Human-Centric Machine Vision

Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imagingbased automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance in industry. Machine vision is the ability of a computer to "see." A machine-vision system employs one or more video cameras, analog-to-digital conversion, and digital signal processing. The resulting data goes to a computer or robot controller. Machine vision is similar in complexity to voice recognition. The scope of machine vision is broad. It is related to, though distinct from, computer vision. Machine vision methods are defined as both the process of defining and creating an MV solution, and as the technical process that occurs during the operation of the solution. Recently, the algorithms for the processing of the visual information have greatly evolved, providing efficient and effective solutions to cope with the variability and the complexity of real-world environments. These achievements yield to the development of Machine Vision systems that overwhelmed the distinctive industrial solicitations, where the environments are controlled and the tasks are very precise, towards the use of state-of-the-art solutions to face with everyday desires of people. This book entitled Human-Centric Machine Vision can help to solve the problems raised by the needs of our society, e.g. security and safety, health care, medical imaging, and human machine interface. In such solicitations it is required to handle changing, impulsive and multifaceted situations, and to deal with the presence of humans.