philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Computer Vision – Seeing is believing, but vision isn’t video

...  I know, of course, what an engineer would explain: “vision” technology often requires a host of algorithms that enable a machine or computer to detect, classify, and track objects. Meanwhile, “video” involves software and hardware primarily designed to process video by filtering, pre- and post-processing, encoding and decoding (for the purpose of transmission, broadcasting or packaging), and ultimately displaying good moving pictures on a screen.  ...

Recent technology advancements allow a system’s ability to “see” much more effectively. Further, embedded vision will be ubiquitous. “Vision” can go into cars, game consoles, smartphones, homes, street cameras, the Mars Rover —you name it.

As Tannenbaum put it, computer vision is all about “recognizing” an object (and its action), and “interpreting” it. 

Computer vision, however, is a relatively new field. Tannenbaum said that textbooks and conferences built around computer vision have only begun popping up in the last 10 years.  ...

“Machine vision is about seeing things under a controlled environment.” Computer vision is about applying vision under real-world conditions. ...

“Real-world scenes are complex.” It involves variable lighting conditions, background clutter, partially hidden objects, unknown scene depth and differences in object scale, location, and orientation. The list goes on. As a result, computer vision requires far more diversified detection algorithms and more complex computation. ...

See the full story here: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4371721/Seeing-is-believing--but-vision-isn-t-video