proml

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CTO at QualySense and I am responsible for the technology scouting and for our product lines from a robotic and application point of view.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

We had a capacity bottleneck in the area of machine learning and we identified CVision lab as the right partner for our development.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We gave to CVisionLab a short well defined development task and we could assess the quality of their work. They were extremely reactive and fast in understanding our problem and they came with innovative solutions that helped us also thinking to the problem with a different perspective.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Gathering and summarizing requirements, doing Proof of Concept work and presenting the results, regular reporting, options analysis and recommendation, brainstorming new ideas for the next steps. They employed a lot of python coding and existing neural network that were then trimmed to the right architecture to guarantee performance in terms of accuracy and speed. They also setup for us an online annotation tool guiding us through the installation process on our server.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Mainly 2. A project manager and a technical lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We were able to demonstrate the accuracies that we have been looking for.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Very agile based on sprints and sprint reviews. The documentation of weekly activities is excellent and the calls are always very much targeted on the topic and kept within the allocated time.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The team had a very concrete and pragmatic approach. Excellent communication.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

So far all good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of development for a medical robotics company spread across the globe. We’re making a robot for minimally invasive procedures, including biopsies from head to toe. We’re also building a specific patient positioning product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CVisionLab?

We needed AI and software development services. We wanted our robot to support more features. An example of a feature would be allowing a user to track and recognize a tool for the robot to follow.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

CVisionLab delivered documentation, code, and data for AI training.  Their team created code to communicate with the robot and enable it to recognize tools and coordinate according to commands. We provided them with the documentation for the robot’s library and then they developed the software. We also supported the implementation of the code into the robot.   

What is the team composition?

This project involved 3–4 people from CVisionLab’s team. We worked with two software developers, one project manager, and another team member who was in charge of communication with external partners.

How did you come to work with CVisionLab?

Our CEO found them and then we had discussions with their team. They had already worked on software development projects in artificial phased approaches. That was enough for us to start working on a small project with them.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent between $20,000– $30,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them between October–December 2020. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re quite happy. We only worked on one project with them so far but plan to continue our cooperation with them later this year.

How did CVisionLab perform from a project management standpoint?

After our weekly calls, CVisionLab sent us reports with their finished tasks and their next steps. As they shared access to their Cloud, we could view all of their progress on our own. It was quite easy to follow up with them. If we had questions, we could reach out to them, and then their team immediately responded.

We had no problems with deadlines, and their team proactively solved issues. They were a super-responsive team. I can only give them a maximum grade for their project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

CVisionLab resolved critical problems and delivered on time, which isn’t always the case with service providers. Previous partners initially told us that other projects would be pieces of cake but then the projects actually took them a while.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any thoughts on how CVisionLab could improve because they did an excellent job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

At the beginning of the project, it’s important that both sides be proactive. Align on even the small details because misalignment could lead the project in a completely different direction. Establish expectations for deliverables on both sides too.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm an owner and a CEO of a company that manufactures 3D scanners and develops professional 3d scanning software with a worldwide presence and a wide partners’ network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

Our goal was to evaluate our software developers team, as well as the business processes and tools we are using. I wasn’t satisfied with the level of technical debt we already had by then.

Our team had focused on the output without paying needed attention to the architecture and documentation. We needed a review and consultation from a third party.

SOLUTION

How did you select CVisionLab and what were the deciding factors?

I met the CEO of CVisionLab at one business conference and we found a lot of common points of interest: machine vision technologies, 3d data processing and visualization. I clearly understood that CVisionLab’s engineers can help us.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

This project consisted of the following steps:

• Several initial meetups for a better understanding of our product, architecture, and technologies we used
• Interview of our teammates
• A detailed review of our code base
• Two online meetings a week regularly
• CVisionLab’s tech lead made a presentation for us with a detailed explanation of the problems and suggested solutions.
• Finally, we’ve got several well-structured documents, with a review of the code and business processes. They were very useful.
• Then our team put the tasks into Redmine.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2, a techlead and a project manager.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We’ve got well-structured documents with more than 60 A4 pages with very concentrated and useful information. Based on them, we made 25 tickets in Redmine with clearly defined tasks. Our team got a boost in development. An internal survey showed that all developers were satisfied with the result.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The techlead, who was responsible for the project, dived deeply into the project for more than 2 weeks. He was always in touch. We communicated through Google Meet and Telegram. We also used Git and other development tools.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

CVisionLab team is very familiar with technologies we use: c++, Qt, OpenGL. And as their relatively big team is focused on development of machine vision applications, their professional level is very high.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the former owner of Kompletigo Systems c.v. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with CVisionLab?

We needed an AI (artificial intelligence) software tool created.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They designed the complete system based on my requirements, using C++ and other standard technologies.
We used the data from our system to make statistical insights concerning safety. Their work ensured that cameras were able to detect and differentiate between adults and children. It could also detect if a door was opened and other forms of movement. 

What is the team composition?

There was a team of about six people: an architect, and several developers for tasks such as debugging, testing, etc.

How did you come to work with CVisionLab?

I found them through a freelance website. We started with a small project, and I was happy with what they produced, so I moved them onto this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about €100,000 (approximately $119,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from roughly March 2013–August 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

They helped quite a bit with the design and met my requirements at all times. They gave feedback, helping find the right solutions. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with them again because they exceeded my expectations.

How did CVisionLab perform from a project management standpoint?

It took a lot of communication to navigate the uncertainties of the project and figure out if the requirements could be met. They updated me weekly or biweekly, as needed.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very innovative. They used techniques that weren’t readily available at the time and built a state-of-the-art system.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can't think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would always suggest starting with a small project to see how you mesh and work together when you outsource projects.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO at a medical AI company, serving thousands of practitioners worldwide

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

We innovate the medical domain we're specialize in by automating diagnosis and treatment planning. We wanted to be the world's first to introduce and fully automated solution

SOLUTION

How did you select CVisionLab and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed a number of companies and were impressed with their professional approach, proved record and the domain expertise.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

In a pure R&D process which requires testing different approaches, we worked together on building the dataset, finding the most suitable algorithm, and testing and fine-tuning them to perfection.

They build the software libraries by our specifications, and we keep on developing and expanding their scope to new fields in our domain

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Typically there are 4-6 people involved, including project lead, project management, developers and QA

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The first product they built for us using ML gave accuracy levels higher than 93% in average, enabling us to quickly go into production with it.

Traditional computer-vision based algorithm developed before could never pass the 80% accuracy mark. The product went through an academic validation study, and is now considered to be the leader in its domain.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

A dedicated project manager helps keep everything on track, with clear visibility of the tasks, schedules, risk factors and cost.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their professional and customer-oriented approach was most impressive. One example is that their personnel keep on training for new technologies and certificates, to sat at the sear head of the industry

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Cost control might be an issue when you have a large team working on something that requires extensive research, but that also depends on the nature of the client

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell, previously Carnegie Mellon.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

We needed custom software developed in Matlab to convert 2D images to 3D objects based on shadows and shading.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We found them through online search.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

They completed the project in 2 week sprints providing intermediate progress reports along the way. Their final report and overall quality of work product were outstanding. I would gladly retain them again for a future project.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The final software product worked amazingly well and continues to be used to the present day.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

They were very organized systematic provided reports along the way.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was most impressed by their ability to research the literature and translate theoretical concepts and complicated math into a useful software algorithm.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Development Director of Serious Games International a specialist in the development of games-based applications for educational, industrial and military modelling scenarios, utilising techniques and technologies originating from the world of game development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

CVisionLab were employed to create an application for a windows based PC with webcam to recognise "flash cards" with images built in. This was paired with voiced questions using a database that collected image and audio clips. The players would listen to the audio clip and then find an appropriate card to present to the webcam.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

CVisionLab presented a confident web demos on their website. It was clear from these examples that they could develop the software I needed.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The team were entrusted with all aspects of a proof of concept. They used OpenCV an opensource technology that facilitated computer vision.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There was 1 developer and a project manager. The team also created some test assets for the software to be demonstrated.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Our project was delivered on time and on budget.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

All our communications were done online. We used mostly email and the occasional Skype call.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

At the time CVLab were the only company with practical experience in using the technology I required. They were consummate professionals.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of image editing application for desktop and mobile platforms.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

We hired CVisionLab team to tackle multiple low-level image processing tasks and Machine Learning R&D projects which were turned into successful features for our users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

In 2012 we were looking for help with image processing task at hand and were choosing from 10 contract software development companies. CVisionLab impressed with its solid R&D track and excellent proposal, the task at hand was something they had experience already.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We worked on multiple projects with CVisionLab and usually tasks we were looking to accomplish were long-term projects that needed few months of active development with open-ended milestones. After integrating finished project into our product we usually worked with our QA to refine project even further with them. And even after product launched for the end users and we collected feedback from them, CVisionLab was there to iterate and deliver better solutions based on user feedback.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

6 senior developers over the years and more developers for specialized tasks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Over the years we launched multiple new features for our products with CVisionLab which were received very well by our users. We kept going back to them to work on different new projects as their deliveries were excellent.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

CVisionLab did excellent work managing our projects, setting milestones and proposing various solutions to meet our goals of the final product. Most of the projects involved R&D stage and that was managed by CVisionLab management very well. Communication via email and sometimes video calls.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

CVisionLab's leadership is smart and technical people with a relevant academic background. And they are very easy to work with. That's rare mix.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We were happy clients of CVisionLab and I could not think of any downsides over the many years we were working with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO and lead the research and development efforts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab, and what were your goals?

We were to overcome challenges on mobile phones using the input camera to detect and analyze the surrounding and track specific objects.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We selected the vendor in 2017 based on their previous expertise and the completeness of their original offer (for a prototype). This evolved into a much larger framework with a lot of libraries being created.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

CVisionLab worked with us in many areas, mainly OpenCV, C++ and Python, Google Cloud Platform, and Unity.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with all levels of people from their company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The major deliverable allowed us to impact the XR market in a meaningful way and it did also lead to the creation of IP.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

CVisionLab works flawlessly via Slack and Jira today, with weekly update calls to discuss progress and problems.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Most impressive to me was how accurate their estimates and how skillful their distinctive team members are. Although their staff is very cautious about feature ideas, it almost always makes sense to prototype certain ideas before implementing them in full.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

There is not much we would have changed, the only exception being that we might have started integrating CVisonLab staff into our own Jira-system sooner, to make it easier for us to plan and assign.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm Co-founder and CTO of PicsArt, PicsArt is creative platform with popular mobile photo and video editor. More than 150 million people in a month are creating their visual trories with PicsArt.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire CVisionLab?

Develop unique effects for PicsArt mobile app.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to create unique experience for our users.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We found them by Googling the web then tried several vendors with similar background and they were the best.

Describe the project in detail.

They researched and developed unique effects technology defined by our Product Managers for PicsArt app. Effects heavily rely on low level image processing and ML.

What was the team composition?

We have worked with several members, who specialized in C++ and Image Processing. The members were fully dedicated to our projects during couple years ala our remote employees. Vendor has solid experience in that field and in case of new challenges more senior people were joining with initial research part.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

PicsArt is very popular mobile editor with more than 150 million MAU and those effects definitely had contribution.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They were focused on research and developing technology and as any research project it requires longer time to get results, which sometimes undergo to multiple iterations and feedback loop with our Product Managers. As they developed only technology there were also need for final adjusting and polishing it when technology was used for a product and the process was quite smooth.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was impressed with their skills and professionalism. We worked pretty much like remote teams of the same company with high trust in each other. They are a company you'll reach out to just for advice.

Are there any areas for improvement?

My first impression was that researches are taking too much time but that's the nature of research. Now with more experience in that area I definitely have no doubts they were doing their best to meet timelines.