Q+A CENTER

Software trends for imaging applications are traceable to focused specialists and larger developers who work in multiple markets. For these users, robust imaging is significant. For OEMs in particular, but for application-focused end-users too, a look ahead from these sources always has its own added significance.

SPECIALIZED SDK ROLE
Advanced Imaging: What capabilities do dedicated image analysis or vision software development kits provide that more general development software still does not? Are these capabilities likely to remain in the realm of imaging specialization or will they be taken up in general computing or application development and why?

Brian Burkhalter, Sun Microsystems: Standard image analysis and machine vision algorithms can be expected to follow the course of development of general imaging algorithms, with primitives and common operations absorbed into general-purpose software packages. Specialized packages would continue to provide more experimental and industry-specific, device-independent functionality as well as device-dependent capabilities. The latter includes utilizing hardware instruction sets such as VIS (Visual Instruction Set) on the SPARC V9 open processor architecture, interfaces to image-acquisition devices, and interaction with evolving display architectures such as those incorporating programmable shading. The device-independent capabilities would likely remain in specialized packages as long as they were considered too experimental, or did not apply across application domains. Device-dependent capabilities would remain specialized in the absence of standard protocols to enable their integration in general-purpose packages.

Marcelo Lima, Mercury Computer Systems: Quality and performance are the most significant elements that have been consistently seen as critical to the imaging process