Pragmatic attitude drives machine vision forward

Marie Freebody, marie.freebody@photonics.com

All eyes will be on China from March 31 to April 2 for the China International Machine Vision Exhibition 2010, which will be held at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. The event coincides with the China International Motion Control and Sensor Exhibition 2010 and is expected to gather some of the biggest players in the machine vision industry.

The China Daheng Group partners with some of the best-known machine vision companies in the world.

“The exhibition provides a platform for customers to learn about the latest technology in machine vision and to find the right product to fit their application. It also gives machine vision companies in China a chance to communicate with each other,” said DeShan Duan, senior engineer of machine vision at the China Daheng Group Inc. Beijing Image Vision Technology Branch in Beijing. “As one of the largest machine vision companies in China, we must attend.”

This printing inspection system is just one of the products on offer at the China Daheng Group Inc. Beijing Image Vision Technology Branch. Images courtesy of the China Daheng Group Inc. Beijing Image Vision Technology Branch.

The machine vision market in China is growing fast, with more and more opportunities for manufacturers of sensors, lenses, filters and cameras. Although most of the specialized products still come out of the US, Europe and Japan, China offers much lower labor costs, which means that it enjoys the lion’s share in terms of manufacturing.

“The machine vision industry in China is a little backward compared with Japan and some of the more advanced countries in the world, but it is growing fast,” Duan said. “The China Daheng Group was one of the first companies to enter the Chinese machine vision industry. We have the ability to design and produce industrial digital cameras and frame grabbers that are more suitable for the Chinese market.”

The product families offered by the China Daheng Group Inc. Beijing Image Vision Technology Branch include CCD cameras with 1394 and GigE interfaces, CMOS cameras with 1394 and USB interfaces, analog frame grabbers and smart cameras for intelligent transportation systems applications.

Machine vision technology can be used in almost every industry, with the automotive, electronics and semiconductor markets at the top of the list. The initial setup for Chinese machine vision companies was to cooperate with foreign specialists to provide machine vision components to end users or systems integrators. But this has started to change as more Chinese companies find themselves better able to cater to local markets.

“The cost of components from other countries is high, and the products are not always the right fit for our markets,” Duan said. “This led some Chinese machine vision companies to start to develop these components themselves.”

The China Daheng Group Inc. Beijing Image Vision Technology Branch (Imavision) exhibits at the China International Machine Vision Exhibition 2009.

As for what’s in store for machine vision in Asia, it seems that a business that supports manufacturing will most likely continue to enjoy strong growth. According to Duan, events such as the China International Machine Vision Exhibition 2010 should be seen by individual machine vision companies in China as an opportunity to strengthen the industry as a whole.

“I think that the machine vision industry in one country is not just a competitor against others; every company should cooperate with each other so that they can play to their respective advantages,” he said. “Everybody in the industry should know that getting a good image is the first and most important step in the entire machine vision system. For this we must learn more about the optical properties of the sensor inside the camera, lenses, filters and illuminations.”