STUTTGART, GERMANY - Vision has become the highlight of the annual trade fair calendar for many companies. It will be taking place this year for the 23rd time from November 9 to 11. For over two decades, Vision has matured, together with the industry for machine vision and identification technologies, to become an essential platform for the international exchange of information and product presentation.

It has successively expanded its application spectrum, above all in the direction of nonindustrial machine vision. Management at Messe Stuttgart thus felt that the previous subheading, with its focus on the industrial application sector, no longer reflected the current climate. And so, from 2010 onwards, Vision will be referred to as the International Trade Fair for Machine Vision.

Despite the precarious economic situation, the show enjoyed remarkable success last year: 5,701 visitors attended Stuttgart's modern trade fair grounds in the autumn of 2009; a drop of 9% in comparison to the previous year but a figure which far exceeded the expectations of the 292 exhibitors of machine vision systems, components and solutions. "We are expecting a positive development this year. All "key players" are once again on board and the current registration figures do not fall behind those for the same period last year," explains Florian Niethammer, project manager of Vision. In Halls 4 and 6, there will be 20,000 square meters of exhibition space available once again for the presentation of brand new components, entire systems and innovative solutions which includes cameras, vision sensors, frame grabbers, illumination, lasers, optics, lenses, software and further services.

The varied framework program will again be providing both visitors and exhibitors with some real visionary highlights. In addition to the most comprehensive global forum Industrial Vision Days (set up by VDMA Machine Vision), there is the Vision Award, a prize for outstanding solutions and contributions to applied machine vision. Specialist visitors will have the opportunity to experience machine vision up-close in the Application Park, while the Integration Area for system solutions is set to be expanded further. A podium discussion will promote the exchange of information and the special show International Machine Vision Standards will present current industry developments.

Newcomers to the world of machine vision or those with little previous knowledge are set to benefit from the top-class seminars offered by the Vision Academy while young, innovative companies within the machine vision industry will have the chance to present themselves, their products and services at the joint stand of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

That Vision has become the most important and highest professional platform for machine vision all over the world is a credit to many of its partners. VDMA Machine Vision, promotional supporter of the trade fair, is one such significant partner. The percentage of visitors coming from outside of Germany has risen since Vision 2009 from 28 to 33% and this increasing international success of Vision is largely thanks to the trade fair partners European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) and Automated Imaging Association (AIA). Vision 2010 will also have an interesting feature for those companies coming from abroad: for the first time there will be an International Pavilion for exhibitors new to the trade fair. For more information, visitwww.messe-stuttgart.de.