General

• CVonline: The Evolving, Distributed, Non-Proprietary, On-Line Compendium of Computer Vision

System Design

• Machine Vision Application Requirements Check List
• Technical Tips

• ALIS 600 is a sophisticated multi-function lighting system, which provides a variety of illumination devices, mounted inside a light-proof cabinet. The lights are operated from regulated power supplies and can be switched by a computer.
• Micro-ALIS [ALIS] is an experimental tool-kit consisting of a set of useful illumination, optical and fibre-optic devices. In addition, there is a set of versatile mechanical fixtures for holding lamps, optical devices and samples.
• Illumination technologies
• Lighting and Lens Solutions for Machine Vision and Microscopy

• Sigma 2100 [KID] is a program for designing optical systems from simple objectives to complex multi-configuration systems, including zoom lenses, switchers, multi-channel lenses, multi-waveband lenses and scanners.
•  KDP is a general-purpose optical design and analysis program. It has provisions for modelling ray-tracing and optimising a wide variety of types of optical systems. It has an extensive optical analysis capability which is enhanced by a semi-compiled macro programming language. KDP is free and runs on a PC. (KDP, Optical Design Software, Engineering Calculations, 1377 East Windsor Road, #317 Glendale, CA 91205, USA. Available via WWW: www.kdpoptics.com.)
•  TracePro is a ray-tracing program for optical analysis. It accounts for optical flux as it propagates through a solid model, defined in terms of geometric objects, such as spheres, elliptical and conical cylinders and cones, blocks and tori. TracePro can calculate absorption, specular reflection, refraction, scattering and aperture diffraction effects. (TracePro, Optical Systems Analysis Program, Lambda Research Corp., PO Box 1400, Littelton, MA 01460-4400, USA.)
•  Optica has a large collection of data relating to lenses, mirrors, prisms, gratings. It provides a full range of geometric ray-tracing functions for designing optical systems and components. It is a based on Mathematica. (Optica, Optical Design Software, Wolfram Research Inc., 100 Trade Centre Drive, Champaign, IL 61820-7237, USA.)
•  Zemax is an optical design program.
• OPTICAD provides optical layout and analysis software. (OptiCAD and Zemax, Optical Design Software, Focus Software, PO Box 18228,Tucson, AZ 85731-8228, USA.)
• Lens Selector Program. Optimum Vision Ltd., Unit 3a, Penns Road, Petersfield, GU32 2EW, UK.
•  LensVIEW is a compilation of lens design data on CD-ROM.
•  Machine Vision Lens Selector [MVA] is a slide rule and performs basic lens design calculations.
• Camera Calculator [SNY-92] is a Macintosh desk-accessory. It solves the standard lens formulae, given any sufficient sub-set of variables. It allows the user to specify virtually any sub-set of known values for such features as object size, object distance, image size, image distance, magnification, depth of field, f number, image resolution, and then calculates the unknown values.

• HyperCard Lighting Advisor provides a catalogue of over 150 different lighting and viewing techniques. For each lighting-viewing technique, there are three cards: one provides notes in a fixed-format frame; another shows a sketch of the optical layout and the third card provides a sample image obtained using that lighting-viewing method. The Lighting Advisor is available on a shareware basis.
• Email : Bruce.Batchelor@cs.cf.ac.uk
• Lighting Science Database [ITI-89], Prolog Lighting Advisor [BAT-89] and Lighting Advisor Expert System [PEN-88] all provide a broadly similar function to the HyperCard Lighting Advisor.

• Opto*Sense [WHI-94] is a comprehensive database of machine vision vendors' names and addresses. It runs on a PC.

• "Success with Vision" is a set of six video tapes, describing the basic principles of machine vision system design. (Visual*Sense*Systems, 314 Meadow Wood Terrace, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.)
• On-line Training Course in Machine Vision, Automated Vision Systems, 1550 La Pradera Drive, Campbell, CA 95008-1547, USA. WWW: http://www.autovis.com/autovis/