Fifteen major technology companies are getting together to create an alliance with the goal of promoting technologies and interfaces from machines that use visual input.

Inspired by advances such as Microsoft’s Kinect motion-sensing system for the Xbox 360 video game console, the Embedded Vision Alliance is aimed at empowering engineers with practical information for adding computer-vision capabilities to their products.

The alliance is aimed at creating “embedded vision,” or the ability to adopt computer vision in electronic products without a lot of hassle or cost. Jeff Bier, president of Oakland, Calif.-based consulting firm BDTI and a co-creator of the alliance, said in an interview that the ability for machines to see and understand their environments promises to change the electronics industry. If successful, the alliance could create significant new markets for chips and other electronic components.

“Just look at Kinect, which became the fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history,” Bier said. “That’s just a small part of the story. From automobiles that prevent accidents to security cameras that prevent crimes, embedded vision will proliferate across a multitude of markets.”

Bier started the alliance with Xilinx and IMS Research. Members of the alliance include Analog Devices, Apical, Avnet Electronics Marketing, Ceva, CogniVue, Freescale, MathWorks, National Instruments, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Tokyo Electron Device, Ximea, and Xmos.

One of the goals is to create standards for the industry. Bier believes that machine vision can bring lots of benefits in consumer, medical, automotive, entertainment, industrial and retail markets.

Curiously, Microsoft is not one of the companies participating in the group, even though it has made a lot of headway with machine vision through its Kinect system.

The alliance is launching its web site today at www.embedded-vision.com. The site will provide practical information to help design engineers incorporate vision in their systems.

Overall, hundreds of companies are building components for vision technology. That ranges from chips scu as sensors, converters, digital signal processors, analog video components and all sorts of other technologies. All of that has to be coordinated in some fashion.

Many of the current technologies are based on designs that can be used in large stand-alone vision projects, but embedded devices require custom chips that are both low-cost and easy to program.

Besides Kinect, other good examples of machine vision are the rear-view mirror cameras for cars that show a driver what’s behind them when they’re backing up. Those systems can recognize safety hazards and alert drivers to a problem.

Another vision technology has come from Affectiva, which can watch a human face and discern the emotional state of that person.

“We want to enable the proliferation of this technology,” Bier said.