Arm-based Z series smart cameras from Vision Components are now available with standard software for all machine vision applications, the company has announced. The software – Halcon Embedded – has been successfully ported to the new camera models, and features an integrated development environment and a comprehensive library for blob analysis, morphology, matching, measuring and identification. Users can develop applications on the PC and then export them to the Vision Components’ smart cameras, which run a Linux operating system. Available hardware options include a variety of sensors, processors and interfaces.
The current version, Halcon 12.0.1, enables significant speed increases and offers new features that facilitate application development. Optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities have been enhanced to ensure high recognition rates and reduce the need for parameter adjustments. Furthermore, the software is able to read characters of any size and distinguish text from the background even under challenging conditions, such as distorted characters.
Message queues for inter-thread communication were also added, as well as a range of new operators for bead inspection. Additional software interfaces facilitate further processing of data, and Halcon tuples or iconic variables can now be verified directly in Visual Studio. In HDevelop, vector variables can be processed and tuples can be visualised as 1D or 2D plots from the variable window.
In code-reading applications, potentially interfering edges outside the actual barcode are more effectively ignored. The recognition and processing of blurred or out-of-focus images of EAN-13/UPC-A barcodes has been improved, and 2/5 interleaved codes are detected with a higher tolerance for print growth, print loss, and overexposure.
