Machine Vision Lighting Inc.’s variable irradiation solid angle (VISA) illumination technique has won the Vision Award 2016, handed out at the Vision 2016 trade show in Stuttgart, Germany. VISA creates identical irradiation on an object’s surface at every single point, no matter its distance from the light source. This technique is particularly useful for machine reading of 3D features on shiny surfaces, like metal, where strong reflections and shadowing present technical difficulties. Machine Vision Lighting CEO Shigeki Masumura said that the LED-based technique is able to control the optical axis and the shape of the irradiation solid angle produced by a red-green-blue light source. It is possible to convert the surface conditions of warped or rough surfaces that are not completely flat over the whole range of a surface into a color gradation, to precisely capture 3D information of bent metallic and shiny surfaces – something that has been difficult or impossible until now, the company claims