Q+A CENTER

This discussion has been edited to meet space requirements. A full Webcast can be accessed via the Advanced Imaging website (http://www.advanced imagingpro.com/ article/article.jsp? siteSection=8&id =2727) or directly at the Rochester Institute of Technology (http://blade.rit.edu/ imaging/ICIS-Webb.asx).

Recently, Advanced Imaging helped organize a panel discussion on “The Future of Imaging,” as part of the International Congress for Imaging Science held at the Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, N.Y.). The discussion, held on May 10, 2006, featured panelists that represented a range of imaging core technologies with familiarity in a variety of specific markets. The panelists included:

• Bruce Tannenbaum, marketing manager, Image Processing and Geospatial Applications, The MathWorks, Inc. (Natick, Mass.). The MathWorks develops software for engineers and scientists including a wide range of products for imaging applications.
• Dr. Scott Kittelberger, CTO, Volpi USA (Auburn, N.Y.). Volpi builds, designs and develops optical electronic devices fiber optic devices including industrial illumination systems for machine vision.
• Dave Nichols, PhD., manager, CCD Commercialization, Image Sensor Solutions, Eastman Kodak (Rochester, N.Y.). This group at Kodak develops image sensors that are then used in digital cameras, digital still cameras, machine vision, microscopy, scientific and medical imaging systems among others.
• Wallace Latimer, senior director of sales, Edmund Optics Inc. (Barrington, N.J.) Edmund Optics is a BTB seller of optical components, specializing primarily in the imaging sector with both manufacturing and distribution channels.

The questions focused on both highly tangible short-term developments as well as some long-term speculation on just how far imaging could go as technology marches onward. Advanced Imaging Editor-in-Chief Keith Reid moderated the discussion.

AI: Can you each address, in your independent areas of focus, the more exciting areas of technological development that are coming into place within the next five years?

Kittelberger: I’d like to make my comments about technologies that are here right now. Hot technologies that have changed my field of focus in the past several years. It wasn’t too long ago that when one wanted to create light to use in some way, you had a choice of four or five different ways that you could do that like tungsten halogen technology or various forms of arc technology—xenon and metal halide.