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Introduction of the new HALCON 18.11 and MERLIC 4 software releases
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Presentation of numerous new features in the areas of embedded vision, deep learning, and deflectometry
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Live demos and expert presentations bring machine vision right up close
Munich, September 25, 2018 – MVTec Software GmbH (www.mvtec.com), the leading provider of modern machine vision software, presents its entire range of cutting-edge technologies at VISION, the leading international trade show for machine vision in Stuttgart, Germany. From November 6 to 8, visitors of booth E72 in hall 1 will experience the latest HALCON 18.11 and MERLIC 4 software releases. MVTec will vividly showcase future-oriented topics such as deep learning, embedded vision, deflectometry, process integration, 3D vision, hyperspectral imaging, and more in fascinating live demonstrations and practical presentations by experts.
HALCON 18.11: Deep learning and embedded vision
HALCON 18.11 will win users over with numerous improvements and new functions, some of which are based on deep learning, an artificial intelligence methodology. In addition, the software, which will be released on November 30, offers expanded embedded vision capabilities. The release also provides helpful new functions for developers.
In an interesting live demo with an UR3e robot, MVTec will demonstrate an industrial application scenario with HALCON 18.11. The robot arm will reach into a collection of objects and reliably locate the position of the relevant object, thanks to HALCON's modern matching technologies. The arm precisely removes this object from the crate, recognizes it by means of innovative deep learning functions, and sorts it.
Another demo offers proof of MVTec's many years of in-depth embedded vision expertise. Furthermore, it shows MVTec HALCON's complete compatibility with many important hardware standards: Three embedded boards and a smart camera are each set to a machine vision task. The corresponding cameras are aimed at an analysis object, which is moved horizontally at high speed. This illustrates how quickly and robustly the standard machine vision software works on a wide range of common embedded hardware components.
There will also be a demo of the ready-to-use HPeek system image for the Raspberry Pi. HPeek is MVTec's license-free benchmarking demo program, which is available free of charge and can be used to evaluate HALCON's performance on Arm®-based embedded platforms in real-life applications.
As one more highlight, the inspection of objects with reflective surfaces with the aid of deflectometry will be demonstrated. In this method, reflections of known patterns on the particular object surface are evaluated to locate defects. Based on this principle, the demo automatically checks different defective objects in two inspection stations and unequivocally localizes the defects with MVTec HALCON. It becomes apparent how HALCON can be used to straightforwardly create a complete system for complex inspection tasks – without any special hardware.
MERLIC 4: User-friendly machine vision optimized by parallelization
MERLIC 4, the new release of the software for rapidly creating complete machine vision solutions, offers a wide range of functions that make machine vision even easier. The software has an outstanding new feature: parallelization, i.e., the ability to run separate tools at the same time.
A further live demo documents the practicality of this new function by performing different inspection tasks with the aid of two cameras, thereby demonstrating the parallelization feature. In addition, it shows how MVTec MERLIC precisely recognizes different fonts on packaging in just fractions of a second, using deep-learning-based OCR technologies. MVTec also illustrates the seamless integration of a programmable logic controller (PLC) into vision systems using MERLIC. Here, the advantageous integration of MERLIC via Hilscher cards is shown.
Besides, a touchscreen demo presents additional machine vision technologies on all aspects of MVTec HALCON and MERLIC, such as hyperspectral imaging and 3D vision.
An attractive supporting program
As in past years, the MVTec booth will once again offer a forum, where experts will give presentations on new deep learning functionalities in HALCON 18.11 and the parallelization function in MERLIC 4 every 30 minutes, alternating between German and English. In addition, MVTec will be part of the Industrial Vision Days with a presentation on HALCON 18.11 focusing on deep learning, and will participate in the School of VISION with a deep learning seminar as well. Moreover, MVTec will also be represented at the VISION standardization stand with a HALCON-based demo.
VISION 2018 also marks the 10th anniversary of MVTec's "Image Acquisition Partner" program, which is the largest of its kind worldwide. MVTec will celebrate this and other partnerships during the course of an exclusive partner evening at the trade show.
About MVTec
MVTec is a leading manufacturer of standard software for machine vision. MVTec products are used in all demanding areas of imaging: Semi-conductor industry, web inspection, quality control and inspection applications in general, medicine, 3D vision, and surveillance. MVTec, with its head office in Munich (Germany), has more than 30 established distributors worldwide and in addition, MVTec, LLC works out of Boston, MA (USA). www.mvtec.com
About MVTec HALCON
MVTec HALCON is the comprehensive standard software for machine vision with an integrated development environment (HDevelop) that is used worldwide. It enables cost savings and improved time to market. HALCON’s flexible architecture facilitates rapid development of any kind of machine vision application. MVTec HALCON provides outstanding performance and a comprehensive support of multi-core platforms, special instruction sets like AVX2 and NEON, as well as GPU acceleration. It serves all industries, with a library used in hundreds of thousands of installations in all areas of imaging like blob analysis, morphology, matching, measuring, and identification. The software provides the latest state-of-the-art machine vision technologies, such as comprehensive 3D vision and deep learning algorithms.
The software secures your investment by supporting a wide range of operating systems and providing interfaces to hundreds of industrial cameras and frame grabbers, in particular by supporting standards like GenICam, GigE Vision, and USB3 Vision. By default, MVTec HALCON runs on Arm®-based smart cameras and other embedded vision platforms. It can also be ported to various microprocessors/DSPs, operating systems, and compilers. Thus, the software is ideally suited for the use within embedded systems.
www.halcon.com, www.embedded-vision-software.com
About MVTec MERLIC
MVTec MERLIC is an all-in-one software product for quickly building machine vision applications without any need for programming. It is based on MVTec's extensive machine vision expertise and combines reliable, fast performance with ease of use. An image-centered user interface and intuitive interaction concepts like easyTouch provide an efficient workflow, which leads to time and cost savings. MERLIC provides powerful tools to design and build complete machine vision applications with a graphical user interface, integrated PLC communication, and image acquisition based on industry standards.
All standard machine vision tools such as calibration, measuring, counting, checking, reading, as well as position determination are included in MERLIC. These are all based on the latest state-of-the-art machine vision technologies, such as matching or deep learning. MERLIC is available for Windows-based PC and embedded platforms, making it ideally suited for use in smart cameras. www.merlic.com
