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? Does not mention Keyence and others. Honestly though, the suits i worked with, were all very dated and used hand constructed feature filters etc. to detect f

? Does not mention Keyence and others. Honestly though, the suits i worked with, were all very dated and used hand constructed feature filters etc. to detect flaws. Usually, it was easier to adapt the environment (exclude external light etc.) instead of lengthy tuning sessions for the installer. Usually the industrial cameras were also designed, so that local maintainers could readjust them, which excluded complex programming and happened in simple wizards or excel like programming surfaces. There was no time planned in to "retrain" further once the line was running. And it was cheap and good enough that way. Thus the "cutting" edge tech seemed to be eternally 20 years behind the cutting edge in other sectors relying on machine vision.

zwieback 4y ago
We use "smart" cameras from Keyence and Cognex but the really interesting work tends to still be in PC-based, hand-coded vision systems. Usually hand-crafted C++ or C# code but increasingly using neural networks for some, usually non-quantitative (e.g. locating but not measuring), solutions.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  I interviewed at Cognex 15 years ago. They eliminated their EE department down to one H-1B who broke down in tears as I tried to figure out why I was being interviewed by people with no knowledge about the job. They were solely interested in the ability to reverse engineer something without any documentation. It was clear they were just repackaging cheap SZ camera modules in overpriced yellow boxes. Everyone was glowing about their "legacy" product line from before they canned their engineers. Nothing but crickets when asked about the new stuff. The founders had constructed this weird personality cult around themselves. Glad I dodged that bullet.
  - zwieback 4y ago
    East or West Coast? I had a strange interview experience in Oregon in the late 90s but not as bad as yours from the sound of it.
- vidanay 4y ago
  As a developer and maintainer of a PC based vision solution, I don't like smart cameras. :)
  - snerbles 4y ago
    As an integrator of vision solutions, smart cameras firmly occupy the space of "Nobody Ever Got Fired For Buying IBM" Though with recent developments in machine learning, the case for PC-based solutions is a lot easier now than before. Behind all the fluff and shiny marketing, the incumbents are very stagnant.
    - vidanay 4y ago
      15 years ago, I used to claim that there were more smart cameras sitting in engineers desk drawers than there were running in production. I think that was true until about 7-8 years ago.
      - snerbles 4y ago
        Definitely not the case at my old job - we deployed a bit over 200 Cognex In-Sight cameras over my five-year stint there, almost all for bespoke inspection applications for customers. They gave me plenty of swag, but if I wanted to play with one of their cameras I'd have to go out on the production floor.
        vidanay 4y ago
        Sounds like you worked for an integrator, so it stands to reason that you had a high success rate. Cognex, Keyance, DVT, et al sold a lot of smart cameras in batches of 1 and 2 to non-vision experienced engineers based on the lie that they could bolt it up to a conveyor and in an afternoon of programming on their game controller they could be up and running and miraculously improving their quality by 30% by next Monday. I think the vast majority of these cameras never saw production.
        4y ago
jeffbee 4y ago
Doesn't even mention National Instruments. This article is clearly cheerleading for a bunch of startups, and wants us to be ignorant of the larger picture. Robots have been picking up and stacking junk on assembly lines since the 1990s at the latest.

zwieback 4y ago

We use "smart" cameras from Keyence and Cognex but the really interesting work tends to still be in PC-based, hand-coded vision systems. Usually hand-crafted C++ or C# code but increasingly using neural networks for some, usually non-quantitative (e.g. locating but not measuring), solutions.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
I interviewed at Cognex 15 years ago. They eliminated their EE department down to one H-1B who broke down in tears as I tried to figure out why I was being interviewed by people with no knowledge about the job. They were solely interested in the ability to reverse engineer something without any documentation. It was clear they were just repackaging cheap SZ camera modules in overpriced yellow boxes. Everyone was glowing about their "legacy" product line from before they canned their engineers. Nothing but crickets when asked about the new stuff. The founders had constructed this weird personality cult around themselves. Glad I dodged that bullet.
- zwieback 4y ago
  East or West Coast? I had a strange interview experience in Oregon in the late 90s but not as bad as yours from the sound of it.
vidanay 4y ago
As a developer and maintainer of a PC based vision solution, I don't like smart cameras. :)
- snerbles 4y ago
  As an integrator of vision solutions, smart cameras firmly occupy the space of "Nobody Ever Got Fired For Buying IBM" Though with recent developments in machine learning, the case for PC-based solutions is a lot easier now than before. Behind all the fluff and shiny marketing, the incumbents are very stagnant.
  - vidanay 4y ago
    15 years ago, I used to claim that there were more smart cameras sitting in engineers desk drawers than there were running in production. I think that was true until about 7-8 years ago.
    - snerbles 4y ago
      Definitely not the case at my old job - we deployed a bit over 200 Cognex In-Sight cameras over my five-year stint there, almost all for bespoke inspection applications for customers. They gave me plenty of swag, but if I wanted to play with one of their cameras I'd have to go out on the production floor.
      - vidanay 4y ago
        Sounds like you worked for an integrator, so it stands to reason that you had a high success rate. Cognex, Keyance, DVT, et al sold a lot of smart cameras in batches of 1 and 2 to non-vision experienced engineers based on the lie that they could bolt it up to a conveyor and in an afternoon of programming on their game controller they could be up and running and miraculously improving their quality by 30% by next Monday. I think the vast majority of these cameras never saw production.
        4y ago

jeffbee 4y ago

Doesn't even mention National Instruments. This article is clearly cheerleading for a bunch of startups, and wants us to be ignorant of the larger picture. Robots have been picking up and stacking junk on assembly lines since the 1990s at the latest.