ANN ARBOR, MI-Toshi Hori, president of GEViCAM Inc., was presented with the 2009 Automated Imaging Achievement Award during a ceremony held at the Automated Imaging Association’s (AIA) 17th Annual Business Conference in San Diego.

Hori was nominated by AIA members and selected from a pool of candidates by its board of directors, who wished to recognize Hori for his technology innovations and his outstanding contributions to the machine vision and imaging industry. The award was presented by Michael Cyros, AIA’s president and president of Allied Vision Technologies Inc.

“Toshi’s many contributions include machine vision technology inventions he brought to the industry as a pioneering young engineer that are still used in the industry today,” said Cyros. “During his long and distinguished career he worked selflessly to bring standardized camera interfaces to our industry, starting with Camera Link and again getting involved in the GigE Vision protocol. Using standard interfaces has allowed manufacturers to reduce costs and bring their products to market faster; this is something that benefits both the manufacturers and users in our industry.”

Hori has more than three decades of experience and leadership in machine vision. In 1982, Hori founded PULNiX America, and was an early pioneer in the use of charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras in commercial applications. In 2003 PULNiX was acquired by the JAI Group and Hori served as president/chief executive officer for PULNiX and chief technology officer for the JAI Group until he left to establish GEViCAM Inc. GEViCAM focuses on the development and production of GigE-based conventional and neural network enabled cameras. Hori’s many inventions include the electronic shutter CCD camera for factory automation, progressive scan interline-transfer CCD cameras, the original Channel Link camera and neural network-based smart cameras.