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1986
Company founded by
Dr Hermann Tropf -
1986
First Logo VisionTools
Bildanalyse Software GmbH
St. Leon-Rot -
1986
Introduction of the
Image processing software
Vision-Verify -
1987
Company in the living room
Blumenstraße, St. Leon-Rot -
1988
First system for embossed
character recognition in the
ger. automotive industry (BMW) -
1989
Move to a former cheroot
factory in St. Leon-Rot -
1990
Frame grabber VT-256
First VT image memory -
1991
Industrial camera K100-i
First VT camera -
1993
Ampoule control at
Sandoz (today Novartis) -
1996
First smart camera
“SlyCam I” -
1998
Introduction VisionTools V60
Image analysis software
for Windows 95 -
1998
The staff in
St. Leon-Rot -
1998
Assembly of complete inspection
cells in confined spaces. As a
result the move to Waghäusel -
1998
New company building
Goethestraße 63
in Waghäusel-Kirrlach -
1999
Introduction VT SlyBox-I
12” Touch Panel PC
with integrated V60 -
1999
Introduction VT FlexCam
Pan-tilt colour camera
with zoom -
2001
Introduction Slycam II
with integrated lighting -
2003
First projects with XC-ST50/51,
Number of units until now
approx. 12,000 -
2004
Foundation of the branch
“VT-South” in Karlsfeld
near Munich -
2005
Certification according to
DIN ISO 9001:2005 -
2005
Company premises
expanded by new building
Goethestraße 65 -
2006
More than 1,000 licences of
VisionTools V60 in use -
2006
Introduction QIS – 3D height
images via quotient
image stereo method -
2007
3D image processing for
Precision measuring
Source: HMP-tec -
2008
Introduction Cyclospotter I
In-process adhesive bead
control during application -
2008
“Bin picking” project
Handling of roof frames
at Daimler AG -
2008
Introduction Camera
with Gig-E Vision -
2009
CADaVision research project
Simulation of image acquisition
on the basis of CAD models -
2009
Introduction Module lights
in various lengths with
efficient LED technology -
2010
Management expanded
with Alexander Tropf -
2010
Re-designed company logo
-
2010
Introduction TOPOchecker
3D sensor -
2012
Foundation of the branch
“VT East” in Leipzig -
2012
Management expanded
with Josef Djulic -
2013
Premises expanded by
new production hall
Goethestraße 63 -
2013
Quality gate with mobile
camera on lightweight robot -
2013
Introduction Cyclospotter II
In-Process adhesive bead
control during application -
2014
Introduction VoE concept
Vision over Ethernet –
Decentralised hardware -
2014
Introduction Robocam
Zoom camera with lighting
for robot inspection systems -
2015
First HRC inspection stations
Image processing with
Human-Robot Collaboration -
2017
First projects with thermal
imaging technology,
supported by V60 -
2017-2018
Rob-LPI research project
CAD-based planning of robot-
guided camera systems -
2018
Foundation of VisionTools
Service Corporation in
Greenville, SC, USA -
2019
Move to the new
company building in
Waghäusel-Wiesental -
2019
Commissioning of the new,
automated storage system -
2019
Extension of the
interface diversity in V60
with OPC-UA -
2020
2nd generation VoE
Completely revised
hardware with 10 GBit -
2021
Introduction Cyclospotter-T
Adhesive bead control with
thermal imaging -
2021
Introduction VoE AI Box
Multicore GPU Hardware
for AI-based evaluation -
2022
Online service for AI-Training
and TISAX certified storage
of labelled image data -
2023
3D adhesive bead inspection /
3D line evaluation -
2024
Further innovative products
for image processing
and training with AI
35 years VisionTools – how it all began
After 12 years as a scientific employee at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, several of them as a group leader, Dr. Hermann Tropf founded the company VisionTools in 1986 – initially as a one-man business in his private rooms. Today, VisionTools employs about 90 people at its Waghäusel location and in its branch offices; its systems are in use worldwide.
Dr. Tropf on his decision to start his own business in 1986:
I saw the possibilities to solve three of the main problems of machine vision at that time and to found a company with good development potential on this basis, without too much investment.
1st – Every application was still specially programmed at that time. I was able to remedy this by breaking down frequently occurring tasks into a few basic functions and providing tools for compiling and parameterising the basic functions – that was my essential contribution. That’s why I gave the company the name Vision Tools. Years later, the buzzword “configuring instead of programming” came into general use.
2nd – As far as computing time was concerned, the secret was in limiting the tasks to those where the regions to be evaluated were small and easy to localise. There were plenty of such tasks in industry, and they still exist today.
3rd – Until the 1980s, the systems worked with special hardware and therefore cost at least 100,000 DM, often considerably more. But these were times of change: with the advent of (industrial) PCs and inexpensive frame grabbers, as well as the transition from CRT cameras to semiconductor cameras, there was a chance, in conjunction with the above-mentioned tools, to realise complete systems for different applications at a fraction of the previous costs.
The situation today:
Today, once again industrial image processing is in a period of upheaval. With the performance of today’s hardware and the current maturity of AI methods, the window to new shores is opening once again.
For example, we are working specifically on advanced virtual commissioning, based solely on CAD data of the workpieces and the acquisition and lighting geometry, so that on-site work can be reduced to a minimum. That way we are also tackling the issues of high numbers of variants and rapid product changes.
Back story
Long before VisionTools existed, our company founder Dr. Hermann Tropf had been scientifically involved in the field. As head of the machine vision group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing in Karlsruhe, he was one of the pioneers of industrial image processing. Theoretical work was awarded prizes (IEEE Computer Society Pattern Recognition Award 1980, German Association for Pattern Recognition extra award 1987), pioneering practical applications successfully ran over the long term at VW, Ford and Siemens. Details (in German)
A fundamental work on multidimensional range search in mass data found its way into diverse technical applications and into today commercial big data systems. Details with history, applications. For explanation of the key function (LITMAX / BIGMIN), with Pascal source code, see here.