MVTec Software celebrates its 25th anniversary

The Munich-based machine vision software manufacturer MVTec Software is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The company is known for its image processing software packages "Halcon" and "Merlic".

MVTec was founded in 1996 as a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich and the Bavarian Research Centre for Knowledge-based Systems (FORWISS). The company's software portfolio consists of the comprehensive machine vision standard software Halcon, the easy-to-use software Merlic for the fast and intuitive creation of entire image processing applications, and a deep learning tool for the simple labelling of image data. The products are used worldwide in a wide variety of image processing applications and include both modern AI technologies such as Deep Learning as well as classic image processing algorithms. The further development of the products is supported by the company's own research department. The results obtained there are continuously incorporated into products and innovations.

MVTec considers the economic framework conditions for its anniversary year to be fundamentally positive. "Although we see certain obstacles to growth with the still strained supply chains and high energy prices, we nevertheless expect further growth in the machine vision industry overall," explains Dr. Olaf Munkelt, managing director and one of the three founders of the company. "The Corona pandemic has made companies even more aware of the need to invest sustainably in automation and digitalisation. Machine Vision is benefiting from this as the eye of production." This is also reflected in the company's goals.

On the one hand, internationalisation is to be further strengthened. In addition to the already existing subsidiaries in the USA and China, MVTec plans to further expand its involvement in important markets such as France or Taiwan. "By strengthening our on-site presence, we can serve our customers even better together with our sales partners," says Martin Krumey, Vice President Sales at MVTec. "In addition, this allows us to grasp the respective market conditions even faster and to optimally respond to the needs of the customers on site. In addition to strengthening our own presences, the optimisation of our worldwide partner networks also plays a decisive role here."

On the other hand, the company's commitment to industry standards is also to continue to play a very important role. "Globally uniform standards are an important key to the end-to-end automation of production chains within the framework of Industry 4.0," Munkelt emphasises. "They enable the efficient, seamless integration of all technologies that accompany automation, such as machine vision."