For many successful men and women in all walks of life, the key to success was that they were motivated more, at least in the beginning, by what was needed, or by what they felt they had to do, than thought of financial gain.

When it comes to selecting inspection and measurement software, getting it right is important.

We review the “state of the market” and discuss some established technologies that are maturing to provide value to more end users, as well as some “cutting-edge” technologies that may bear watching.

In this article, we review key standards that currently exist and provide an overview on recent updates and potential changes that will impact and benefit users of machine vision technologies. We also look at the work of various organizations to understand how their standards may impact the machine vision market.

Computational imaging technology has found its way into industrial automated inspection, where the creative use of illumination components has emerged as an enabling technology providing valuable imaging capabilities.

While COVID dampened demand early on, the skills gap and labor shortage that has plagued the industry for more than a decade is still in full swing. As new NDT methods advance, quality professionals require new training, and technicians transitioning from film techniques to non-film techniques need hands-on experience.

In the fall of 2021, COVID-19 was a top concern for more than half of respondents in our September 2021 survey. Today that number is down to 17%, according to our Annual Quality Spending Survey, which surveyed subscribers in September 2022.

The topic of Quality 4.0 is rapidly becoming a legend due to its mysterious nature; it seemingly has no formal description. Very few people can confidently say that they have seen it or used it. 

As the field of machine vision grows, it becomes increasingly important to understand what makes a machine vision system work well.

Multidimensionality has a specific definition, but like many other words, the definition shifts, or is tweaked, depending on the subject being spoken of and its context.