This year marks Adimec’s 20th anniversary celebration, and it coincides with our upcoming 25th Vision Show. It feels right to take stock of how far machine vision has come since its origins in post-WWII military image analysis research.

Our story begins in the early ’80s when industrial machine vision truly took off – a perfect convergence occurred then between market demand for automated quality control and technological advancements from VME platforms, IBM PCs, image processing software, and CCD cameras. The pioneers were typically large companies collaborating with academic institutions or specialized imaging firms to develop tailored solutions.

A classic example is Philips’ work on color CRT calibration in 1984 – a perfect application requiring precise measurement capabilities despite technical challenges. This era saw growing recognition that effective machine vision systems require expertise across illumination, optics, sensors, cameras and software programming. Sony’s CCD technology initially transformed broadcast and security sectors before opening new possibilities for industrial applications through companies like Adimec (then HTH).

By 1988’s first Vision Show, the market had matured with key applications emerging from German industries: automotive part inspection, plastic quality control, glass defect detection. Over time, machine vision evolved into a global industry driving innovation across countless sectors while enabling semiconductor production at sub-20nm nodes, advanced chip packaging, high-resolution displays, automotive manufacturing and robotics – proving its essential role in modern technology ecosystems.

Today’s market shows fascinating consolidation trends as camera suppliers compete through price reductions while tackling complex challenges like 450mm wafer processing and flexible PCBs demonstrates growing automation needs across industries from public security to factory operations. This signals machine vision has fully matured into an established discipline capable of addressing sophisticated technical problems in ways its pioneers could have imagined.

Last Updated: 2025-09-04 19:21:08