Italy’s 3U Vision might be a new company, but there’s a lot of experience behind it — and that experience is resulting in a new standard in optical sorters.
Andrea Uzzo’s family has lived and breathed optical sorters for years. Andrea’s father Antonio, current owner and managing director of 3U Vision, was owner of SEA from 1985 to 2012. After SEA became part of Cimbria, Antonio would go on to lead that company to great success until his departure in 2018. Andrea’s brother Stefano is also a part of 3U Vision, making it truly a family affair.
“My father is a pioneer in optical sorting technology. For my family, working in optical sorting technology is not only a job, it’s something that we were raised with. The technology changes daily and you really have to dedicate your life to it,” says Andrea, who serves as general manager of 3U Vision.
The Uzzo family founded 3U Vision in 2019 with, well, a vision. A big one — to offer dealers something new that would help their customers attain better quality and as a result make more money.
“Processors need to be able to improve the quality of their seed product beyond what they’ve been able to in the past. Most of the current software and the technology available until now can’t remove certain defects in the product,” Andrea says.
“This was something we had to do as a small, independent, nimble company. It can’t be done as a big corporate entity. If it takes you three months to make a decision, you’re going to fail your dealers and their customers. At the speed colour sorting technology moves, you have to be able to literally make a move in five minutes. If everything within your company has to be decided by committee, your dealer network and their customers lose.”
3U Vision’s mandate is to make optical sorting accessible to the global seed industry.
“The real benefit we bring is our knowledge of the visual system. Our state-of-the-art machines are built with specific features designed for the seed sector,” says Alex Ambrogi, export sales manager for 3U Vision.
Those features — found on 3U Vision’s Fenix and Optica sorter lines — include a 3.2mm pitch, which reduces the amount of good seed often wrongly rejected by other colour sorters.
A four-wavelength multispectral system uses RGB and infrared in the same 4K sensor and allows for a completely aligned view, which is especially helpful in sorting small seeds like alfalfa and clover.
An intuitive, user-friendly interface on the Fenix and Optica machines makes for easy operation in busy work environments. An automatic air pressure regulator automatically controls the pressure of the machine depending on the seed being sorted, resulting in improved selection and reducing both the quantity of rejected product and the amount of air used.
The list goes on.
Going Global
According to Andrea, it all comes together to create that new standard in optical sorters.
“We chose to create a new machine with no compromise on quality. We knew we wouldn’t appeal to many people by creating a cheaper machine. You buy cheap, you get cheap. After customers install our machines, they see better results in terms of quality. They can sell their own product at higher prices. That’s what sets us apart,” he says.
“We’ve taken our experience with this technology and created machines with some unique features that really do create a new standard in optical sorters.”
As Andrea and Alex explain, it’s not just 3U Vision’s experience with the technical aspects of the optical sorting business that helps 3U Vision create revolutionary machines.
“We started 3U Vision the same year that COVID-19 began. The past few years have been difficult for everyone, but the experience gave us a chance to develop and improve our technology,” Andrea says
“The downtime many businesses experienced during the pandemic helped us refine our products and give dealers and their customers unbelievable results. Once the world turned the corner on the pandemic, we were ready to go and introduce our technology to the market.”
As an Italian company, 3U Vision’s staff have a lot of experiencing in the European market (it was showcasing its technology at the Euroseeds Congress 2022). But the company’s vision is bigger, and 3U Vision is actively showcasing this new generation of optical sorters in North and South America — 3U Vision will be attending the upcoming American Seed Trade Association CSS & Seed Expo in Chicago this coming December.
“Once people see the potential of this technology, they are impressed, to say the least,” Alex goes on to say. “As time goes on, we continue to make our hardware and software even better, and that involves getting feedback from as many people as possible, and finding out what their needs are,” Alex adds.
“Our vision is to offer technology that is constantly getting better, and never staying static.”
