Halcon Targets

HDevelop has improved its new window docking. As a user, you have more options to control the position where the floating windows are opened.

All through, the top left corner of the screen has been used as the origin. Now, you can use the upper left corner where you find HDevelop or the upper left corner of HDevelop itself.

Additionally, it comes with a new docking feature known as auto-hide. The feature enables you to shrink widgets that you don't need into the sidebar and also bring them back effortlessly when you need them.

You can also group and organize the graphics window more conveniently in the new Canvas window.

Halcon's bar code reader can read codes even with thin bars.

In the improved Halcon 21.05, the subpixel bar code reader has undergone improvements in low-resolved bar codes. The coding rate for the low resolved codes has now improved to 50%.

In the improved Halcon 21.05, the 3D cloud sampling supports a new mode known as "furthest point", which offers a more uniform sampling of a 3D object.

The point cloud sampling also has a new model that uses information from the XYZ mapping. The 3D point cloud can be used to remove noise and in the preprocessing step for smooth point clouds.

As mentioned earlier, MVTec HALCON is a comprehensive software for machine vision. It comes with an integrated development environment that is used worldwide.

Some of the product highlights include:

• Halcon offers a full range of application in the field of machine vision.
• It is an enabler of the industrial internet of things, also known as Industry 4.0.
• It comes with an extensive imaging library of more than 2,100 operators.
• You also enjoy a variety of features, including deep learning.
• Easy programming in Python, C, C+, C++, C#, etc.
• It also supports multi-core platforms and multiprocessor computers.
• You enjoy high performance with the state-of-the-art instructions and GPU acceleration.
• It supports all common vision standards, industrial cameras, and frame grabbers.

MVTec Halcon is an easy-to-use software for various reasons, including:

• It comes with a graphical user interface that assists in code generation
• You get interactive programming that comes with online help, which also includes a full-text search
• Rapid prototyping with an intuitive development tool
• Interactive data inspection and visualization
• High-level language interfaces for Python, C, C++, and .NET languages such as VB.NET and C#
• An intuitive browser, for example, programs
• It provides interfaces to hundreds of industrial cameras and frame grabbers
• Extensive debugging support
• You enjoy easy camera calibration for high accuracy
• An open interface for integration of further image acquisition devices

Halcon Vision standard software for machine vision comes with a variety of unique features, including deep learning.

The deep learning functions of the software include:

• Labeling of data
• Edge extraction
• Semantic segmentation
• Classification
• Object detection, which also considers object orientation
• You can perform the deep learning training on a GPU and CPU
• You can also execute the deep learning inference on CPUs, GPUs, and on Arm processors

The Halcon standard software for machine vision also offers a variety of matching techniques for various tasks, including:

• Shape-based matching
• Correlation-based matching (NCC)
• Shape-based and surface-based 3D matching
• Descriptor-based matching
• Component-based matching
• Local deformable and perspective matching
• Deformed surface-based 3D matching

Halcon also supports other image acquisition devices for camera calibration.

It offers universal acquisition interfaces for GigE vision-compliant cameras The Imaging Source, Sony, Toshiba Teli, Teledyne Dalsa, XENICS, Tattile, Roboception, Kappa Optronics, etc.

It also offers universal acquisition interfaces for USB3 vision-compliant cameras from MATRIX VISION, Sentech, Silicon Software, Roseek, etc.

You also get acquisition interfaces for GenICam GenTL compliant cameras and boards from IDS Imaging, SmartRay, Silicon Software, KAYA instruments, MATRIX VISION, etc.

The software also supports a specific acquisition interface for frame grabber boards and cameras from MATRIX VISION, Silicon Software, VRmagic, Daheng, Photoneo, etc.

Halcon standard software is famous for offering incredible performance. For instance, it actively exploits multi-core computers, AVX, AVX2, SSE2, and GPU acceleration.

Halcon provides outstanding performance by providing efficient automatic acceleration of GPUs' automatic computing power based on the OpenCL standard.

Halcon's deep learning feature also makes use of GPU acceleration.

MVTec Halcon architecture is flexible, and it ensures it's compatible with future projects. It will be effortless to integrate it into new programs and other operating systems.

Halcon is available for a variety of operating systems, including macOS, Windows, and Linux. It is also available for arm-based platforms that use the Linux operating imaging system.

MVTec Halcon also runs on Arm-based embedded vision platforms, and you can also port it to other target platforms.

As such, you can use Halcon with a range of smart cameras and many other embedded platforms.

With the extension packages feature, you can integrate your image processing algorithms, new or existing, into MVTec Halcon. As such, you get a common view of the image processing parts, and you also facilitate maintenance and developments.

Additionally, Halcon comes with a powerful software interface that ensures you get a common view on various image acquisition devices. These include 3D cameras, scan cameras, and cameras with non-standard resolutions and 8 bits per pixel and above.

It has many available interfaces that enable you to connect to hundreds of industrial cameras and frame grabbers.

MVTec also comes with software for digital I/O interfaces, ensuring you can use various I/O devices with Halcon.

It offers interfaces to all PLC control systems using OPC classic standards and OPC UA. Halcon also uses the Hilscher-cifX interface to support Fieldbus communication. In the Fieldbus communication configuration, Halcon communicates with OPC UA servers, enabling the production processes of the Industrial Internet of Things.

Why does it matter whether Halcon is compatible or not?

Compatibility is a crucial factor to consider while looking for protection of investment. The machine vision software you purchase should be useful tomorrow and in the days to come, irrespective of the technological advancements and changes.

MVTec Halcon is highly compatible with other interfaces and platforms.

It supports various image acquisition devices, programming languages as well as operating systems. It offers maintenance for various Halcon versions for years.

Every updated Halcon version comes with technical innovations, improvements, and enhancements in various areas, including example programs.

Additionally, it is compatible with a variety of hardware and CPUs. It supports different processor types, including embedded systems and PCs.

In terms of operating systems, you can use Halcon with all operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can also access the full Halcon library from a variety of programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Python and .NET.

Multi-core platforms and multiprocessor computers come in handy in enhancing the speed of the imaging system.

Halcon provides enhanced speeds using the incredible automatic operator parallelization (AOP)

Since not all vision operations can benefit from parallelization, Halcon uses an intelligent algorithm to decide whether to apply parallelization or not. It puts into account the available hardware, concrete operation, and input data.

The standard software parallelizes operators when you start it on a multi-core computer by distributing the data to multiple threads. You don't have to modify your existing Halcon programs to use automatic parallelization and achieve enhanced speeds.

Halcon comprehensive standard software also supports parallel programming. You can use multithreaded programs as the software is reentrant and also thread-safe.

As such, you can have multiple threads calling Halcon operators simultaneously. The feature enables you to split a machine vision application into various parts and run parallel on different cores.

You can use the feature even within the integrated development environment (IDE). HDevelop enables concurrency even during export to programming languages such as C, C++, and .NET languages like C#.

Halcon is a comprehensive standard software for machine vision technologies. It is a dynamic software compatible with various platforms and operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and macOS. Additionally, it comes with multiple features such as deep learning-based OCR, 3D surface comparison, data labeling, 3D matching.