Current issues in computer vision

The goal of computer vision is to derive descriptive information about a scene by computer analysis of images of the scene. Vision algorithms can often serve as computational models for biological visual processes, and they also have many practical uses; but this paper treats computer vision as a subject in its own right. Vision problems are often ill-defined, ill-posed, or computationally intractable; nevertheless, successes have been achieved in many specific areas - document processing and industrial inspection, for example. We suggest that by limiting the domain of application, carefully choosing the task, using redundant data (multi-sensor, multi-frame), and applying adequate computing power, useful solutions to many vision problems can be obtained. Methods of designing such solutions are the subject of the emerging discipline of vision engineering. With projected advances in sensor and computing technologies, the domains of applicability and ranges of problems that can be solved will gradually expand.