Show report: Embedded Vision Summit bigger than ever
A few weeks ago, about 750 engineers, algorithm designers, systems engineers, marketers, and businessmen spent a long but productive day together at the Embedded Vision Summit. The field of computer vision, and embedding it into high-volume consumer products, is growing rapidly, and the summit is one of the key events of the year.
There were 3 tracks with presentations, and workshop attendance more than tripled compared to last year. The showfloor was busier too, with over 30 exhibitors showing their latest demonstrations.
Key trends highlighted in the report: CNNs, augmented reality and wearables, algorithms, and automotive.
Show report: Image Sensor Auto
This was the 2nd year that the Image Sensor Auto conference took place, again in Brussels.
The show grew from 100 people last year to over 150 people this year, a testimony to the quality of the Image Sensor conferences, as well as proof that cameras in automotive are hot, as they are a key component to making our vehicles safer, and ultimately drive themselves.
Presentations came from car manufacturers such as Volvo, Peugeot/Citroen (PSA), and Jaguar/Landrover, automotive camera manufacturers such as Magna, Valeo, and Autoliv, and of course the image sensor manufacturers such as OmniVision, On semiconductor (which acquired Aptina), ST, and Melexis. Each of the vendors gave a glimpse into their views on the market, challenges they see, and their research and development directions.
New videos from EV Summit
The Embedded Vision Alliance recently published two videos that highlight our presence at the show. The first video gives an overview of the demonstrations we had on display. The second is a video of our 30-minute tutorial presentation on Structure from Motion. Structure from motion uses a unique combination of algorithms that extract depth information using a single 2D moving camera.
The tutorial discusses how you can use a calibrated camera, feature detection, and feature tracking, to calculate an accurate camera pose and a 3D point cloud representing the captured scene. This 3D scene information can be used in many ways, such as for automated car parking, augmented reality, and positioning.
Industry news
Google adds driver to driverless car
The search giant last week announced that its self-driving prototype vehicle has hit the open road — in Mountain View, anyway. Google’s car is designed to operate without a steering wheel or pedals, but California rules require that vehicles have them for testing, so “we’ll have safety drivers aboard with a removable steering wheel, accelerator pedal, and brake pedal that allow them to take over driving if needed,” Google said.
Baidu cheats on image recognition race, still reaches best results
The sport of training software to act intelligently just got its first cheating scandal. In May, Chinese search company Baidu announced that its image recognition software had inched ahead of Google’s on a standardized test of accuracy. In June, the company admitted that it achieved those results by breaking the rules of that test.
Zoox, the Robo-Taxi Start-up
You wait for years for a self-driving taxi, then four come along at once. Google and Uber’s efforts have been well publicized, and IEEE Spectrum broke the news in February that Nissan was also developing a robotic cab. Now we can reveal exclusive details about a startup that hopes to put fully autonomous taxis on the road by 2020.
Upcoming events
| SAMOS | July 20, Samos, Greece | Marco Jacobs presents invited keynote “Visual processing sparks a new class of processors” |
| Ethernet Technology Day | October 27-28, Yokohama, Japan | Videantis will be at this key automotive event on Ethernet AVB |
Schedule a meeting with us by sending an email to sales@videantis.com. We’re always interested in discussing your video and vision SOC design ideas and challenges. We look forward to talking with you!
