Q&A: Basics Of Light Control For Machine Vision Applications, Part 3

Part 3 of a Q&A with Ken Zeiler, Technical Director and Senior Designer, MERCRON Inc.

When Ken Zeiler founded MERCRON Inc. in 1986 to develop light-control solutions, the machine vision field was still in its relative infancy. However, he had the perfect mix of professional and educational experiences to help him succeed in this exciting new discipline.

In the early 1980s at Mead Systems, Zeiler investigated one of the world's very first 4000-pixel CCD (charged-coupled device) chips. As a medical imaging/electronics engineer with General Electric, he came to appreciate the ramifications of the modulation transfer function, an important measure of imaging performance. He also gained a unique perspective on the precision necessary for effective and efficient machine vision lighting while working as the director of a Mil-Q-9858 quality control program with Teledyne and as an aerospace engineer with NASA's Mission Planning & Analysis Division.

Zeiler holds a bachelor's degree in physics and an MBA, along with several electronic patents in the United States and Europe. He received NASA's Superior Achievement Award for his trajectory and maneuver optimization, which was used in the successful recovery of Apollo 13.

In this Q&A, we ask Zeiler about MERCRON's beginnings and some of the challenges he faced — then and now. We also picked his brain about the fundamentals of light control in machine vision, why they're important, and what MERCRON is doing to help you better manage them.