MVTec Software has released an update to its flagship product, the Halcon machine vision software.
The first maintenance release for the latest version 12, Halcon 12.0.1 offers several new features and improved functions, such as optical character recognition (OCR), the ability to read data codes and bar codes, the usability of the HDevelop development environment, and 3D vision.
This latest release can read EAN-13/UPC-A bar codes from highly blurred images. For 2/5 interleaved codes, the bar code reader is far better able to handle print growth, print loss, and overexposure. In addition, all code types are now less sensitive to interfering edges outside of the bar code region. The improved functions make it possible to optimise the use of bar codes, for example in point-of-sale and mobile hand-held scanner applications in the retail and logistics sectors.
Furthermore, the enhanced data code reader now supports the latest GS1 application identifiers and contains additional print quality grading parameters. The Visual Studio plug-in for variable inspection has been expanded and improved, and a new C# example program shows how to use different threads for acquiring and processing images, and visualising the results in parallel within a single application. Further features include new interfaces for digital I/O and image acquisition, and in particular for additional 3D sensors.
