheduled virtual face-to-face meetings during the breaks.

Further details may be found soon at www.business-conference-emva.org and/or www.emva.org, and we will of course keep you informed with regular updates to our mailing list.

19th EMVA Business Conference 2021 – SAVE THE DATE

EMVA Board of Directors, management and the whole team is looking forward to meeting you at the 19th EMVA Business Conference taking place 10 – 12 June 2021, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Don’t miss the opportunity to join one of the highlight vision events in 2021 and save the date right now!

Stay well, stay safe, and best regards,

Thomas Lübkemeier

EMVA General Secretary