斯图加特国际机器视觉展览会（VISION）是机器视觉和识别技术行业最重要的国际型展览会之一，两年一届，在斯图加特举行。在斯图加特每年都会召开这一机器视觉行业的国际盛会，在该盛会上参展商会展示最新的科技创新成果，加强与已有合作伙伴的交流并发展新的贸易网络，这已成为一种惯例。斯图加特机器视觉和识别技术展览会和机器视觉行业及识别技术一起日趋成熟，如今已成为交流信息和产品展示的重要国际平台。它已成功地扩展了其应用领域，首先是在非工业方向的机器视觉。斯图加特机器视觉和识别技术展览会已成为全世界最重要，最高端的机器视觉专业平台，并成为许多合作伙伴的信用保障。特别说明该展原来一年一届，现决定取消2013年展期，转为两年一届，逢两年十一月份在斯图加特国际展览中心举行。
机器视觉行业内容广泛
VISION展示的产品和服务包罗万象，在这里没有解决不了的行业问题。现今值得关注的是以应用为核心的解决方案已成为一种趋势，换言之，除了体现展览会主题的机器视觉元件，例如摄像机、传感器、帧接收器等等，还包括机器视觉技术的具体应用。
通过3D机器视觉和高速摄像机在质量控制中的使用，质量水平越来越高，时钟速度越来越快，这些特征完全集成到了处理过程中。机器视觉系统速度快、免接触，无干扰，能探测出物体或其表面极小的缺陷，并且对结果进行分析并形成文件。在汽车工业中应用的展示：例如，轴向距离测量，漆面刮痕检测，或者汽车后端形状的检查就是通过机器视觉系统进行的。甚至，机器视觉技术已经开始成功地应用在例如环境保护/资源保护，生物测量学以及其他非机器视觉应用领域。
如今，不仅传统的机械工程、汽车、电气等纳入机器视觉技术的用户行业，很多新的应用行业也逐渐开始需要和渴望运用机器视觉技术，成为了展览会新的参观群体。
各种展会同期活动将再次为参观者和参展商提供真正视觉亮点。除了最全面的全球“工业视觉日”论坛（由VDMA机器视觉分会组织）；还有VISION大奖，此奖项授予机器视觉应用领域的优秀解决方案和突出贡献的企业。专业观众将有机会在“应用园区”近距离体验机器视觉；同时，“系统解决方案的集成区域”也将进一步扩大；“讲台讨论”将促进信息交流；“国际机器视觉标准”将展示当今行业的发展；刚接触机器视觉领域或对其知之甚少的人们将得益于由VISION研究院举办的高层研讨会；而年轻的机器视觉行业的创新公司将有机会在联邦经济技术部的联合展台上展示自己，公司的产品和服务。
展品范围(Show Products):
1、产品和服务：1.1 系统，1.2 组件，1.3 服务；
2、支持产业：2.1 农业，2.2 汽车行业，2.3 汽车供应业，2.4 先进驾驶辅助系统，2.5 生物工程，2.6 化工，2.7 印刷业， 2.8 零售，2.9 金属制品业，2.10 电工与电子行业，2.11 精密机械和光学等行业，2.12 玻璃生产和加工，2.13 橡胶、塑料和金属箔等行业，2.14 半导体生产，2.15 木材和木材，2.16 陶瓷生产， 2.17 皮革制造及加工，2.18 航空航天工业，2.19 机械制造，2.20 医疗器械行业，2.21 金属基本工业，2.22 显微镜，2.23 食品和饮料行业，2.24 纸和纸板， 2.25 医药和化妆品等行业， 2.26 光伏/太阳能产业，2.27 回收，2.28 造船， 2.29 安全技术和生物识别技术，2.30 体育，2.31电信，2:32 纺织和服装行业， 2:33 运输及物流，2:34 娱乐，2:35 交通/智能交通系统，2:36 国防/国防工程， 2:37 其他；
3、应用：3.1 条码识别，3.2 二维码识别，3.3 光学字符识别（OCR / OCV），3.4 安全系统，3.5 识别的对象/类型识别，3.6 位置识别，3.7 序列分析，3.8 质量检验，3.9 颜色检查，3.10 完整性检查/控制组件，3.11 打印检查，3.12 纹理分析，3.13 连续材料的表面检查，3.14 零件的表面检查 3.15 内联机器人视觉，3.16 3D机器人视觉，3.17 2D机器人视觉， 3.18 形状识别，3.19 测量和比较3D，3.20 测量和比较2D。
展会报告(Show Reports):
A total of 6,505 visitors and 378 exhibitors in Stuttgart/High-quality meetings distinguish the trade fair
Two fully booked exhibition halls and two high-calibre lecture forums: The 30th VISION was held with an excellent atmosphere in the Alfred Kärcher Halle (hall 8) and Paul Horn Halle (hall 10).
Visitor and exhibitor numbers on the rise again
VISION 2022 recorded a total number of 6,505 trade visitors. This made the world's leading trade fair again the centre of the machine vision industry.
“VISION 2022 was a complete success and vastly exceeded our expectations – both in terms of visitors and exhibitors. It was also nice to see that, following the limitations caused by the pandemic last year, the event once again had a high international presence. This means that VISION once more developed along established structures also in terms of information procurement”, said Roland Bleinroth, President of Messe Stuttgart.
Overall, visitors from 60 countries were registered. The strongest presence was from Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain and the UK, VISION was also able to welcome a larger trade audience from South Korea, Japan and the USA.
In addition to the classical client industries such as electrical engineering/electronics, mechanical engineering and plant construction as well as the automotive and automotive component supply industry, there was a significant share of visitors from non-industrial sectors present, including medical technology and pharmacology, agricultural industry, aerospace engineering as well as transport and logistics. Accordingly, the interest in offers of non-industrial applications increased compared to the previous year. Similarly, turnkey machine vision systems also recorded increased visitor attention.
The quality of visitors remained as high as ever: 55 per cent of visitors indicated that they were decisive or involved in purchasing and procurement decisions in their companies. 27 per cent attended the fair with deliberate investment or purchase intentions.
The demand for machine vision components and systems grew in 2021 more than expected. The business volume of the German machine vision industry increased by 16 per cent in Germany to EUR 3.1 billion. The European machine vision industry also recorded a growth of 17 per cent. The promotional supporter of VISION, VDMA Machine Vision, confirmed the positive basic attitude of the sector at the inauguration of the fair: “Despite the general economic insecurity, the sector’s continued growth prospects are promising. The VDMA sector group Machine Vision is expecting a growth of 8 per cent for the German and European machine vision industry in 2022”, said Mark Williamson, chairman of the board of management of VDMA Machine Vision. “The machine vision industry continues to penetrate new application areas, increasingly also in the non-industrial sector”. The positive developments of the machine vision industry are also reflected in the number of exhibiting companies at VISION.
A total of 378 exhibiting companies – 60 per cent of which came from abroad – presented the wide range of machine vision solutions across three days. Next to many first-time participants, the sector’s key players were also present at the fair. To Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO Basler AG, VISION is Europe’s most important Computer Vision market place: “For us, VISION is the central platform for introducing innovations and communicating our new orientation towards becoming a solution provider. once again, many visitors approached us with specific new projects this year. Initiatives such as the VISION Guided Tours for food & beverages, intra-logistics and medical & pharmacology created new incentives for visitors from application areas beyond factory automation”. In terms of technology, Basler experienced at VISION 2022 a continuation of the trending topics of the past few years. “We have observed progress in the area of artificial intelligence. Within this context, Industry 4.0 with a Cloud architecture and AI-based machine vision will be increasingly established on edge devices. At the same time, 3D technology will continue to mature and become less expensive”.
Jan Hartmann, Managing Director of JDS, also emphasized the importance of VISION as the World's leading trade fair for the sector. “Machine vision is a central component of automation technology, especially in combination with 3D vision and artificial intelligence. At VISION, the visitors discovered how we facilitate the access to these key technologies, offering easy to handle components to initiate and optimise automation processes”.
Beckhoff Automation participated for the first time as an exhibitor at the fair. Bernd Stöber, Senior product manager vision, expressed his all-round satisfaction: “It was our aim to present the vision-tech sector for the first time in addition to our previous vision software solutions also with the new hardware products and thus an integrated, control-synchronised all-inclusive package. What event would be better suited for this than VISION. Our extended portfolio allowed us to generate a large number of new contacts, After the in-depth talks at VISION, the visitors now perceive Beckhoff as a single source provider for vision solutions. This confirms our intention to exhibit again in 2024”.
VISION Award 2022 goes to Kitov.ai
Kitov.ai also participated for the first time. As a newcomer to the fair, the Israeli company directly won the VISION Award 2022 for its CAD2SCAN software that significantly simplifies the structure of robotic inspection systems through the use of CAD-based automated inspection planning. “Winning the VISION Award 2022 allows us to continue the development of this technology and to optimise the KI. This makes it easier for manufacturers to introduce automated visual inspection. We are incredibly grateful for having been given this opportunity to address a wider trade audience. There is no greater appreciation for our work. I can only recommend any company to submit their machine vision and AI innovations to the VISION Award.”, said Corey Merchant, Vice President Americas at Kitov.ai.
VISION Startup World on track for growth
One indication of the sector’s innovative power is also the VISION Start-up World at which a total of 20 young companies were able to present themselves. Within the scope of the daily start-up pitch sessions, a Start-Up of the Day was chosen on each day, and on the last day of the fair, Visometry from Farmstead, Germany, emerged as the VISION Start-up 2022. The company convinced the jury with its “Digital Twin” approach for the detection and tracing of components based on their 3D CAD files. This allows quality engineers to carry out a target/actual analysis to detect production errors at an early stage of the assembly process.
For anyone who was not able to attend the fair in person, VISION offered a live stream and videos on demand of the entire lecture programme of the Industrial VISION Days. The viewers of the live stream came from 18 countries. This once again highlighted the international significance of VISION.
Standards as the basis for growth
Internationally uniform standards are considered to be the basis for the acceptance of machine vision technology among the most diverse client industries. This is also emphasized by the European Machine Vision Association EMVA. “As the leading European sector association, we have once again sponsored the ’International Vision Standards’ stand to introduce the trade visitors of VISION to the standards that are required for the continued growth of the machine vision sector. VISION remains the world’s most significant trade fair for machine vision. The many new companies and technologies present at the fair vividly confirmed this and supported the performance capacity and great vivacity of the sector. We are currently entering a new macro-economic environment and are confident that machine vision is excellently set up to continue to provide long-term added value for our users”, summarised Dr Chris Yates.
Dr Dietmar Ley, CEO Basler AG, shares this belief: “Currently the sector is subjected to powerful market dynamics. Past experience shows that decreased demand usually did not exceed 18 months. We are expecting the market to recover in 2024 and the situation of the material markets of electronic components to improve within the course of 2023”.
The next VISION will take place from 8 to 10 October 2024.
