STUTTGART, GERMANY — The 26th edition of VISION produced not only a record number of exhibitors at 432, but also a record number of visitors.

More than 8,700 trade visitors came, equivalent to a growth of around 25 percent compared with the last event in 2012.

"Our expectations were exceeded by far," said Thomas Walter, manager of Industrial Solutions Department at Messe Stuttgart. "An especially pleasing fact is there was also a rise in international visitor interest in VISION.

At the last event, 36 percent of visitors came from abroad. At this event, 40 percent came from 54 countries. Foreign visitors mainly came from Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Belgium, Spain, China and Japan.

Ultimately, the success of VISION 2014 is due to the new two-year rhythm, organizers said.

"It was a total success," said Dr Olaf Munkelt, chairman of the VDMA Machine Vision Group in Frankfurt and managing director of MVTec Software GmbH. "We are highly pleased with the number and quality of trade visitors. We have received very positive feedback from all branches of industry. Due to the new two-year rhythm we were able to make much better presentations of our innovations. In addition we are extremely satisfied with the high number of international exhibitors and visitors. It simply shows that VISION is number one internationally in machine vision."

Exhibitors at VISION 2014 came from 31 nations — all types of company were represented, ranging from start-ups to key players. They presented their new developments in machine vision components and systems, such as cameras, image sensors, processing units, frame grabbers, software tools, lighting systems, lenses, cables, accessories and complete application solutions. For the first time, the focus was on industry PCs and embedded PC systems which are ideally suited for complex, demanding machine vision applications.

The first-time special stand IPC 4 VISION, on which eleven manufacturers participated, was well visited, exhibitors said.

"We had many positive experiences: highly international visitors and excellent technical talks. We are very satisfied. For us the IPC stand was an excellent platform since we were also able to speak to industries which are otherwise a little further away from our core business," said Martin Krenzer, marketing manager at Siemens, Simatic IPC/PC-based Automation.

Machine vision is encroaching in more and more fields of application and this is reflected by the leading trade fair VISION. The event featured new focal points such as Traffic VISION and VISION 4 Automation and therefore addressed these niche markets for the first time.

Visitors come mainly from development followed by research and members of corporate management. About 82 percent of respondents said they were involved in purchasing and procurement decisions in their company.

Trade visitors also indicated a willingness to invest, a trend that is virtually uninterrupted. As a result, 84 percent of visitors to VISION 2014 intend to invest and the majority of them within the next six months. This also underlines the upwards trend in market growth and the promising outlook for the machine vision sector which experts generally rate as good.When viewed from the aspect of technology, visitors to VISION were primarily interested in machine vision components and applications, although turnkey systems were still in high demand.

Nearly 93 percent of visitors reported they are looking forward to VISION 2016, which will open its doors from Nov. 8 to 10, 2016.

For more information, visit www.vision-messe.de.