TECHNOLOGY
Jobs likely to develop from camera
Friday, September 12, 2008
Robert Gilliland, a computer vision engineer with Photon-X, is seen beside a three-dimensional range image of his own face. The company is developing a camera to collect spatial range imagery that can be used for identifying individual for security reasons, among other applications. Staff photo by Chris StewartImagine a camera that can read faces, making keyless entry cards unnecessary. Or a device that can read fingerprints via optic scanners from six feet away.
For Photon-X, a Huntsville, Ala.-based company, the concept is a reality, and company leaders are talking about making these kinds of devices in Dayton.
"We are actually hoping to set up a manufacturing facility there," Blair Barbour, Photon-X founder and president, said this week.
Barbour projects having 140 employees in Dayton in the "next few years."
Today, the company has about 23 employees total, include four in Dayton at the Second Street offices of IDCAST — the University of Dayton-led Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology.
Barbour said he sees adding four or five more workers in Dayton in the next year before beginning what he calls the "ramp-up" of manufacturing work in following years. He said he has not selected a manufacturing site yet, but he imagined it will be close to IDCAST.
Today, the U.S. Air Force is the company's single biggest customer, which is another reason why Dayton — home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — is an attractive place, Barbour said.
The company says it has made "spatial-phase video cameras" that extract detailed three-dimensional information. Larrell Walters, director of IDCAST, said he has seen and used a Photon-X device that recognizes faces even when the faces are hidden by beards and hats.
Barbour said the technology is already in the "proof-of-concept" stage.
"We've proven it, we've shown it, we've demonstrated it," Barbour said.
The next step: turning "proof" into a product, he said. The Dayton site would produce optical components and electrical devices, Barbour said.
Walters said IDCAST, which was formed in December 2006, helps companies like Photon-X bring sensors to market. The organization has $6.8 million set aside to assist with commercialization of sensor devices. Photon-X received an initial $200,000 from IDCAST, he said.
"They blew our socks off," Walters said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
