You press the button, we do the rest

This week, Eastman Kodak announced that it was to phase out its digital camera, pocket video camera, and digital picture frame businesses in the first half of this year.

Founded by George Eastman in 1889, the company made its name selling inexpensive film cameras and making large margins from the film, chemicals, and paper that were required to capture and develop the images that they took.

Now, by getting out of the digital camera business that replaced its old film cameras, the company expects to achieve operating savings of more than $100 million a year.

It's a sad state of affairs but hardly unexpected. The move comes hot on the heels of last month's announcement that the company had filed for filed voluntary petitions for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

But perhaps it doesn't quite mean the end of the Kodak brand, because the company is seeking to expand its current brand licensing program by looking for interested parties to license the products instead.

It's better news, thank goodness, at the company's former Image Sensor Solutions (ISS) division business. Now called Truesense Imaging -- after being acquired from Eastman Kodak by Platinum Equity through a transaction with Kodak that closed on Nov. 7, 2011 -- it would appear that the only thing to have changed at the company is its name.

Truesense Imaging, still with its headquarters in Rochester, NY, has kept Kodak's research and development, marketing, and business operations intact, including its highly specialized image-sensor manufacturing operation.

The name change, which was also only announced this week, is so recent that when our European correspondent met up with Truesense Imaging's Michael DeLuca at the AIA Business Conference just a few weeks ago in Orlando, Florida, he was still carrying a Kodak business card, which was -- naturally enough -- printed on Kodak paper.

Perhaps he should hang onto it. It might be worth some money as an antique in the future.

Vision systems come to the aid of homeowners

When my brother's sewer pipe blocked up last year, he called out the helpful chaps from Dyno-Rod. But when it became clear that the cause of the blockage wasn't immediately obvious, they took a closer look with their CCTV equipment.

Now, usually blocked drains can be caused by a number of factors, but most of the time it is simply a buildup of whatever's gone into the drain.

But this time around, it wasn't. No, the CCTV footage showed quite clearly that the cause of the problem was roots that had grown into the pipework from a tree that had been planted close to the house.

Having determined the cause of the problem, it was simply a case of hauling the tree out of the backyard, getting the roots out of the pipe and relining it.

More recently, my brother's been in contact with me again. This time around, he is concerned that the gutters around the top of the house have been blocked with leaves and debris, causing water to overflow into the yard rather than drain away through the downpipes on the side of the house.

Fortunately, after a quick look on the web, I discovered yet another system -- and one that also partially makes use of vision -- that might be able to help him here too.

The new system, called the VertaLok Rotary Gutter Cleaning System, provides an effective solution to my brother's problem -- all without him having to put a foot on a ladder.

The product itself consists of a number of extendable pole sections with an internal rotary drive that can be connected to a cordless drill, and a water channel that can be hooked up to a garden hose.

On the end of the pole section -- the end that is destined for the gutter -- a user can attach a number of tools. These include a rotary paddle brush that works with the cordless drill for removal of leaves and loose debris, a gutter scoop with water jet nozzle for wet compost and tough debris, and a gutter brush with water jet nozzle for cleaning and rinsing.

Bu the best bit of the whole system must surely be the mounting bracket that will allow my brother to attach a digital camera to the system, enabling him to perform a video inspection from ground level before or after he has finished cleaning his gutters.

Now this development might not sound like the most novel use of a vision system that we have ever covered here on the Vision Systems Design web site. And indeed, if you think so, then I'd be tempted to agree with you.

But it does go to show just how pervasive image capture and analysis is becoming in all our daily lives.

Camera runs at 40,000 frames per second

A camera invented at the Langley Field Laboratory has captured images at an astonishing 40,000 frames/s, providing researchers with a great deal of insight concerning the phenomenon of knock in spark-ignition engines over a six-year period.

The high-speed motion picture camera operates on a principle that its inventors call optical compensation. The photosensitive film used in the camera is kept continuously in motion and the photographic images are moved with the film such that each image remains stationary relative to the film during the time of its exposure.

That's right. This isn't a digital camera at all, but a film camera. But perhaps even more remarkable is that it that was invented in February 1936! The first working version of the camera was constructed in the Norfolk Navy Yard during 1938 and the camera operated successfully first time on December 16, 1938 at Langley Field.

Now, thanks to an article written by Cearcy Miller, interested readers can not only discover exactly how the camera was designed but also view some high-speed motion pictures of familiar objects that illustrate the quality of the photographs taken by the camera at the time.

If you thought that high-speed imaging was a relatively new idea, why not check out how the engineers solved the problem all those years ago!