You are driving a car and mistakenly, you have jumped a traffic signal and your penalty is automatically issued by the cameras installed on the traffic signals for jumping the signal. Have you ever thought about how all this happened? These were all done with the help of computer vision, which captures your car or vehicle picture, detects your number plate and issues a penalty for the mistake. Have you ever seen automatic cars, such as Tesla, that can be operated automatically? This is the best example of computer vision.
What is computer vision?
So computer vision is a technology that helps in identifying and detecting objects in the real world and can be implemented in real-life applications. The technology of computer vision is widely used in healthcare, military, defense, manufacturing, etc. The future of computer vision is increasing day by day. In this article, we will see how to become a computer vision engineer and what are the tools and eligibility requirements to become a computer vision engineer?
Who is a computer vision engineer?
A computer vision engineer is an expert who has a deep understanding of machine learning algorithms and neural networks that simulate human-like vision. The responsibility of a computer vision engineer is to develop and automate computer vision models that make work and life easier. Computer vision engineers develop and test computer vision algorithms that can be used for solving real-life problems and applications. The domain of computer vision is growing day by day and the difference between a computer scientist and a computer vision engineer is getting thinner. Computer scientists work in research labs, spending time on deep learning algorithms and state-of-the art architecture. Computer vision engineers have to do both these roles together at times. The computer vision engineer scour the internet to find new research papers and updating techniques to apply the techniques to the application.
What does a computer vision engineer do?
Computer vision engineers are adept at integrating artificial intelligence across diverse applications. They leverage computer vision extensively in various domains:
- Enhancing Images: Computers utilize AI to sharpen and enhance blurred images effectively.
- Image Search: Leading search engines like Google employ computer vision to enable users to search for images instead of text, recognizing and retrieving similar images from vast databases.
- Content Moderation: Social media platforms rely on computer vision tools to sift through vast amounts of visual data, ensuring compliance with content policies by identifying and flagging inappropriate content.
- Facial Recognition: From social media platforms to security systems and law enforcement agencies, facial recognition powered by computer vision is used for user authentication, identification, and surveillance purposes.
- Autonomous Vehicles: Computer vision plays a crucial role in self-driving cars, enabling them to identify and navigate around obstacles on roads, ensuring safe and efficient autonomous driving.
Computer vision engineers undertake a range of tasks to develop, deploy, and maintain these systems:
- Design, test, and deploy computer vision algorithms and hardware tailored to diverse environments.
- Develop automated vision algorithms, especially for applications involving robotics and autonomous systems.
- Analyze and optimize analytics from computer vision algorithms to enhance their efficiency and performance.
- Innovate and propose practical solutions to real-world problems through creative problem-solving.
- Create technical documentation to facilitate end-users’ understanding of computer vision systems and their functionalities.
- Manage projects of varying scales, defining requirements, allocating budgets, and overseeing technical development teams.
What Education Does a Computer Vision Engineer Need?
To become a computer vision engineer, one need to have solid understanding of computer science, mathematics specially in statistics and probability, and machine learning. Here are some educational path to become a computer vision engineer:
- Bachelor’s Degree: To become a computer vision engineer one should have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, electrical engineering also one should have proficiency in data structures and algorithms, proper knowledge of calculus, linear algebra and statistics.
- Advanced Mathematics: There are many mathematical concepts that a computer vision task involves specially linear algebra, calculus, probability and statistics and one should have a proper understanding of these concepts.
- Deep Learning and Machine Learning concepts: To become a computer vision engineer one should have a good knowledge of machine learning and deep learning. Convolutional neural networks are the main foundation of computer vision and have a experience with machine learning frameworks that are very popular such as TensorFlow or PyTorch.
What are Skills Required to Become a Computer Vision Engineer?
Computer vision engineers are responsible for creating and developing computer vision algorithms that can be used for detecting objects, tracking the objects at real time and segmenting the images. Let’s see what are the skills required to get computer vision engineer job or to become a computer vision engineer.
- Proficiency in computer science concepts and machine learning libraries such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, MatLab, Point Cloud Library, and OpenCV.
- Analytical skills for handling large datasets, crunching numbers, and extracting insights.
- Problem-solving abilities to tackle novel challenges by breaking them down into manageable components.
- Effective communication skills for collaboration with teams and stakeholders, including the ability to understand client requirements and convey project progress.
How much does a computer vision engineer make?
According to glassdoor, the average salary of computer vision engineer in India is around 7 Lakhs, and the average compensation for computer vision engineer in the India is around 1 lakh. The salary of a computer vision engineer depends on various factors such as location, level of experience, education, the industry and the size of the company. Due to the special skill and expertise in the computer vision fields the salary of computer vision expert is high.
Image Processing Tools and Methods:
As a computer vision engineer, one should know about the tools and methods required to develop the computer vision algorithms that is used for object detection, object tracking at real time, edge detection. Different tools and methods are discussed as:
- TensorFlow: TensorFlow is a Python’s open source library, that is used for training and developing neural networks. TensorFlow was developed by Google Brain Team in 2015.
- YOLO: YOLO stands for you only look once, is a state of art computer vision algorithm that is used for real time object detection with the help of convolutional networks.
- OpenCV: OpenCV is python library is used for solving computer vision task.
- Keras: Keras is an open source Python library that is used for implementing deep learning algorithms.
- DeepFace: DeepFace is deep learning platform developed by Facebook in 2014 that is used for identifying images in Python.
Conclusion:
As the things are automated day by day, and the automatic machines are installed to do the task. The demand of computer vision engineer is increasing day by day. With the good understanding of computer vision algorithms one can become a computer vision engineer.