Innovation & technology
Barco can build on decades of engineering excellence in visualization and imaging technologies to realize its purpose of ‘visioneering a bright tomorrow’ .
Every year, we invest on average 11% to 13% of our turnover in R&D in order to meet – or, rather anticipate – the rapidly evolving market demands. Since 2022, we have been strengthening, sharpening, and accelerating our innovation efforts, with more focus on breakthrough, disruptive solutions – primarily for our core and adjacent markets and, but also in totally new domains.
The challenge is to innovate radically – and dare to fail.Charles BeauduinCEO
Our innovation approach
Successful innovation creates both value for the customer and true business benefit. To ensure that our ideas are tightly connected to our strategy and purpose, and can be turned into revenue growth potential, we adopt a disciplined approach to innovation:
- Balancing start-up dynamics with fast-fail principles
- Focus on early customer involvement
- Governance: disciplined management with dedicated budget
Technology domains
Image processing has been and remains the cornerstone of Barco's technology map. On the base of this first component, we have defined three more building blocks that form the foundation for Barco's innovation for impact in the future.
Advanced display & projection
The display and projection technology that lies at the heart of Barco’s visualization solutions include optics, electronics and signal processing, manufacturing and calibration techniques related to projection systems and direct view display technologies, including LCD and LED. This advanced technology powers a wide range of advanced display solutions for use in demanding markets – from cinema projectors and high-resolution medical displays to video walls for large screen visualization.
Image processing & insights
Professional visualization requires both classical image processing algorithms and data-driven approaches. Barco’s ‘image processing & insights’ technology domain covers image and video capture, enhancements, processing, understanding and rendering as well as techniques to enhance human-machine interaction. Increasingly important is the implementation of high-performance software solutions on modern hardware such as graphics processing units.
Connectivity & data analytics
Technology that enables connectivity is at the core of Barco’s visualization solutions, as it allows the real-time monitoring of devices or the local or remote streaming of audio and video data. The connectivity platforms that power Barco solutions are always highly optimized for the professional application at hand, whether that is live entertainment, diagnosis or surgery in healthcare settings or sharing content in the workplace. On top of enabling connectivity, Barco increasingly helps customers understand the data transmitted, thus providing trustworthy, actionable insights and boosting productivity, collaboration and engagement.
Computational optics
Computational optical technology exploits the properties of light to enable visual experiences that cannot be delivered using traditional optical systems alone. This technology opens the door to a spectrum of new solutions with functionalities or value that cannot be delivered by other visualization or imaging techniques. Examples include Demetra, Barco’s multispectral skin imaging platform and the high dynamic range (HDR) Lightsteering technology that uses real-time programmable lasers and lenses to shape light into high-contrast, high-brightness images on screen.
