EMVA Business Conference 2022 takes place in Brussels
Location change due to low vaccination rate in former host country
Early Bird-Registration is open
Barcelona, 26 November, 2021. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) recently announced that the next EMVA Business Conference 2022 will take place from 12 – 14 May 2022 in Brussels/Belgium. Considering the low vaccination rates in Bulgaria the originally planned destination Sofia has been changed to capital of the Belgium Kingdom.
Brussels as a center of European politics provides the appropriate infrastructure to plan and execute an international conference in challenging times where at the same time everyone longs for personal encounters.
The conference program will address up-to-date technical topics as well as relevant management, marketing and/or leadership issues. Use cases and a panel discussion will give further interesting insights. Last but surely not least, the conference will provide plenty of excellent networking opportunities during the evening events or by means of pre-scheduled face-to-face meetings in the conference break-out sessions.
Registration for this pivotal conference event in the machine vision industry taking place in Belgium next year is now open at reduced EARLY BIRD conference fees. More information is available at www.business-conference-emva.org.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Barcelona, 21 June, 2021. The EMVA today announced that the new release 4.0 of the EMVA 1288 Standard for objective characterization of industrial cameras, which is successfully used worldwide, has become effective. The release takes into account the rapid development of camera and image sensor technology. The documents of the standard are published here. The EMVA 1288 standard, hosted by EMVA, is part of the global G3 standardization initiative in which the five leading machine vision organizations A3, CMVU, EMVA, JIIA, and VDMA cooperate.
Until the previous Release 3.1 dated back December 2016, the application of the EMVA 1288 standard with a simple linear model was limited to cameras with a linear response and without any pre-processing. While this model is being continued with some improvements in the ’Release 4.0 Linear’, a new module ‘Release 4.0 General’ has been added in the latest release. With it, the characterization of a non-linear camera or a camera with unknown pre-processing is possible even without any model due to the universal system-theoretical approach of the EMVA 1288 standard. Just as with the linear camera model, all application-related quality parameters can be measured in this way. With both modules “Linear” and “General” the same measurements are performed. Depending on the camera characteristics, the proper evaluation either according to the linear or general model is applied.
In addition, Release 4.0 includes numerous expansions to characterize the latest generation of image sensors and cameras according to the application. The most important of these are:
Extended wavelength range from UV to SWIR range.
Raw data of any given image acquisition modality can now be characterized according to the standard.
The versatile and universal analysis tools of the EMVA 1288 standard can also be applied to quantities calculated and derived from multiple channels. For polarization image sensors, these are, for example, the degree of polarization and the polarization angle.
Inhomogeneities are measured in detail and now decomposed into column, row, and pixel variations. They can now be determined with a new method at all intensity levels from just two captured images.
Optionally, cameras with optics or with illumination as given by the position of the exit pupil of the optics for which the image sensor was designed can be measured according to the standard. Thus, the standard is now also suitable for image sensors with pixels shifted towards the edge.
A more suitable measure for the linearity of the characteristic curve is introduced.
Along with the new version of the standard, the EMVA has prepared an extensive training program. Two- or three-day training programs for the new Release 4.0 will be held regularly in near future in cooperation with EMVA member companies. The new training program will also continue the successfully introduced certification program at expert level. This is intended for anyone who wants to acquire the necessary knowledge to perform EMVA 1288 measurements themselves and understand the measurement results in detail, whether in the development of new cameras, in quality control, or to understand exactly how a camera behaves for a specific application.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Key Takeaways and Conference Attendees’ Feedback
Next physical 20th EMVA Business Conference to take place 12-14 May, 2022
Barcelona, 18 June, 2021. With a participation of 135 participants from 23 nations the 19th EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 took place online last week. A total of 20 speeches, two fireside chats and two CEO/Management panel discussions covered virtually all current actual economic and technical topics that the machine vision world currently deals with. During the individual B2B sessions about 90 virtual bilateral video meetings were arranged between conference attendees before and after the conference program in the afternoons.
Positive Feedback to Online Format
In their feedback almost 95 percent of participants appreciated the EMVA’s decision to offer the conference in online format instead of cancel it. Here’s a few of the personal comments given about the conference:
“The best thing you can do to learn and be inspired by the innovative trends in the world of machine vision in a very condensed way.”
“As always excellent organization, great job everybody, especially in such difficult times!”
“Again although strange not to be face to face the EMVA did not disappoint with the organization of the event.”
“Thank you for putting on a great event and adjusting the timing to accommodate North American attendees.”
Key Takeaways
The top-class panel on the second conference day discussed the current status of Industry 4.0 and stated the term Industry 4.0 has already become a standard itself with AI and machine vision as core components such as in generating digital twins. However, industrial business models are often not as disruptive as in the end consumer business e.g. where the smartphone triggered a paradigm shift; but would rather put effort into improving business models instead of new business models. According to the panelists more data also requires increasing use of AI and digitalization automatically contributes to decarbonization. Vison as it was stated can provide the right data at the right time to make the right decision in Industry 4.0.
AI being a megatrend in the machine vision industry was present in various technical parts of the conference sessions. The keynote on the second day given by IBM Benelux CTO Wouter Denayer reflected on the current developments pledged to change the fundamental structure of neural networks towards Neural Symbolic AI Systems. Simply making networks bigger would not help in future and the increase in accuracy for training AI is no longer equivalent to the amount of energy input and pollution which makes carbon footprint of AI unjustifiable. Or as EMVA President Chris Yates put in his conference wrap-up: “With great power comes great responsibility”.
This conference also provided room to put early-stage innovators in the focus: No less than six companies in the initial or post star-up stage presented their innovations which circled around the big topic AI and Deep Learning focusing on logistics and complex inspection tasks on the factory floor. Other new approaches were presented in the area of feature-based and variable density 3D scanning; contactless traceability of items with a digital image; and combining brain and AI into an innovative decision-making system.
The CEO Panel Discussion on the pandemic impacts for the machine vision industry found that vision tech overall coped fairly well in the crisis due to its vertical market focus. Business expectations of the company leaders from Stemmer Imaging, Basler and Tiama Inspection were even that pre-pandemic business level can be achieved again within the current year 2021. One obstacle, however, could be the lasting material shortage which affects virtually all components. In addition, Covid-19 taught that more elements of value generation need to move closer to the customer in all regions of business activity enabling to react on-site. The crisis was a big push for remote maintenance and webinar business meetings saving travel costs, which will keep physical meetings lower even when restrictions are lifted.
In another presentation the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) announced the launch of the first industry association led Photonics index. The basket is composed of 65 public listed companies, quite a number of them from the machine vision world. The index is an excellent opportunity to reach out to the investors’ community.
Messe Stuttgart then gave an inside in how the trade show organizer suffered in the pandemic. Most important for the machine vision industry, Messe Stuttgart asked for some more patience regarding the final decision if VISION 2021 will take place as currently the stakeholders are interviewed; with so far rather good industry sentiment but mixed company feedback when it comes to exhibit.
The session on hyperspectral imaging summarized that HSI technology is scaling up quickly in the market as it has become easier to use and more affordable. It was pointed out that with hyperspectral imaging an additional layer of information regarding the nature and consistency of an object.
Machine vision in China was in the focus of the second fireside chat. Electronics and Semiconductor are the largest industrial user sectors of machine vision in China, according to CMVU president Isabel Yang. The country experiences a huge 30 percent increase in business after the crisis, mainly pushed by a rising level of automation. 3D imaging finds a lot of attention which led to the formation of a 3D standard group. Also IR imaging gains attention.
The next physical 20th EMVA Business Conference will take place 12-14 May 2022 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Top Level Industry Manager Discuss Covid-19 Effects and State of Industry 4.0
Barcelona, 02 June, 2021. The two panel discussions on each of the conference days of the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 from June 10-11 could be headlined ‘Industry Leaders Share Their Thoughts’. Both panels will be seated with top level industry managers who give their position on topics that currently drive the entire industry.
‘What has changed through COVID in our Industry? What will stay?’
The Panel Discussion on the first conference day June 10th has no less than three CEOs of European players on the virtual stage who will discuss the impact and opportunities of machine vision in a pandemic. The panelists are Arne Dehn, CEO at Stemmer Imaging; Dr. Dietmar Ley, CEO at Basler; and Max Hodeau, CEO at TIAMA Inspection. The panel will be moderated by inVision Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Peter Ebert who will address aspects such as the rise of remote working; the shortage in supply of semiconductor chips; the future role of virtual and physical trade shows and new ways of lead generation; as well as a business outlook for the machine vision sector over the next few years.
Panelists from left to right: Arne Dehn, Stemmer Imaging; Dr. Dietmar Ley, Basler; Max Hodeau, TIAMA Inspection; Moderator Dr. Peter Ebert inVision Magazine.
‘Industry 4.0: Emerging from the Early Years’ on Friday June 11
Industry 4.0 has long evolved from an empty marketing buzzword to the next logic step in industrial automation. Digitalization has even accelerated in the Corona pandemic, according to experts. In the panel discussion on the second day of the EBC Special Edition 2021 three deep insiders and CEOs discuss the current status of Industry 4.0. The experts are Dr. Gunther Kegel, CEO at Pepperl+Fuchs, President of ZVEI; Dr. Roman Dumitrescu, Director Fraunhofer IEM, MD of cluster ‘it’s OWL’; and Dr. Thomas Scheiter, Head of Technology Field ‘IoT’ at Siemens. The panelists will be talking about the challenges and opportunities in capturing, accessing, and aggregating data as Industry 4.0 matures; the role of AI evolving within Industry 4.0 and how companies can maintain or extend their competence; approaches do you see that may be indicative of a future market structure; and areas of innovation they see having the potential to most disrupt or shape our future in industry. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, Head of Zeiss Inline Inspection & Metrology and member of the EMVA Board of Directors.
Panelists from left to right: Dr. Gunther Kegel, Pepperl+Fuchs / ZVEI; Dr. Roman Dumitrescu, Fraunhofer / ‘it’s OWL’; Dr. Thomas Scheiter, Siemens; Moderator: Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, Zeiss
More information on the full program of the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 and how to register can be found at http://www.business-conference-emva.org/.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Tribute to Gabriele Jansen after two decades of engagement
Barcelona, 01 June, 2021. The General Assembly of the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions taking place in an online format June 1st, 2021, has elected the new EMVA Board of Directors. For the upcoming three-year term, the new board consists of nine members, namely
Arnaud Destruels, Sony Europe B.V (Image Sensing Solutions)
Arndt Bake, Basler
Prof. Dr. Bernd Jähne, Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing of Heidelberg University
Dr. Chris Yates, Vision Ventures
Dr. Christoph Garbe, HD Vision Systems
Dr. Dirk Berndt, Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF
Dr. Kai-Udo Modrich, ZEISS Inline Inspection & Metrology
Dr. Marco Diani, iMAGE S
Dr. Ronald Mueller, Vision Markets
The new elected Board of Directors will have its constituent in-person meeting as soon as possible and by then vote on the roles of EMVA President; Vice President and Treasurer amongst its members.
In a series of emotional farewell video statements many leaders of machine vision players gave their tribute to Gabriele Jansen who chose not to candidate for another term. Gabriele Jansen has been founding member of the EMVA and Board member since the association was established in 2003, making her the longest serving EMVA Board member in the association’s history. From 2003 – 2009 Gabriele Jansen served as EMVA President.
Also stepping down from the EMVA Board are Jochem Herrmann who acted as EMVA President from 2015 – 2019; Jean Caron who was EMVA Board member and Treasurer from 2015 – 2021; and Michel Ollivier who was EMVA Vice President from 2015 – 2021.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Barcelona, 16 March, 2021. The EMVA Standard 1288 for objective characterization of industrial cameras, which is successfully used worldwide, has a successor in the new Release 4.0, which now takes into account the rapid development of camera and image sensor technology. The release candidate was published on March 16 and the detailed standard texts can be viewed here.
Until the previous Release 3.1 dated back December 2016, the application of the EMVA 1288 standard with a simple linear model was limited to cameras with a linear response and without any pre-processing. While this model is being continued with some improvements in the ’Release 4.0 Linear’, a new module ‘Release 4.0 General’ has been added in the latest release. With it, the characterization of a non-linear camera or a camera with unknown pre-processing is possible even without any model due to the universal system-theoretical approach of the EMVA 1288 standard. Just as with the linear camera model, all application-related quality parameters can be measured in this way. Depending on the camera characteristics, the evaluation can now be applied according to the linear or general model.
In addition, Release 4.0 includes numerous expansions to characterize the latest generation of image sensors and cameras according to the application. The most important of these are:
Extended wavelength range from UV to SWIR range.
Raw data of any given image acquisition modality can now be characterized according to the standard.
The versatile and universal analysis tools of the EMVA 1288 standard can also be applied to quantities calculated and derived from multiple channels. For polarization image sensors, these are, for example, the degree of polarization and the polarization angle.
Inhomogeneities are measured in detail and now decomposed into column, row, and pixel variations. They can now be determined with a new method at all intensity levels from just two captured images.
Optionally, cameras with optics or with illumination as given by the position of the exit pupil of the optics for which the image sensor was designed can be measured according to the standard. Thus, the standard is now also suitable for image sensors with pixels shifted towards the edge.
A more suitable measure for the linearity of the characteristic curve is introduced.
After publication of the release candidate, the new Release 4.0 will automatically replace the old Release 3.1 after a three month period (therefore by mid-June) if no objections are submitted to the EMVA during this period and if objections can be resolved.
Along with the new version of the standard, the EMVA has prepared an extensive training program. Two- or three-day training programs for the new Release 4.0 will be held regularly in near future in cooperation with EMVA member companies. The new training program will also continue the successfully introduced certification program at expert level. This is intended for anyone who wants to acquire the necessary knowledge to perform EMVA 1288 measurements themselves and understand the measurement results in detail, whether in the development of new cameras, in quality control, or to understand exactly how a camera behaves for a specific application.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Barcelona, 15 March, 2021. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) today announced that it hosts the Business Conference Special Edition 2021 from 10-11 June 2021. Despite the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel given by the vaccination opportunities, restrictions and limitations are still valid and probably will be for another while. Based on those considerations the EMVA Business Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, is postponed to 12-14 May 2022.
Instead, the EMVA Business Conference Special Edition 2021 takes place in an agile online event format starting with an afternoon conference track on 10 June from 12 am – 4.00 pm CEST. The whole event format includes not only top-notch talks but also excellent networking and interactive sessions with keynotes, invited talks, start-up company pitches, panel discussion, a fireside-chat as well as the pre-scheduled individual video meeting opportunities before and after the conference sessions. Registration is open for EMVA’s 2021 Online Conference. More information can be found here.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association was founded in 2003 to promote the development and use of vision technology in all sectors, and represents members from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation, standardization, and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. The EMVA is the host of four global machine vision standards: The two widely established standards GenICam and EMVA 1288 as well as the two standardization initiatives Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) and Embedded Vision Interface Standard (emVision).
Call for Exploratory Group participation to all sensor and camera manufacturers,
silicon vendors, and software developers working on vision and sensor processing
Barcelona, 22 February, 2021. Today, the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA), the leading European industry association dedicated to vision technology, and The Khronos® Group, an open consortium creating graphics and compute interoperability standards, jointly announce the formation of an Embedded Camera API Exploratory Group, open to all at no cost, to explore industry interest in the creation of open royalty-free API standards for controlling embedded cameras and sensors. All participants will be able to discuss use cases and requirements for new interoperability standards to accelerate market growth and reduce development costs in embedded markets using vision and sensor processing and associated acceleration. If the Exploratory Group reaches significant consensus then EMVA and Khronos will work to initiate the proposed standardization initiatives at the appropriate organization.
All sensor and camera manufacturers, silicon vendors, and software developers working on vision and sensor processing are invited to participate in this initiative. More details and instructions for joining the group are here.
The Embedded Camera API Exploratory Group has been created in response to industry requests. Increasingly, camera sensors are being tightly integrated with image, vision and inferencing accelerators in self-contained systems. Innovation and efficiency in the embedded vision market is becoming constrained by the lack of open cross-vendor camera control API standards to reduce development and integration costs of multiple advanced sensors and cameras. A consistent set of interoperability standards and guidelines for embedded cameras and sensors could streamline deployment by manufacturers and system integrators by enabling control of a wide range of camera sensors, depth sensors, camera arrays and ISP hardware to generate sophisticated image streams for downstream processing by diverse accelerators.
This Exploratory Group will use Khronos’ proven framework for new initiatives in collaboration with the EMVA. Any companies, universities, consortiums, open-source participants, and industry experts who are willing to sign an NDA are welcome to join, at no cost. All participants will have an equal voice in exploring industry needs for and benefits of creating a consensus to create a Scope of Work (SOW) document describing the objectives and high-level direction of standardization initiatives of value to the industry. The Exploratory Group is expected to meet online over a period of several months starting on March 25, 2021.
Many industry leaders have indicated an interest in joining the Exploratory Group, including ALL3D, Almalence, AMD, Apertus, AREA, Arm, Cadence, Codeplay, Collabora, EA, Facebook, Google, Holochip, HP, Huawei, LunarG, Mobica, NVIDIA, Oculus, OPPO, Qualcomm, RedHat, Texas Instruments, Ultraleap, and Valve from Khronos; as well as EMVA members and machine vision players such as Allied Vision, Basler AG, Baumer, MVTec, and Stemmer Imaging AG.
”We are delighted to work with Khronos on this initiative to commonly understand the industry needs for the future of embedded vision”, said Dr. Chris Yates, EMVA President. “Both the EMVA and the Khronos group have a well-established history of standardization developments which enable industry to develop new products more simply, whilst ensuring friction is reduced in the market. This Exploratory Group is an excellent approach to understanding broader industry needs and will bring together many companies and views in an open forum. We look forward to working closely with the Khronos Group and welcoming all new and existing participants to this important initiative for the vision community.”
“Judging by the significant industry interest, the time seems right to organize an effort around identifying and aligning on the need for interoperability APIs for embedded cameras and sensors. This is a topic that is very relevant to Khronos as our acceleration APIs, such as OpenCL™, SYCL™, and OpenVX™ are often used to accelerate sophisticated sensor stream processing,” said Neil Trevett, Khronos Group president. “Our work is also very complementary to EMVA, and we are delighted that the two organizations are working together to bring a meaningful quorum from diverse parts of the industry into this cooperative exploratory process.”
All Exploratory Group discussions will be covered by a simple project NDA to encourage open discussions. The Group is open to all proposals and relevant topics but will not discuss detailed technical design contributions to protect participants’ intellectual property (IP). If a SOW is agreed, EMVA and Khronos will work to initiate the standardization work at the most suitable host organizations or open source projects, using those organizations’ normal collaborative agreements and IP frameworks.
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association has been founded in 2003 in Barcelona by industry representatives from all over Europe as a network to promote the development and use of machine vision technology. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. www.emva.org
About Khronos
The Khronos Group is an open, non-profit, member-driven consortium of over 150 industry-leading companies creating advanced, royalty-free, interoperability standards for 3D graphics, augmented and virtual reality, parallel programming, vision acceleration and machine learning. Khronos activities include 3D Commerce™, ANARI™, glTF™, NNEF™, OpenCL™, OpenGL®, OpenGL® ES, OpenVG™, OpenVX™, OpenXR™, SPIR-V™, SYCL™, Vulkan®, and WebGL™. Khronos members drive the development and evolution of Khronos specifications and are able to accelerate the delivery of cutting-edge platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. www.khronos.org
Khronos® and Vulkan® are registered trademarks, and ANARI™, WebGL™, glTF™, NNEF™, OpenVX™, SPIR™, SPIR-V™, SYCL™, OpenVG™, and 3D Commerce™ are trademarks of The Khronos Group Inc. OpenXR™ is a trademark owned by The Khronos Group Inc. and is registered as a trademark in China, the European Union, Japan and the United Kingdom. OpenCL™ is a trademark of Apple Inc. and OpenGL® is a registered trademark and the OpenGL ES™ and OpenGL SC™ logos are trademarks of Hewlett Packard Enterprise used under license by Khronos. All other product names, trademarks, and/or company names are used solely for identification and belong to their respective owners.
EMVA and EPIC sign Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen the Photonics and Machine Vision industries
Barcelona, 25 July 2020. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) and the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) signed a collaboration agreement on the last week of November 2020, bringing together members and knowledge to better serve and strengthen the Photonics and Machine Vision industries.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signature was publicly announced at the EPIC Online Technology Meeting on 3D Sensing on 23 November 2020. The collaboration between EMVA and EPIC is focused on cooperative activities involving continued industry endorsement of standards and supporting the development of an efficient and sustainable industry.
Driving the standards in machine vision technology
The partnership will encourage cooperation between the members, including participation at events, collaboration on information exchange and promotion, and advisory mandates to develop an efficient and sustainable industry. Dr. Jose Pozo, CTO of EPIC, said: “Having EMVA on board as a partner brings the opportunity to EPIC members to build potential collaborations and partnerships with the key players of the machine vision industry. The main goal of this cooperation is to facilitate the communication between different parts of the value chain towards building common voice for the interests of companies using machine vision technologies.”
Implementing agreements and standards for machine vision technology
“The collaboration with EPIC supports our members and the wider Machine Vision industry by strengthing links across a broad value chain and increasing opportunities for collaboration” said Thomas Lübkemeier, General Manager at EMVA. “ At the same time, worldwide standards provide an important basis for industry growth, and we look forward to working with the extensive network of EPIC to support this topic.”
About EMVA
The European Machine Vision Association is a non-for-profit and non-commercial association representing the Machine Vision industry in Europe. The association has been founded in 2003 in Barcelona by industry representatives from all over Europe as a network to promote the development and use of machine vision technology. The EMVA is open for all types of organizations having a stake in machine vision, computer vision, embedded vision or imaging technologies: manufacturers, system and machine builders, integrators, distributors, consultancies, research organizations and academia. All members – as the 100% owners of the association – benefit from the networking, cooperation and the numerous and diverse activities of the EMVA. www.emva.org
About EPIC
The European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC), a membership-led non-profit industry association with over 600 members that promotes the sustainable development of organisations working in the field of photonics. Its members encompass the entire value chain from LED lighting, PV solar energy, Silicon photonics, Optical components, Lasers, Sensors, Displays, Projectors, Optic fiber, and other photonic related technologies. EPIC fosters a vibrant photonics ecosystem by maintaining a strong network and acting as a catalyst and facilitator for technological and commercial advancement. EPIC works closely with related industries, universities, and public authorities to build a more competitive photonics industrial sector, capable of both economic and technological growth in a highly competitive world-wide marketplace.
Survey results on Covid-19 impacts on the machine vision industry
Barcelona, 19 July 2020. During April and June 2020, the EMVA conducted a bipartite survey on the effects of the Covid-19 crisis for the machine vision industry. A standardized questionnaire was distributed by email to a wide range of industry participants, both EMVA member companies and from the wider industry.
The results were complemented and verified by a series of telephone interviews with senior managers and executives from selected companies representing as wide a cross section of the industry as possible.
The majority of participants expect a U-shaped economic development during and after the crisis. On average the survey participants anticipate the machine vision industry to contract by 17% in 2020. Customer industries related to health matters along with the food industry are expected to benefit from in the crisis while the automotive industry is seen to suffer most. Machine vision supply chains are not yet severely in danger.
Working from home is proving to be an efficient tool to maintain business operations, whereas trade shows and other business meeting opportunities are dearly missed. Although Covid-19 certainly places serious constraints to the overall economic outlook for many machine vision enterprises, participants of the survey have also identified possible opportunities for the machine vision industry arising from the global crisis.
Please get access to the full statement on the survey results via the download link.
About the European Machine Vision Association
The EMVA is a not for profit organization, open to all, which is owned by its members who represent over 130 companies, institutes, and organizations, originating from within Europe, North America, and Asia. The association seeks to represent the interests of its members and promote the vision industry in general, but also encourage cooperation and standardization. The EMVA hosts several important standards used throughout the machine vision industry including the GenICam series used to provide a consistent, device independent interface to machine vision hardware, the EMVA1288 standard used for bench-marking performance of industrial cameras, and the newly initiated Open Optics Camera Interface (OOCI) standard which addresses the connectivity of camera lenses within a machine vision system, and the new emVISION initiative addressing standardization within embedded vision systems. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.
”We are delighted to work with Khronos on this initiative to commonly understand the industry needs for the future of embedded vision”, said Dr. Chris Yates, EMVA President. “Both the EMVA and the Khronos group have a well-established history of standardization developments which enable industry to develop new products more simply, whilst ensuring friction is reduced in the market. This Exploratory Group is an excellent approach to understanding broader industry needs and will bring together many companies and views in an open forum. We look forward to working closely with the Khronos Group and welcoming all new and existing participants to this important initiative for the vision community.”
