The Hough Transform, HT, has long been recognised as a technique of almost unique promise for shape and motion analysis in images containing noisy, missing and extraneous data. However its widespread adoption in practical systems has been slow due to its computational complexity, the need for large storage arrays and the lack of a detailed understanding of its properties. The aims of Alvey project MMI/IP078 are • the investigation of the properties of HTs• the study of efficient implementations of HTs• the production of a HT hardware device for use in real time industrial inspection systems.• the development of general high level image interpretation strategies which use information derived from the HT.The first three items listed above are being studied at Surrey University in collaboration with Computer Recognition Systems while the final item is under investigation at Heriot Watt University. There has recently been much activity concerned with space and time efficient implementations of HT ideas and this paper presents a survey of this area. Topics covered include the development of new algorithms, the use of optical techniques and the implementation of HTs on novel hardware architectures.