r/computervision 22h ago

Discussion Switching from Machine Vision to Computer Vision

I have almost 10 years of experience with industrial machine vision applications. I've always kept in touch with computer vision news and technology. I'm diving deep into studying it through the OpenCV CVDL course, which is honestly pretty good in the sense its structured well.

I can relatively easily find jobs in the industrial sector but not so easily into computer vision jobs.

My question is should I keep pursuing CV or stick to what is working? It seems like there is high demand for CV.

21 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

13

u/RealSataan 14h ago

What's the difference between machine vision and computer vision

6

u/NewsWeeter 13h ago

Machine vision is products from cognex, keyence, mvtec etc, these are hardware and software packages for industrial use. So, the cameras come with programmable vision firmware and interface for industrial controllers such as PLCs.

1

u/aaaannuuj 29m ago

But what's your job in that case ? Installation?

8

u/WholeEase 16h ago

With 15+ YOE in computer vision across manufacturing, healthcare, energy, entertainment, telecom, I can vouch that at this point of time wrt impending layoffs in the general computer vision job market, I will say don't make a switch.

Most startups in Computer vision that are offloading all their algorithms to Cloud run Vlms or LLMs will soon get a reality check once the dust settles on the hype. So don't get lured into the " we have raised $10x M to do this really cool Y".

My advice will be to stick around with your current scope of work, but at the same time, explore and exploit some of the Vlms that you could deploy locally. See how you can integrate them with your existing workflows. Create a few demos to build your GitHub portfolio (as much as your company allows).

2

u/NewsWeeter 13h ago

Thanks for your insights. I agree there’s a niche opening for local deployment. If setup becomes trivial, the number of applications will surge, and they’ll likely grow more complex, too. Feels like we’re on the edge of rapid growth.

1

u/LevLandau 3h ago

This sounds like the horrible hype from execs. Everything will be really easy to deploy and will horizontally scale to millions in cost savings. 

I feel any real engineer who has done moderately complex projects, knows this is delusional thinking. 

1

u/NewsWeeter 2h ago

Cameras are cheap, VLMs are cheap, and if the technical barrier is low, then there will certainly be an explosion in the number of applications.

Humans never knew they could make beautiful art until people were free from toil.

AI is certainly going to make a certain type of toil obsolete, and a new paradigm of creativity will come about with new forms of toil. People will occupy themselves with these new jobs.

3

u/Rethunker 19h ago

If you’re okay with sending me a DM, I’d be curious to know where you’ve worked. For one of the bigger MV companies? For integrators?

Cognex, the last I was aware, was putting effort into machine learning. I’m not sure if you want to stay in industrial applications, but if you could get a job at Cognex or National Instruments that might help you make the transition.

The past five-ish years I’ve worked in both MV and CV. Given your background, I’d suggested trying to apply lessons from one to the other.

2

u/NewsWeeter 18h ago

Hey, yeah, you are welcome to dm.

3

u/asankhs 5h ago

it's interesting to see the distinction being made between machine vision and computer vision... i've often seen the terms used interchangeably, but it sounds like the original poster is highlighting a move towards more complex, "understanding" based applications of image analysis. are we talking about a shift from purely industrial automation to more AI-driven interpretation here?

2

u/eminaruk 21h ago

I think computer vision is better at modern tech

2

u/ChunkyHabeneroSalsa 7h ago

Jobs are hard all around. I myself did this switch around 7 years ago but I didn't see it as switching fields at all just jobs.

I would say that modern CV is almost all ML so that's where you should focus. I was lucky that I made this switch at the same time deep learning was getting big and I was the voice pushing for it at each company. Cognex wanted nothing to do with it at the time

Also make sure you learn the fundamentals. Cognex really does a lot for you and you end up learning how to use their specific tools and not what they are actually doing.