With 11,106 professional visitors and an increase of 14 percentage points compared to the previous event, VISION 2018 sets a new visitor record. The proportion of visitors who came to VISION Stuttgart from abroad rose to a record 47 percent. „VISION is the world’s leading trade fair in the sector and was the pulse for machine vision for three days. In particular, the quality of the discussions and the great visitor interest in concrete solutions are impressive”, says Dr. Klaus-Henning Noffz, CEO of Silicon Software GmbH and President of the VDMA Machine Vision sector group. Visitors to the 28th VISION are also convinced of the world's leading trade fair: In the visitor survey, 98 percent of visitors expressed the opinion that the significance of VISION will continue to increase in the future (60 percent) or remain consistently high (38 percent). "Machine vision technology has long since established itself as the 'eye' and data supplier for Industry 4.0 and countless non-industrial application areas. The innovative strength and dynamism of the industry are promising, so we are already excited to see what VISION 2020 has in store from 10 to 12 November," Dr. Noffz continues.

New players and technology approaches make the dynamics of the industry tangible

Deep Learning solution provider Adaptive Vision represented one of these megatrends shown at VISION 2018. According to General Manager Michał Czardybon, the Deep Learning technology is about to make a huge impact in the machine vision industry. “Visitors coming to our booth can see live demos that demonstrate that this technology is ready to use right away. Our product has already been proved in numerous applications this year and we are proud to present its maturity here in Stuttgart. The most important thing connected to industrial applications of Deep Learning is that through simple training we are removing the huge amount of effort and expertise that was required in traditional vision systems to create solutions for difficult applications. Instead of weeks or even months of crafting of algorithms we replace this by simple training of the system.” Michał Czardybon believes that as a direct impact of the technology machine vision industry will experience a huge extension of applications that are made possible by Deep Learning. “Deep Learning is already being used in surface and quality inspection applications, where time requirements are moderate. Currently the most attractive are difficult applications for which until now there were no good traditional solutions.”

Hyperspectral Imaging was another trend at VISION 2018. Tapio Kallonen, CEO of Specim in Finland, describes the evolution of this technology: “Until now, the problem in applying Hyperspectral Imaging has been than it can only give a raw data output which doesn’t give a solution to any industrial player yet. The goal of Specim is to make Hyperspectral Imaging easy. We want to remove the barriers and need of special expertise required to apply Hyperspectral Imaging in an industrial environment. Our history is in remote sensing and environmental monitoring with that expertise in the last years we invested heavily in the industrial use of robust cameras.” He states that their hyperspectral solutions already give added value for clients in the food, waste and recycling industries by improving accuracy and liability in detection of defects and parts. VISION 2018 was a success for Specim and he gives his personal testimonial for the future of this trade show: “We’ve had many interesting visitors at our stand here at VISION 2018. A lot of them came with their samples in their pocket. That was very exciting as we were able to directly check how Hyperspectral Imaging can help them through testing right at our booth. This alone was justification enough to be here in Stuttgart.”

First time exhibitor Inspekto took the VISION 2018 slogan BE VISIONARY literally and was overwhelmed by the interest visitors showed: ‘‘VISION 2018 has been a revelation. Inspekto launched the world’s first ever Autonomous Machine Vision product at the show and the reception has been incredible. Our stand was inundated by interested customers for our Plug and Inspect product Inspekto S70,’’ said Harel Boren, CEO of Inspekto. “The historic approach, using an integrator to go through the lengthy and complex selection of cameras, lenses, lighting and software can take months – our system can be installed in 30 minutes. This affordability and immediacy means that QA managers can install the product at several points on their production line, avoiding unnecessary scrap and making savings on their bottom line. We call this Total QA and it has been hugely popular at VISION 2018’’.

Michael Engel, Managing Director of Vision Components, draws a consistently positive balance for the fair: "For us at Vision Components, VISION as the industry highlight is the ideal opportunity to meet our customers and partners and present our new developments. More than 20 years ago, we were one of the first exhibitors to offer smart cameras at VISION. We have consistently continued this "embedded" concept and this year presented our brand-new MIPI camera modules". For Michael Engel, the new record figures for VISION 2018 confirm the increasing importance of machine vision technology. "As someone who has been with VISION since its beginnings, I am overwhelmed by this year's numbers of exhibitors and visitors. They show that machine vision has long since developed from a niche technology to an established and powerful sector. I was once again delighted to be an exhibitor at VISION 2018 and a member of the VISION Award jury".

Matchmaking initiative Business Beyond Borders successful at VISION

The 2018 edition of VISION was also chosen to host the 10th matchmaking event of the “Business Beyond Borders” (BBB) initiative founded by the European Commission. BBB helps to find international business partners and explore new markets during trade shows. “With 247 companies from 35 countries taking part in more than 500 business meetings during the three show days, the Business Beyond Borders matchmaking event at VISION 2018 was a real success, says Barbara Weizäcker, Secretary-General of EMECA. “The key factors were the quality and internationality of the participating companies which lead to high level encounters including prospective collaboration in many cases. Besides the efficient matchmaking system I would like to highlight the outstanding collaboration with Messe Stuttgart which made the 10th BBB event at VISION 2018 in Stuttgart so successful!”