Machine Vision Technology for the Forest Products Industry

The authors have approximately 25 years experience in developing machine vision technology for the forest products industry. Based on this experience this paper will attempt to realistically predict what the future holds for this technology. In particular, this paper will attempt to describe some of the benefits this technology will offer, describe how the technology will probably evolve over the short term of three to five years, and address the issues that must be considered when one thinks of incorporating this technology in a plant. The paper will concentrate on the hardwood forest products industry since the automatic defect detection and identification in hardwoods is a more difficult problem than performing the same functions on softwoods. However, much of the discussion will be applicable to both industries. A purpose of this paper is to have this new, infant machine vision technology for the forest products industry avoid the typical "boombust" cycle that many technologies experience when they are first introduced.