Who performs, governs, or is accountable — human practitioners, organizations, autonomous agents

What is built, deployed, or produced — physical systems, software, information objects, datasets

What happens — engineering, business, or operational processes and events

The goal a system or actor is accountable to — measurable outcomes that define success

What justifies claims — data, measurements, observations, provenance chains

Typed participation of an Actor in an Activity — e.g., system owner, operator, auditor

A concrete, deployed technical assembly that interprets visual information to serve defined objectives

A time-bound delivery effort in which VI capabilities are designed, built, or deployed for a client

An organizational vehicle for managing and governing a bounded set of VI work

A repeatable workflow or pipeline that transforms inputs to outputs in a VI context

A deliverable output artifact produced by VI work — a trained model, a report, a system package

A specific named technology product or platform deployed in a VI system (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson, OpenCV)

A constituent part of a VI system — hardware, software, or service component

A collection of visual data (images, video, annotations) used in training, testing, or operating a VI system

Two fundamental phases: Build (create capability) and Run (operate in environment). Boundary cases: active learning, sim-to-real.

The specific parameter settings, thresholds, and operational modes of a deployed VI system

Structural, algorithmic, and implementation means. Maps to FBS Structure, Marr implementation level.

A recorded output from a VI system: a detection, classification, measurement, or event noticed by the system

A quantified observation with a value, unit, and measurement context

A specific instance of a VI system identifying a target object, condition, or anomaly

A measured property of a VI system's quality: precision, recall, latency, throughput, false positive rate

The primary role a system performs: Describe, Evaluate, Predict, Direct, Create, Inquire. 6 values grounded in speech-act theory and systems theory.

The semantic family of meaning the system handles: Entity, Quantity, Relation, Quality, State, Forecast, Intent, Question, Artifact. 9 families.

The representational form of results: Symbolic, Numeric, Structured, Linguistic, Visual, Actuation. 6 forms.

How directly output shapes downstream behavior: Inform, Advise, Authorize, Trigger, Regulate. 5 levels.

Capture, Compute, Data, Intelligence, Interface — 5-layer architectural decomposition with 27 functions.

Per-layer difficulty: Capture (C0–C4), Compute (K0–K4), Data (D0–D4), Intelligence (I1–I5), Interface (F0–F4).

Computational paradigms: Deterministic, Classical ML, Supervised DL, Self-Supervised, Foundation Models, Niche & Frontier. 6 families.

Depth of meaning: L0 Signal → L1 Feature → L2 Object → L3 Scene → L4 World → L5 Sequence → L6 Causality. 7 levels, 44 categories.

What VI systems perceive: Recognition, Detection, Segmentation, Geometry, Temporal, Generation, Language. 245 tasks in 7 families.

Deployment context: Setting (10), Medium (6), Hazards (10), Processing (4), Scale (9), Connectivity (5), Dynamics (5). 7 dimensions.

Sensing, Timing, Compute, Performance, Data, Reliability, Trustworthiness, Integration & Lifecycle. 8 clusters, 21 dimensions.

The consulting and service practice that applies the VI domain to business or organizational objectives

An organizational offering delivered by the practice to clients in exchange for compensation

A classification of consulting delivery models: strategy assessment, pilot, managed support, advisory, training

What the practice can do — a competency or capacity to deliver specific kinds of VI work

8 dimensions + VIOps: Sensing → Perception → Learning → Intelligence → Decision → Action → Governance → Value.

6 value dimensions, 3-layer taxonomy: Financial, Operational, Safety, Compliance, Knowledge, Experience.

The commercial model governing how a service is priced: fixed fee, per-unit, retainer, outcome-based

A defined group of potential buyers sharing common characteristics relevant to VI services

A sub-classification of market segment by buyer role, budget authority, or decision-making pattern

A target industry for VI services: manufacturing, healthcare, retail, agriculture, defense, etc.

A classification of vendors by their role in the VI ecosystem: hardware, software, platform, integration, data

The decision-making framework governing how VI work is authorized, overseen, and controlled

6 models for how VI is packaged and delivered. Includes Shared Responsibility Map and Stack Assembly.

A bundled offering combining service, pricing, positioning, and delivery model for a specific market segment

Discover/Envision → Design/Implement → Run/Evolve. 6 steps, 3 phases from concept to sustained value.

Why the project exists: value, benefit, protection, or change it is meant to create.

Entity to be created, changed, deployed, improved, or retired by the project.

Included/excluded work, deliverables, interfaces, and target boundaries.

Verifiable outputs plus the intended state changes those outputs enable.

Decomposition into activities, work packages, tasks, milestones. ISO 21511 WBS.

Initiation → planning → execution → monitoring/control → closure. Distinct from system lifecycle.

11 market ecosystems: Industrial, Healthcare, Mobility, Defense, Public Safety, Agriculture, Resources, Media, Commercial, Scientific, Consumer.

52 types in 10 functional groups. Translation layer between Intelligence outputs and operational behavior.

4 traditions + meta-discipline: Machine Vision, Computer Vision, AI Vision, Sensing/Imaging, and Visual Intelligence as integrator.

A historically grounded body of theory, methods, and practices defining a VI intellectual approach

A defined, repeatable procedure for producing, analyzing, or evaluating visual information

Standards catalog with four-tier reuse model: Adopt Now, Extend Later, Map Later, Reference Later.

The tradition concerned with acquiring visual data through optical and non-optical sensors

The industrial tradition concerned with automated visual inspection, measurement, and guidance

The research tradition concerned with algorithmic interpretation of images and video

The tradition applying deep learning and AI techniques to visual perception and understanding

Where VI ends: Machine Vision (L0–L4), Computer Vision (L1–L3), AI Vision (L2–L3), AI (L5–L6), Agentic (L4–L5).

Every VI system passes through encode (training, calibration) and execute (inference, monitoring) phases.

5-question diagnostic: Function/Content/Modality/Coupling? Stack layers? Abstraction? Logic? Delivery?

A systematic scheme for organizing concepts into categories using defined criteria

Classification of vendor offerings by how they map to the Solution Stack and Delivery Models.

Classification of what a VI system fundamentally does: Describe, Evaluate, Predict, Inquire, Direct, Create

Classification of what a VI system produces: Entity, Quantity, Relation, Quality, State, Event, Forecast, Intent, Question, Artifact, Attribute

Classification of the form of system output: Symbolic, Numeric, Structured, Linguistic, Visual, Actuation

Classification of how a system affects decisions: Inform, Advise, Authorize, Trigger, Regulate

Classification of layers from sensor hardware through inference to application output

Classification of the kinds of problems VI systems solve

A recognized origin of normative or evidentiary weight: standard body, literature, professional body, vendor, practitioner

The structural framework for how evidence supports claims, definitions, and decisions in the ontology

A structured intellectual approach broader than a method but narrower than a tradition

Specifies which Primary Function a VI System performs: Describe, Evaluate, Predict, Direct, Create, Inquire

Specifies what Output Content Type a VI System produces: Entity, Quantity, Relation, Quality, State, Forecast, Intent, Question, Artifact

Specifies the Output Modality in which a VI System's results are delivered: Symbolic, Numeric, Structured, Linguistic, Visual, Actuation

Specifies the Output Coupling level describing how a VI System's output shapes downstream behavior: Inform, Advise, Authorize, Trigger, Regulate

Expresses which Logic Families are capable of achieving which Semantic Abstraction levels

Expresses which CV Tasks operate at which Semantic Abstraction levels

Specifies which Environment Dimensions characterize the deployment context of a VI System

Specifies the Delivery Model through which a VI System reaches its market

Specifies the Complexity Scale characterization for each Solution Stack Layer

Specifies what Change Target a Project is designed to affect or transform