What is Computer Vision?
Computer Vision is the field of AI that teaches computers to understand and interpret visual information from the world: photos, videos, and real-time camera feeds.
What Computer Vision Does
Humans look at a photo and instantly understand what is in it. A dog, a park, a sunny day. Computer vision gives machines a similar ability.
Computer vision tasks include:
- Image classification: what is in this image? (cat, dog, car, person)
- Object detection: where are specific objects in this image? (draw boxes around each car)
- Face recognition: whose face is this?
- Image segmentation: identify the exact pixels belonging to each object
- Optical character recognition (OCR): extract text from images
Deep Learning ⊂ Machine Learning ⊂ Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision in Everyday Life
- Face unlock: your phone's camera identifies your face and unlocks the screen
- Google Photos: automatically groups photos by person, place, and object
- Self-driving cars: cameras detect pedestrians, other vehicles, traffic lights, and road markings
- Medical imaging: AI analyzes X-rays, MRI scans, and retina photos to assist diagnosis
- Manufacturing: cameras inspect products on assembly lines for defects
- Security cameras: detect unusual activity or specific individuals
- Augmented reality: apps like Snapchat filters detect your face and add effects in real time
Tip
Tip
Computer vision is one of the most commercially successful areas of AI. If you want to specialize in AI, computer vision is a great choice because it has strong demand across healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, security, and consumer apps.
Key Takeaways
- Computer Vision is the field of AI that teaches computers to understand and interpret visual information from the world: photos, videos, and real-time camera feeds.
- Face unlock: your phone's camera identifies your face and unlocks the screen
- Google Photos: automatically groups photos by person, place, and object
- Self-driving cars: cameras detect pedestrians, other vehicles, traffic lights, and road markings