Radiant Vision Systems announces its 30th anniversary as a leading provider of optical test and measurement solutions for displays and light sources. In celebration of this milestone, Radiant looks back on three decades of innovation by showcasing its founders, timeline, and employee stories on a dedicated page of its website. Throughout the year, Radiant will continue to add photos and stories to this page in an ongoing commemoration of its corporate history from 1992 to 2022.
Founded in 1992 in California as Radiant Imaging, Inc., Radiant was the realization of Ron Rykowski and Steve Wilson’s endeavor to invent faster and more capable light measurement solutions to improve the visual performance of light-emitting devices (light sources, projectors, and displays). Having a background in optical instruments, these two engineers began by developing their own ray-tracing software and offering light source characterization services to manufacturers who needed more comprehensive and efficient data for light source modeling. Early on, the team realized that existing methods for photometric measurement—spot meters, which measure light at specific points across a light source distribution—were falling short of quality goals and missing defects between measurement points. The team reasoned that by applying cameras for imaging, they could capture and measure photometric values for the complete area of a distribution as well as detect any visible defects.
“Taming a CCD camera to give us useful, calibrated data was quite a task,” recalls Radiant co-founder Steve Wilson, “but we accomplished the job. Now we had a tool to give us feedback for optical system design. So, ProMetric® was born. ”
Radiant’s ProMetric line of cameras began as a component of the solution that Rykowski and Wilson developed to provide light source measurement services. As customers recognized these cameras’ efficiency for lab measurement and on-site display calibration, Radiant began manufacturing and selling ProMetric cameras directly. The company has continued to optimize photometric imaging systems to supply faster, higher-resolution, and higher-performance vision inspection solutions to capture photometric data for light source and display measurement—and extend this capability to surface and appearance inspection. Today, Radiant’s ProMetric Imaging Colorimeters and Photometers are applied in labs and production lines worldwide, testing millions of devices each year in consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, medical, and other industries.
“Radiant continues to build on the foundation that Ron and Steve established,” states Doug Kreysar, current CEO of Radiant Vision Systems, “—develop faster and more capable solutions for light and color measurement. Imaging remains at the center of this development, where our ProMetric imaging systems enable customers to capture highly accurate photometric data at speeds much faster alternative systems. By applying photometric imaging in automated visual inspection systems, Radiant has enabled manufacturers to reach quality and throughput goals that were impossible 30 years ago. This has directly contributed to market growth in several industries and has made new technologies like OLED, microLED, and others viable for commercial products.”
“However, Radiant’s legacy is more than just our technology development,” Kreysar continues. “Since the very first projects that Ron and Steve took on in the early 1980s, I believe the most important thing we’ve carried forward is a spirit of innovation. We are always looking ahead for the next challenge to solve. We look at our customers’ design and manufacturing challenges as an opportunity to make something better, and we drive development around each challenge. This yields unique software and optical solutions that have diversified our portfolio and allow us to meet more specific needs. I’m proud to say that a hallmark of Radiant’s legacy has been how passionate we are about what we do.”
Over 30 years, Radiant Vision Systems has grown from a team of two engineers in 1992 to over 200 employees worldwide today. Radiant has direct offices in the U.S.A. (headquarters: Redmond, Washington; Cupertino, California; Novi, Michigan), China (Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou), South Korea (Seongnam), and Vietnam (Haiphong). Acquired by Konica Minolta in 2015, Radiant operates within the Konica Minolta Sensing Business Unit of companies, many of which sell and support Radiant products in other areas of the globe. Radiant’s history includes the first application of imaging for photometric measurement, the invention of the Radiant Source Model™ (RSM) file format, and the Source Imaging Goniometer® (SIG) for angular characterization of light output for light source modeling and design.
For more on Radiant’s 30-year history, visit www.radiantvisionsystems.com/radiant-celebrates-30-years-innovation.
