Werner Feith coordinates standardization activities of the association

Barcelona, 22 May, 2019. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) has appointed Werner Feith as new EMVA Standards Manager. Werner will be responsible to promote the European machine vision standardization activities worldwide and to coordinate the development process of machine vision standards; as well as to identify new standardization needs in a rapidly changing industrial environment.

Werner Feith received his education from TU München as a solid state physicist. After some time with industrial computer industry he founded Sensor to Image GmbH, which started as a frame grabber company, but was soon tuned to be an FPGA IP company supporting digital camera interfaces defined by Gen<I>cam standard. Sensor to Image became and is the world leader in industrial camera interface IP supporting GigEVision, USB3-Vision and CoaXPress. After selling Sensor to Image in 2017 Werner Feith was attracted by the open position as EMVA Standards Manager to continue his career in the industry and share his vast experience in standardization.

“We are very happy to welcome Werner on board the EMVA team to fill the important role as Standards Manager. Werner has more than 20 years’ experience with analog and digital camera interfaces, serving the technical committees of GigEVision & USB3 vision and Gen<I>cam for more than 10years, and coauthoring the CoaxPress standard for 5 years. He brings profound and long machine vision experience in engineering, management and entrepreneurship. We are looking forward to working with him to take the EMVA standardization activities to the next level”, says EMVA President Jochem Herrmann.

Since 15 years, the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) is hosting the development of standards for the machine vision industry with the now well-known and widely used standards GenICam and EMVA1288. GenICam standardizes the high level interfacing of a vision device and a computer. EMVA1288 is a characterization and specification procedure for image sensors and cameras used in machine vision. With the

Industrial Embedded Vision Interface Standard and the Open Optics Camera Interface Standard the EMVA currently leads two new standard initiatives.

Since 2009, the EMVA is collaborating with other international machine vision associations worldwide to work towards a standardization of the technologies and processes in our industry. These joint global standardization activities have become a pillar of the success of machine vision technology in numerous industrial and non-industrial applications.

Picture source: EMVA

 About EMVA:

Founded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the European Machine Vision Association currently has about 120+ members representing more than 20 nations. Its aim is to promote the development and use of machine vision technology and to support the interests of its members – machine vision companies, research institutions and national machine vision associations. The main fields of work of EMVA are: standardization, statistics, the annual EMVA Business Conference and other networking events, European research funding, public relations and marketing. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.

Copenhagen, 18 May, 2019. The EMVA Young Professional Award 2019 goes to Dr. Johannes Meyer, for his work “Light Field Methods for the Visual Inspection of Transparent Objects”. Johannes Meyer, age 31, received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in computer science from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT (Germany) in 2012, respectively, in 2014. He has been working as a research scientist in close cooperation between the Vision and Fusion Laboratory of the KIT and the Visual Inspection Systems department of the Fraunhofer-Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB (Germany). In 2018, he obtained a PhD in computer science from the KIT. Since 2019 he is working for ITK Engineering GmbH in the field of computer vision.

Light Field Methods for the Visual Inspection of Transparent Objects

Objects made from transparent materials play crucial roles in humans’ everyday life. They are employed, e.g., as windshields, glasses or as plastic lenses to guide laser beams in an eye surgery. Especially when considering the latter example, it is obvious, that such objects must meet high quality requirements. Hence, a visual inspection for material defects like enclosed air bubbles or surface scratches is inevitable. Human visual inspection is a fatiguing task which is not very robust and prone to subjective results or even to unrevealed defects. Automated visual inspection systems represent a reliable alternative to manual inspection. However, the automated inspection of complex-shaped transparent objects like lenses, windshields etc. still represents a challenging task with several open research questions.

A transparent object itself and the material defects influence the direction of propagation of the transmitted light. Hence, the complete light field, i.e., the position and direction of propagation of the light rays, must be considered for the detection of defects. Accordingly, this thesis introduces methods based on the concept of light fields for all main components of a visual inspection system, the illumination source, the sensor device and the signal processing algorithms. A novel sensor system, the laser deflection scanner, allows to acquire high resolution light fields of transparent objects. By means of suitable processing algorithms, material defects can be extracted out of these light fields in real time. Furthermore, a method for inverse light field illumination has been developed, that suppresses all intended structures of the test objects and reveals material defects with high contrast. A thorough experimental evaluation stated the superiority of the introduced methods over the state of the art with respect to several criteria.

Young professional award part of EMVA Business Conference

The EMVA Young Professional Award is an annual award to honor the outstanding and innovative work of a student or a young professional in the field of machine vision or image processing. It is the goal of the European Machine Vision Association EMVA to further support innovation in the machine vision industry, to contribute to the important aspect of dedicated machine vision education and to provide a bridge between research and industry. With the annual Young Professional Award the EMVA intends to specifically encourage students to focus on challenges in the field of machine vision and to apply latest research results and findings in computer vision to the practical needs of the industry. The awardee was announced on May 18 during the 17^th EMVA Business Conference in Copenhagen/Denmark, where he also had the opportunity to present his work as part of the regular conference program.

The 18^th EMVA Business Conference will take place from 25–27 June, 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Photo: EMVA Young Professional Award Winner Dr. Johannes Meyer (left), EMVA President Jochem Herrmann; Picture source: EMVA

 About EMVA:

Founded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the European Machine Vision Association currently has about 120+ members representing more than 20 nations. Its aim is to promote the development and use of machine vision technology and to support the interests of its members – machine vision companies, research institutions and national machine vision associations. The main fields of work of EMVA are: standardization, statistics, the annual EMVA Business Conference and other networking events, European research funding, public relations and marketing. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.

President of euRobotics will give insights to the world of robotics and to ongoing projects supported by the European Commission

Barcelona/Copenhagen, 02 May, 2019. The European Machine Vision Association is proud to announce that Dr. Bernd Liepert, President of euRobotics and former Chief Innovation Officer at KUKA, will open the 17th edition of EMVA’s annual Business Conference.

The opening keynote titled ‘Robotics needs Vision – Vision needs Robotics’ will give insights to the world of robotics and especially to the ongoing projects to uptake robotics in Europe supported by the European Commission.

Dr. Bernd Liepert is the President of euRobotics aisbl, the international non-profit association for all stakeholders in European robotics, which was founded in September 2012 and has become the private side of SPARC, the European Public-Private Partnership in Robotics in 2013. As president of these associations, Dr. Liepert has been leading the European robotics community and representing it at high political levels since 2008, where he became President of EUROP, the European Robotics Technology Platform.

Dr. Liepert earned his diploma in mathematics in 1990 at the University of Augsburg and his honorary doctor degree at University of Magdeburg in 2008. Since 1990, he has worked in various positions for KUKA. From 1990 to 1996 he worked as mathematician and developer at KUKA Schweissanlagen + Roboter GmbH before he took charge as head of research and development of the newly founded company KUKA Roboter GmbH until 1997. From 1998 to 1999 he was a member of KUKA Roboter GmbH Board of Management, responsible for development and design.

From 2000 to 2009 Dr. Liepert was CEO of KUKA Roboter GmbH. From 2010 to January 2015 he was CTO of KUKA AG, responsible for technology and development of the whole KUKA Group. Afterwards he was nominated the Chief Innovation Officer at KUKA AG, a worldwide leading manufacturer of industrial robots and provider of robot-based automation solutions. In this position he could contribute his vast robotics experience at the interface between technological innovation and the market.

Find all details and register at: http://www.business-conference-emva.org/

Funded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the European Machine Vision Association currently has about 120+ members representing more than 20 nations. Its aim is to promote the development and use of machine vision technology and to support the interests of its members – machine vision companies, research institutions and national machine vision associations. The main fields of work of EMVA are: standardization, statistics, the annual EMVA Business Conference and other networking events, European research funding, public relations and marketing. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.

Deadline for Submissions of Contributed Talks ends 24 May

Barcelona/Lyon, 12 April, 2019. The European Machine Vision Forum is happy to announce three key note speakers at the annual event 2019 which takes place 05 – 06 September 2019 in Lyon/France.

The first key note titled „The Future of Image Sensing – More Intelligence or More Sensing?“ will be given by Prof. Peter Seitz, Senior Technologist Europe at Hamamatsu Photonics.

In the afternoon session of the first conference day, Prof. Dr. Christian Wolf, Associate Professor at INSA, Université de Lyon and LIRIS, CNRS highlights reasoning as a key component of human intelligence in his speech “Learning High-Level Reasoning in and from Images”.

Right after the lunch break on the second conference day, Dr. François Simoens, Strategic Program Manager, CTO office at CEA-Leti in Grenoble has titled his key note “The Convergence of Photonics and Electronics: An Opportunity for Machine Vision”.

The focal topic of the European Machine Vision Forum 2019 is “Photonics and Machine Vision: Going Deep into Integration”. Over millions of years, biological vision systems evolved very differently in resolution, wavelength sensitivity, color sensing, motion sensing, and reaction time, depending on the specific needs of the corresponding creature. This implies that machine learning is not the only solution. A better machine vision system is obviously one that deeply integrates modern algorithmic approaches including machine learning and modern photonics components adapted to the use cases of the systems. The 4th European Machine Vision Forum explores current progress and shows where we are heading.

Contributions of valuable research or innovation fitting into the above motto for a talk or poster are still welcomed and can be submitted until Friday, May 24, 2019 using the online Submission Tool. All submissions are openly reviewed by the joint Scientific and Industrial Advisory Board of the forum and everyone, who has submitted a contribution. For the five best rated student contributions, the student speaker will receive a free ticket to the forum.

For more details visit www.european-forum-emva.org or contact us at info@emva-forum.org.

About EMVA:

Founded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the European Machine Vision Association currently has about 120+ members representing more than 20 nations. Its aim is to promote the development and use of machine vision technology and to support the interests of its members – machine vision companies, research institutions and national machine vision associations. The main fields of work of EMVA are: standardization, statistics, the annual EMVA Business Conference and other networking events, European research funding, public relations and marketing. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.

Dr. Fritz Dierks remains Chairman of GenICam standardization group

Barcelona/Suzhou (China), 08 April, 2019. During the meeting of the GenICam Standard Group end of March in Suzhou/China the Chair and Vice-Chairs were elected for another regular three year period. The previous incumbents were unanimously re-elected. Dr. Fritz Dierks (Basler) remains Chairman of the GenICam Standard Group and is assisted by the three Vice-Chairmen Rupert Stelz (STEMMER IMAGING), Stéphane Maurice (Matrox Imaging) and Christoph Zierl (MVTec Software).

The GenICam standard is hosted by the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA). More about GenICam can be found here https://www.emva.org/standards-technology/genicam/.

Photo: The reelected Chair and Vice-Chairs of the GenICam Standard Group, from left to right: Vice-Chair Rupert Stelz (STEMMER IMAGING), Chair Dr. Fritz Dierks (Basler), Vice-Chair Stéphane Maurice (Matrox Imaging) and Vice-Chair Christoph Zierl (MVTec Software).

Focal topic 2019 is Photonics and Machine Vision: Going Deep into Integration

Barcelona/Lyon, 28 March, 2019. The European Machine Vision Forum is an annual event of the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA). The aim is to foster interaction between the machine vision industry and academic research and through this is accelerate innovation by translating new research results faster into practice. Focal topic of the 2019 European Machine Vision Forum taking place 05 – 06 September in the Palais de la Bourse Lyon, is

 Photonics and Machine Vision: Going Deep into Integration.

We hereby cordially invite all interested parties to contribute their valuable research or innovation fitting into the above motto and submit the extended abstracts of a contributed talk or poster latest by Friday, May 24, 2019 using the online Submission Tool.

All submissions are openly reviewed by the joint Scientific and Industrial Advisory Board of the forum and everyone, who has submitted a contribution. For the five best rated student contributions, the student speaker will receive a free ticket to the forum.

During the 4th edition of EMVA’s ‘Where Research Meets Industry’ initiative EMVA Board Member Prof. Dr. Bernd Jähne, Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing (HCI), Heidelberg University, and Chair of the European Machine Vision Forum will be pleased to welcome researchers and developers from machine vision, computer vision, machine learning, applied optics and photonics to exchange newest ideas how the deep integration of photonic elements, imaging sensors, computing platforms and machine learning lead to much more capable, smaller, cheaper and less energy consuming vision systems.
For more details visit www.european-forum-emva.org or contact us at info@emva-forum.org.

Barcelona/Brussels, 16 November, 2018. The European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) is pleased to announce that Dr.-Ing. Dirk Berndt in his role as member of the EMVA Board of Directors has been elected in the Photonics21 Board of Stakeholders (BoS).

The Board of Stakeholders is the main decision-making body of the European Technology Platform (ETP) Photonics21. With currently more than 2.500 members Photonics21 unites the majority of the leading photonics industries and relevant R&D stakeholders along the whole economic value chain throughout Europe.

Dr. Dirk Berndt works as Business Unit Manager Measurement and Testing Technology at Fraunhofer IFF – Institute for Factory Operation and Automation in Magdeburg. In his role as EMVA representative in the new elected Board of Stakeholders of Photonics21 he will from now on speak on behalf of the interest of the European Machine Vision Industry.

About Photonics21:

Photonics21 aims to establish Europe as a leader in the development and deployment of photonics technologies within the various applications fields such as ICT, lighting, industrial manufacturing, life science, safety as well as in education and training. The ETP Photonics21 coordinates photonics research and innovation priorities and provides input to the European research framework program Horizon 2020. To find out more visit the website www.photonics21.org.

About EMVA:

Founded in May 2003 in Barcelona, the European Machine Vision Association currently has about 120+ members representing more than 20 nations. Its aim is to promote the development and use of machine vision technology and to support the interests of its members – machine vision companies, research institutions and national machine vision associations. The main fields of work of EMVA are: standardization, statistics, the annual EMVA Business Conference and other networking events, European research funding, public relations and marketing. To find out more visit the web site www.emva.org.