How do you learn about machine vision?

You can try searching for machine vision classes at your local college or university but you’re unlikely to find anything very useful. Machine vision, as opposed to computer vision, is not a hot topic at universities these days. Likewise, the professional institutions (SME, IEEE,) don’t really offer useful training. This leaves you with three possible paths: read a lot, attend the vendors training classes, and get hands-on with a real system.

I suggest you do all three, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate a few pointers for how to get started.

Let’s begin with reading. Google will throw up some 684,000 entries, but I suggest you start with Wikipedia. This glossary may be of help too. From there, read all you can find online. Personally I’d skip the textbooks because they date so fast, but if you really must have something to put beside your bed, try “Understanding and Applying Machine Vision” by Nello Zeuch.

What about the training classes that vendors offer, sometimes free. Well frankly, these are primarily hands-on sales presentations, designed to make you, the user, feel comfortable with using their particular product. You’re not going to leave the session a machine vision expert, although you will know more than when you arrived. By all means, attend a few of these. Tell them you’re trying to determine which product to standardize upon, if you need a justification. Just don’t expect a single free class to turn you into a professional

Lastly, get hands-on with a real system. We all have different learning styles, but as I’m a visual/tactile kind of student, (“let me do it and I’ll understand,” which I think is common for engineers,) this is the way I like to learn. If you’re lucky you’ll find an old DVT or Omron system in the maintenance area, in which case you should hook it up to a PC and start trying to do stuff. Even if you can’t find camera hardware, you can download software free of charge (but check it will run without a camera – Framework will but the Banner software wont.) Playing with software will at least teach you the principles of image processing and analysis, even if you have to scan in images or create some in Paint.

So that’s how to learn about machine vision. It’s self-directed and self-paced, and there’s no certificate at the end, but the price is right.