The tender trap

One of the great advantages of being the head editorial honcho here at Vision Systems Design magazine is that I'm able to spend a great deal of my time visiting systems builders who develop image processing systems that are deployed to inspect products in industrial environments.

During the course of my conversations with the engineers at these companies, I'm always intrigued to discover -- and later convey to the readers of our magazine -- how they integrate a variety of hardware components and develop software using commercially available image processing software packages to achieve their goals.

Although it's always intellectually stimulating to hear how engineers have built such systems, what has always interested me more are the reasons why engineers choose to use the hardware or software that they do.

Primarily, of course, such decisions are driven by cost. If one piece of hardware for example, is less expensive than another and will perform adequately in any given application, then it’s more likely than not to be chosen for the job.

The choice of software, on the other hand, isn't always down to just the price of the software package itself. If a small company has invested time and money training its engineers to create programs using one particular software development environment, it's highly likely that that same software will be chosen time after time for the development of any new systems. The cost involved in retraining engineers to learn enough about a new package might be simply too exorbitant, even though it might offer some technical advantages.

To ensure that they do not get stuck trapped with outmoded software, however, engineering managers at systems builders need to meet up with a number of image processing software vendors each year -- including the one that they currently use -- and ask them to provide an overview of the strategic direction that they plan to take in forthcoming years.

If it becomes clear during such a meeting that there is a distinct lack of such direction on the software vendor's part, then those engineering managers should consider training at least one of their engineers to use a new package that might more effectively meet the demands of their own customers in the future.

Certainly, having attended more than a few trade shows this year, it's become fairly obvious to me which software vendors are investing their own money in the future and which are simply paying lip service to the task. And if you don't know who I'm talking about, maybe you should get out more.

Image processing is all in the mind?

If you are anything like me, you probably gave out one or two video games as presents to some of your younger relatives over the holiday season. If you did, however, you ought to be aware of the danger involved, and the potential repercussions of your actions.

Apparently, according to research carried out by academics in the UK and Sweden, some video game players are becoming so immersed in their virtual gaming environments that -- when they stop playing -- they transfer some of their virtual experiences to the real world.

That's right. Researchers led by Angelica Ortiz de Gortari and Professor Mark Griffiths from Nottingham Trent University's International Gaming Research Unit, and Professor Karin Aronsson from Stockholm University, have revealed that some gamers experience what they call "Game Transfer Phenomena" (GTP), which results in them doing things in the real world as if they were still in the game!

Extreme examples of GTP have included gamers thinking in the same way as when they were gaming, such as reaching for a search button when looking for someone in a crowd and seeing energy boxes appear above people's heads.

Aside from the game players, though, I wonder if this research might also have some implications for software developers working in the vision systems business, many of whom also work long hours staring at computer screens, often taking their work home with them.

How many of these individuals, I wonder, also imagine that they are performing image-processing tasks when going about their daily routine? Have you, for example, ever believed that you were performing a hyperspectral analysis when considering whether or not to purchase apples in the supermarket, optical character recognition to check the sell-by date on the fruit, or even a histogram equalization on the face of the attractive young lady at the checkout line?

While Professor Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, said that he found that intensive gaming may lead to negative psychological, emotional, or behavioral consequences, the same might hold true for those of us who spend too much time at work developing image-processing software.

Thank goodness, then, that we will soon be able to look forward to a few more days respite from our toils to celebrate the New Year.

Happy New Year.