Growth? Consolidation? Failure?

Way back in February 2008 I happened upon a small British startup that had developed a line light so intense it required water cooling. So last week, when an email arrived from First Vision announcing that they are now carrying a water-cooled line light from Gardasoft I had to check it out.

Sure enough, it's the same light. So what happened? Did the startup run out of cash, enabling Gardasoft to gobble up their assets? Or were they bought as a going concern? Did the entrepreneurs behind the VXL2 light pocket a nice pile of cash for their efforts, or are they at this very moment scouring the Jobs pages of the Daily Telegraph? I'd like to know because it would tell us something about the state of the machine vision industry as a whole.

And should you be wondering why anyone needs a water-cooled line light, the answer is, for line scan imaging. If you're imaging a fast-moving web you'll want to avoid blur by having a very short exposure. But short exposures demand a lot of light, which is where you might want to use the VXL2.

Or you could use a TDI line scan camera, but let's leave that discussion for another day.