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Getting Started with ActivVisionTools

1. penne i um Bei AVTViewConfigExec Bri AVTViewExecuteSimple fed AVTVISWRO S AVTViewDisplayModes Fi AVTViewCalibration Figure 1 2 The sub tools of ActivView Getting Started 2008 04 23 1 2 Basic Concepts 9 1 2 4 The Description File DSC file ActivVisionTools automatically saves the state of a project or executable i e the selected val ues of the properties but also the number and position of the regions of interest in the so called description file This is done not only when you save the project but also whenever you start or stop an ActivVisionTools application and also when you exit from the developing environment Please note that this is not completely true when using ActivVisionTools within Visual C or Visual Studio NET More details can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ Vision Tools section 1 1 on page 2 LH gt b f 2 2 D E gt O G Since the DSC files are saved automatically it may be useful to create a backup version of it before experimenting with the configuration of your application Then you can easily revert to the previous state without resetting the parameters manually Description files are marked by the file extension dsc By default they get the name of the corresponding executable and are placed in the so called start directory of the executable For a normal executable the start directory corresponds to the directory
2. v CamType Full Size Size Progressive Field Execute Stop V Connected More Parameters S Single Run Trigg Save Image Save Window 4 grab single images or 3 connect to the frame grabber start continuous grabbing errors are indicated in the status bar Figure 3 6 Connecting to an image acquisition device ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions LH gt b fo 2 D E 38 Using ActivVisionTools 3 5 Creating a Stand Alone Application stand alone i e without Visual Basic you have to create an executable Up to now we have developed and run the application inside Visual Basic To be able to run it Visnal Basic Preparation for the following example Example If you worked on the previous example you can continue using this project Otherwise open the project application gs_application vbp The following steps are visualized in figure 3 7 Open the dialog File gt Make xyz exe xyz is replaced by the name of the project in our example gs_application exe Accept the default name for the executable or choose another one By pressing OK executable is created the Note that if the executable is created in another directory i e a directory that is different from the project directory see section 1 2 4 on page 9 this new directory will be use
3. Preparation for the following example Start Visual Basic NET and create a new project of the type Windows Application The following steps are visualized in figure 3 2 O To allow adding ActiveX controls to a Form using the Form Designer the controls must first be added to the toolbox This window is usually docked on the left side of Visual Studio NET If you don t see it press the keys Ctrl Q Alt x or select the menu item View gt Toolbox Right click on the toolbox and select Add Tab in the context menu This will create a new logical group for the ActivVisionTools ActiveX controls Type Activ VisionTools as name for the new tab and confirm it by pressing Enter Click on the new tab to open it It should only contain the default item Pointer To add the ActivVisionTools to the tab right click again on the toolbox and select Cus tomize Toolbox This will open a dialog displaying all available COM and NET components If necessary select the tab COM The list of displayed components is usu ally quite long The ActivVisionTools are easy to locate because their names start with ActivVisionTools AVT and appear close to the top of the list if the ordering is alpha betic which is the default otherwise click on the table header Name To select the ActivVisionTools components you must check all the boxes to the left of the corresponding na
4. If you worked on the previous example you can continue using this project Add AVTViewStatus to the form by double clicking Ri Otherwise open the project framegrabber gs_framegrabber vbp Execute the application Run gt Start or via the corresponding button The following steps are visualized in figure 3 6 Select your image acquisition device in the combo box Name For some image acquisition devices additional parameters must be specified Please refer to the User s Manual for Activ View for more information After specifying the parameters you can connect to the image acquisition device by checking v Connected or clicking Single This can take some time If ActivView fails to connect to the device a corresponding error message is displayed in AVTView Status In this case please check the User s Manual for Activ View for troubleshooting Now you can go ahead and grab single images by clicking Single grab continuously by clicking Run or stop the continuous grabbing by clicking Stop Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 4 Connecting to an Image Acquisition Device 37 select your frame grabber in the combo box 2 for some frame grabbers you have to specify additional parameters ij Connecting to an Image Acquisition Device lol xi ame Detect Refresh Acquisition Interface tie
5. w The Design Mode CR TT Designmode gs_designmc 2 79 Forms gs_designmode gs_de po Properties AYTYiew1 x avTYiew1 AYTView Alphabetic categorized TabIndex 0 a TabStop True Tag ToolTipText Top 240 Unit 0 eUnitPixel UseIconMode False UsePopUpAppl True Components Windows Forms UsePopUpConfig True cl d Ri U mScrollBar X Yad Ring Visible True A Volatietode Activvisio WhatsThisHelpID p fu fab fifty Width 5775 WidthIpeageWinde 319 X UseZoomScrollBars Determines if the zooming scroll bars are displayed 3 change properties in the Property Window 4 in Visual Basic NET also add AVTNETControl Figure 3 4 ActivVisionTools at design time ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions LH b o Sn E G 34 Using ActivVisionTools Visual Basic Example 3 3 Displaying Images Images can be acquired via an image acquisition device or e g in the testing phase from the disk files Both modes are realized by the ActiveX control AVTViewFG which is a support tool of ActivView We start by loading images from the disk how to connect to aimagen acquisition device is the topic of the section 3 4 on page 36 Preparation for the following example If you worked on the previous example you can continue using this project At design
6. L23 A Look Behind the Tools 2 024 sa n bade eee ee ds 6 1 24 The Description File DSC file Li a 9 1 2 5 The Three Modes of Working with ActivVisionTools 10 1 3 The Family of Tool os i Ra a RRR a 10 1 4 System Requirements 14 Ke D bl L 2 D O 2 About ActivVisionTools 1 1 Introducing ActivVisionTools Congratulations By choosing ActivVisionTools you got leading edge vision algorithms inside an easy to use working environment powerful machine vision applications can be developed quickly and easily without writing a single line of code Nevertheless Activ VisionTools does not form a closed development environment but provides a documented programming interface that lets you integrate additional functionality very flexibly ActivVisionTools and HALCON ActivVisionTools is based upon HALCON MVTec s unique machine vision library that offers highest performance together with unmatched flexibility ActivVisionTools inherits the speed robustness and accuracy of HALCON but hides the complexity of image processing from the user Instead the tools present solutions for standard tasks such as measuring or gauging objects reading bar codes or blob analysis If the available ActivVisionTools do not suffice to solve your machine vision task you can com bine them with HALCON i e create your own ActivVisionTool based on HALCON code and use it together with the other ones More
7. new icons corresponding to the ActivVisionTools appear We recommend to move all ActivVisionTools icons into a separate tab in the toolbar To create a tab click into the toolbar with the right mouse button and select the correspond ing entry Then you can drag the icons into it with the left mouse button This step needs to be performed only once Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET 27 Tool Bar Form Menu Bar Property Window Project Explorer Project1 Microsoft Yisual Basic design Sei x File Edit View Project Format Debug Run Query Diagram Tools Add Ins Window Help a 4 Blea Pee gt i DERE pi 7080 x 7110 Project Project x Project L Form1 Form b L S General la a p la K a A abi Activ fisionTools in Yisual Basic ume a Sx ER EB 4 5 K CH LH b S pa Sn E Project1 Project1 vbp 2 79 Forms Formi Formi frm Controls Designers Insertable Objects OSB a Active Setup Control Library a Prete AGT al A 3 Activ visionTo 1 a E cl 2 2 Kobe Acrobat 7 0 Browser Control Type Librar Formi Form z E x Adobe SVG Viewer Type Library 2 0 Alphabetic Categorized Zi El LlavTshes Name Formi a E Appearance 1 3D Ej Ce winpows Sxstem32 msconf dl hes Fake W
8. which can be found in the Windows start menu sub folder Start gt Programs gt MVTec ActivVisionTools 23 2 gt Documentation Examples for using the ActivVisionTools programming interface to access results and evalua tions are described in the User s Manuals for ActivMeasure see section 4 3 on page 30 Activ Barcode see section 4 3 on page 26 ActivDataCode see section 4 3 on page 40 ActivFeature Calc see section 4 2 on page 34 ActivOCR see section 4 3 on page 62 ActivAlignment see section 4 3 on page 28 and ActivDecision see section 3 4 on page 30 The Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools contains examples showing how to create a customized graphical user interface see chapter 2 on page 39 how to influence the execution of ActivVisionTools see chapter 3 on page 53 and how to create new ActivVisionTools based on ActivGenericIn terface see chapter 4 on page 107 Native Language Support ActivVisionTools provides the so called Native Language Support i e the underlying software allows to switch the language of e g the text labels in the ActiveX controls Currently Activ VisionTools supports the languages english spanish french italian german japanese korean chinese simplified chinese and turkish Please ask your local distributor about developments concerning other languages ActivVisionTools allows to switch the language dynamically Therefore you do not need to ActivVisionTools 3 2 Y
9. 2 1 1 The Installation Pro ess 5 oc c ea pa a ea 16 2 1 2 The Resulting File Structure of ActivVisionTools 18 2 1 3 Additional Information for HALCON Users 19 2 1 4 Uninstalling ActivVisionTools 0 19 Lipensingi o X ok NT nadia la Os Oe KOS ae A 20 2 2 1 The License for ActivView and the inspection tools 20 222 The Evaluation Licens eoe cert erkanee ad 20 22 5 Permanent Licenses 2 6 coe ee e a 20 15 Ke D bl L 2 D O 16 Installation 2 1 Installing ActivVisionTools Before describing how to install ActivVisionTools let s take a look at the different licensing schemes and the relation between ActivVisionTools and HALCON Some Words about Licensing Independent of whether you install ActivVisionTools from the DVD or from the Web the in stalled version includes an unlimited license key which lets you use Activ View and the inspec tion tools ActivZoom ActivLineProfile ActivHistogram without further ado This means you can grab images from your image acquisition device and inspect them free of charge The license key is automatically placed in the file License dat which will be installed in the sub directory license of the folder you choose for Activ VisionTools during the installation To evaluate the full functionality of ActivVisionTools you can obtain temporary license keys from you local distributor free of charge You
10. 41 O open AVTViewLicenses by clicking on AVTView with the right mouse button Checking Licenses E oj S EP E BE d r System Information Refresh jLicense Information ActivYisionTools 3 2 LH b o Sn E G Host ID 000ea62e8711 n Flex ID FLEXID 6 a6305af4 HALCON 8 0 27 xB6sse2 wind2 halcons dll ZI Port m License Status Used eatureCalc PA S Actiview Y Pd Choose File El ActivMeasure Y Pa Unused PA eters l ActyZlignment VW Y alib VW ActivDigitallO VW _Save Window Light gt Dark zi Edge Type Y ActivGUIComponents Pd Edge Pairs Edge Grouping Ac e Y Copy Used AIEd Edge Selectip ActivBlobFinder PA An Edges 2 Edge Selec i w ivHALCONFoundation 7 ci gt 20 Edge Strength 4 H5 Noise Level f 7 20 ROI width Standard v Accuracy 2 check which licenses are necessary G copy list of necessary licenses to clipboard for your application Figure 3 8 Checking which licenses are necessary to run the application ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 42 Using ActivVisionTools 3 7 Deploying an Application To deploy an ActivVisionTools application on another computer you need e avalid ActivVisionTools installation and e the run time version of the development environment you used to create the application For Visual Basic and Visual C 6 0 the requ
11. 9 5 R Fal Gol U Qh S S 5 select ActivVToolsNET dll from the NET Components to add the AVTNETControl Figure 3 3 Adding ActivVisionTools to the Visual Studio NET toolbox ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 32 Using ActivVisionTools 3 2 At Design Time At design time you create the layout of an application i e you place the necessary elements on the form and edit their size and appearance The first element of all ActivVisionTools appli cations is of course the window in which images and results are displayed The corresponding ActiveX control AVTView is the master tool of ActivView isual Basi PROLE Preparation for the following example Example If you created a Visual Basic project for the example in the last chapter you can continue using it Otherwise open the project designmode gs_designmode vbp To display the form double click the corresponding entry in the Visual Basic Project Explorer The following steps are visualized in figure 3 4 D Add AVTView to the form e g by double clicking the corresponding icon in the Visual Basic toolbar Di with the left mouse button When using Visual Basic NET a message box appears that warns about lost settings This warning can be safely ignored Adding the first ActivVisionTool to a project takes a long time because Visual Studio NET must perform a lot of activities The ActivVision Tools libraries and depend
12. ActivView ActivZoom ActivLineProfile and ActivHistogram In fact by installing ActivVisionTools you already obtained your first license key The free and unlimited license to use ActivView ActivZoom ActivLineProfile ActivHistogram ActivData View AFeatHisto and ActivGenericInterface The license file license dat which contains this key resides in the subdirectory license of the ActivVisionTools base directory see sec tion 2 1 2 on page 18 and is depicted in figure 2 1 FEATURE MVTec_ActivView mvtecd 3 2 permanent uncounted HOSTID ANY SIGN C45D 133D 66E3 BF25 3AFD 1860 FB2E 7C50 AOEE F2EE A324 E9EF FF57 9DDO 4EA7 094A 1D3D 19C2 1678 F817 327E 1DC2 004C 8825 2D5E C7A8 A397 5F91 7A5E 98E2 Figure 2 1 The permanent license key for ActivView ActivZoom ActivLineProfile Activ Histogram ActivDataView AFeatHisto and ActivGenericInterface This license also allows you to use the ready to run Activ VisionTools application Activ Viewer 2 2 2 The Evaluation License To evaluate ActivVisionTools you can obtain temporary license keys from your local distributor free of charge You will be sent a new license file license dat containing keys for the different ActivVisionTools as depicted in figure 2 2 Place this file in the subdirectory license of the ActivVisionTools base directory on every computer you want to evaluate ActivVisionTools on and rename it to license dat if necessary 2 2 3 Permanent Licenses If after the
13. NT 4 0 Windows 2000 or Windows XP or Windows Vista Microsoft Visual Basic 6 0 Microsoft Visual C 6 0 Microsoft Visual Studio NET 2002 or 2003 Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 including Express versions Intel Pentium processor or compatible 150 MB free disk space run time version full version 200 MB 256 MB memory Visual Studio NET 512 MB recommended 16 bit display with 1024x768 pixel 3 Please note that each developer using ActivVisionTools needs at least Power User privi leges To use ActivVisionTools within Visual Studio NET you must also be a member of the group Debugger User If you want to develop NET projects in other locations than on a local disk you must configure the NET security via the command line tool caspol or the Microsoft NET Framework Con figuration which can be opened via the Administrative Tools in the Control Panel to allow executing code from your desired project location Otherwise you get a warning upon creating or loading the project that the location is not trusted and a run time error upon executing it Getting Started 2008 04 23 Chapter 2 Installation This chapter will show you how to install ActivVisionTools on your system and explain the different licensing schemes Thus at the end of this chapter you will be all set for creating your first ActivVisionTools application 2 1 2 2 Installing ActivVisionTools 2 2 22 ce eee eee reese 16
14. call Imhostid again LH gt b S 2 2 D E gt Licensing via a dongle To get the identifier for a dongle type gt lmhostid flexid If this does not return the ID that is printed on the back of the dongle check whether the dongle driver is installed and if not install it manually as described in section 4 2 on page 44 If the driver is installed but 1mhostid still does not return the correct ID please check the corresponding port parallel or USB of your computer before request ing a new dongle 4 3 2 Using ActivVisionTools Old Visual Basic projects cannot be loaded after upgrading ActivVisionTools When after upgrading ActivVisionTools you open a Visual Basic project which was cre ated using the previous version an error dialog pops up stating that ActivVTools ocx could not be loaded You can upgrade the project with the following method 1 In the error popup select Yes to proceed with the loading 2 Another dialog pops up stating errors during the load Click OK to continue 3 Open the Visual Basic menu Project gt Components and select ActivVision Tools 3 2 see section 3 1 on page 26 then save the project and exit without any further action When you open the project again no error message should appear anymore Likewise any executable created using an older version will not work anymore Proceed similarly to above Open the corresponding Visual Basic proj
15. first example session shows how to work with ActivVisionTools within the framework of Microsoft Visual Basic Contents 1 About ActivVisionTools 1 1 1 Introducing Achy Vision Tools sg cec he e Re 2 l2 Basie Concepts iii e eR EA a eee ba ees 4 LS The Patily of Tools ees caw 9 eee a Seve ae bea eee be ed 10 TA System Requirements ea 64 Li ee EA 14 2 Installation 15 2 1 Installing ActivVisionTools 2 64 5 6 444204448 Sea see w ee es 16 fie TT on hk he ewe be EG A 20 3 Using ActivVisionTools 25 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET 26 Ja AL Deseo Time gt ei ce et eA EA Ea RE He ae wd 32 33 Displaying Images lt o ee ee ew ee a ER ee oe OE E 34 3 4 Connecting to an Image Acquisition Device LL 36 3 5 Creating a Stand Alone Application 38 3 6 Checking the Necessary Licenses 0 40 3 7 Deploying an Application gt se spie A a 42 4 Tips amp Tricks 43 4 1 Error Messages and the Status of an Application 44 4 2 Installing the Dongle Driver Manual 44 4 3 Troubleshooting Chapter 1 About ActivVisionTools This chapter will introduce you to the features and the basic concepts of ActivVisionTools Furthermore it introduces the members of this family of tools 1 1 Introducing ActivVisionTools 2 e ee ee eee 2 12 Basle K 1 oe ee ae e el EK OA ESS 4 121 The Dinerent Types of Tope lt a a A ee A 4 1 2 2 Interaction Via Graphical User Interfaces 6
16. following to gain more information about the cause of trouble 1 Open a Windows Command Prompt 2 You can extract licensing identifiers by using the program lmhostid which is shipped together with the license manager FLEXIm Just type lmhostid in the Command Prompt the output might look like this gt lmhostid lmhostid Copyright c 1989 2005 Macrovision Europe Ltd and or Corporation All Rights Reserved The FLEXlm host ID of this machine is 00e02958e36a Licensing via a Network Board If you call lmhostid without arguments as Getting Started 2008 04 23 Macrovision 4 3 Troubleshooting 47 above you get the identifier corresponding to a network board If ffffffff is returned this usually indicates that you do not have a network board If you do have one on Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems check whether the client for Microsoft networks is installed in the dialog Start gt Settings gt Network and Dial up Connections gt Local Area Connections gt Properties If the client for Microsoft networks does not appear in the list install it by clicking Install and then selecting it from the list of clients Then call 1mhostid again On Windows NT systems check whether the NetBEUI and TCP IP protocols are installed in the dialog Start gt Settings gt Control Panel gt Network gt Pro tocol If the protocols do not appear in the dialog please install these two pro tocols by adding them in the dialog Then
17. help you to setup the complete application Primary vision tools fall into two categories calibration tools and change detectors Calibration tools estimate calibrate parameters of the vision system e g to compen sate for non perfect optics or to transform measurements from pixels to 3D coordinates All they need is a set of images of a special calibration pattern which can be taken during the initial setup The extracted information is sent back to Activ View which in its turn adapts the live images accordingly or passes on the 3D information to the vision tools Currently ActivVisionTools provides one calibration tool ActivGeoCalib Change detectors allow to react during run time to changes in the environment e g align a line of measurement to a changing position of the part to measure or adapt the image to a changing illumination Change detectors have two modes of operations During setup they are trained on example images during run time they detect changes between the training images and the actual ones This information is sent to ActivView which in its turn adapts the current image or modifies the position of regions of interest Currently ActivVisionTools provides one change detector ActivAlignment Result processing tools allow to further process alphanumeric results By default result processing tools have access to all results of all vision tools ActivVisionTools includes one result processing tool ActivDecision T
18. where the executable actu ally resides if you start an executable via a Windows shortcut the start directory of the shortcut can be configured in the dialog which pops up when you click on the shortcut with the right mouse button and select Properties This simple strategy has two implications First if you change the start directory by moving the executable or by configuring it directly for a shortcut you must also move the description file accordingly otherwise the application will not find it and start with default values and without ROIs The second implication is not as obvious as the first While developing an ActivVisionTools ap plication within Visual Basic version 6 0 the developing environment itself is the executable thus the description files would be saved under the name VB6 dsc Of course this is not the behavior you would expect Therefore the ActivVisionTools distribution includes an Add In for Visual Basic called AVTProjectManager This Add In determines the name and the start directory of a Visual Basic project This information is then used by ActivVisionTools when creating a description file for a Visual Basic project Until a project is saved for the first time AVTProjectManager puts the DSC file into the directory specified in the environment variable TEMP If an executable is created from a Visual Basic project see section 3 5 on page 38 such that it is stored in another than the project directory this new
19. 2008 04 23 1 1 Introducing ActivVisionTools 3 Outside ActivVisionTools A real machine vision application has its input and output The main input consists of course of the images to process To facilitate the task of image acquisition as much as possible the tool ActivView provides interfaces to about 50 image acquisition devices see the manual of ActivView for a list The connection to a frame grabber or camera is set up automatically you simply specify the used camera frame grabber configuration and the desired grabbing mode interactively and start to grab images LH gt b fo 2 2 D E gt Concerning the output the ActivVisionTools family currently offers tools to output numerical results such as measurements together with evaluations like is okay to log files via a serial interface or via a digital I O board see the manuals of ActivSerial and ActivDigitallO for more information Output to other devices e g your specific hardware can be realized via the programming interface Using ActivDigitallO you can also synchronize your application with digital input signals The Programming Interface of ActivVisionTools Even if no programming is required to use ActivVisionTools you can of course access the corresponding controls and classes from a programming environment like Visual Basic and in tegrate your own code The programming interface is described in detail in the Reference Man ual
20. 5 78C5 2D54 1A7E D240 EA85 OB62 FEATURE MVTec_ActivMeasure mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO SIGN 0385 85AC 46A9 5351 A1A6 EDBA 5398 92AD E2C5 7F6E OF3F FE63 01DF 8340 0A55 OFCB DOC9 0639 3AAE 6578 F27F 1B82 CE76 D754 1A93 E457 BC88 014C 89CD 6929 FEATURE Figure 2 2 An example license file containing temporary license keys not complete The first step to obtain a permanent license for specific ActivVisionTools is to select the com puter on which you want to use ActivVisionTools on Alternatively you can decide to use a hardware dongle Licenses Bound to a Computer To obtain a license bound to a certain computer you must extract identifying information about this computer The standard method for identifying an computer requires that the computer of your choice is equipped with a network card ActivVisionTools automatically extracts the IDs which are available on your system they are displayed in ActivViewer in the menu item About p License Information For example in figure 2 3 ActivVisionTools has detected a network card and depicts its host ID in the text box Host ID Dongle IDs would show up in the text box Flex ID If no strings appear although your computer does have a network board or a dongle please refer to section 4 3 1 on page 46 ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions ao D b f po n D O 22 Installation IDs available for licensing on t
21. AQ which can be found under http www activ vision tools com If your question is still not answered send a problem report by email to your local distributor not MVTec directly See section 4 3 3 on page 48 for more information 4 3 1 Licensing If you encounter problems with your ActivVisionTools license even though your license file exists and is located in the correct directory with the correct name a first step is always to check if the information identifying your computer or dongle matches the corresponding entries in the license file see section 2 2 3 on page 20 If the two do not match please send the new identifying information to your distributor See below if you encounter problems with extracting the identifying information Licensing via network card does not work when network is not connected On Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems you must disable Media Sense DHCP when no network is connected to the network card Usually it is sufficient to disable the DHCP protocol in this case Further details can be found under http support microsoft com support kb articles Q239 9 24 asp ActivVisionTools fails to detect identifiers for licensing If no identifiers show up in the license information dialog see section 2 2 3 on page 20 or section 3 6 on page 40 although your computer does have a network board a Pentium III or a dongle please try to extract the host IDs manually as described in the
22. Getting Started Acti foois Your Fast Track to Solutions Microsoft Windows Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP Visual Basic Microsoft NET Visual C Visual C and ActiveX are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation All other nationally and internationally recognized trademarks and tradenames are hereby rec ognized mr Copyright 2000 2008 by MVTec Software GmbH M nchen Germany ace software cmb Edition 1 November 2000 ActivVisionTools 1 0 Edition 2 Februar 2001 ActivVisionTools 1 2 Edition 3 April 2001 ActivVisionTools 1 3 Edition 4 September 2001 ActivVisionTools 2 0 Edition 5 November 2002 ActivVisionTools 2 1 Edition 6 May 2003 ActivVisionTools 2 2 Edition 7 January 2005 ActivVisionTools 3 0 Edition 8 February 2006 ActivVisionTools 3 1 Edition 9 May 2008 ActivVisionTools 3 2 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher More information about ActivVisionTools can be found at http www activ vision tools com How to Read This Manual This manual is a quick guide to ActivVisionTools the family of tools for the world of machine vision It provides all necessary information to install and configure ActivVisionTools and to understand their basic philosophy A
23. S 2 Sn E 40 Using ActivVisionTools 3 6 Checking the Necessary Licenses In section 2 2 3 on page 20 we showed how you can check which ActivVisionTools licenses are available on your computer via ActivViewer After developing an application you might want to check which licenses are actually necessary for running the application Therefore the license information dialog can also be opened from your application via Activ View isual Basi RR Preparation for the following example Example If you worked on the previous example you can continue using this project At design time add AVTMeasure to the form by double clicking ff Otherwise open the project licensing gs_licensing vbp Note that if you don t have a license for ActivMeasure an error message appears and the control remains greyed out Execute the application Run gt Start or via the corresponding button The following steps are visualized in figure 3 8 To open the license information dialog click on AVTView with the right mouse button In the appearing context menu select Licenses The lower part of the dialog shows which licenses are used by the the application and whether they are available on your computer You can copy the list of used licenses to the clipboard with the button Copy Used Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 6 Checking the Necessary Licenses
24. Status that AVTViewFG The Sub Tools of Activview m Acquisition Interface fFie S Name Detect Refresh Device WS Board Ni Port Input File eripichip_02 lt z Choose Directory Choose File Ia TC Connected More Parameters Run P Trigger Save Image Save Window r Application Mode TT Display Image TT Display ROIs Display Error Results Edit Region of Interest Allow ROI editi Allow Drag amp D PERPE rConfigurationMode ____ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Display Image Display Results Copy Paste Delete Delete All TZ Display ROIs Display Error Results Saladi V Allow ROI editing V Allow Drag amp Drop ActivVisionTool AVTViewCalibrationt L i p Region of Interest Line_1 111 m Display Region of Interest r Display Results 4 gt Locked ActiveRDI Yellow z Group I Cyan z r fe Error ROI S Red lt Group Il IMI Green lt Selected Tool Yellow B Enar S Red BI ive im Inactive Tools _ White z Selected Yellow L Length Line foo um Special panas Display Mode T Magn z PixelHeight 0275403 um Pick Point Magenta gt Line Width 1 Pixel gt Name serDefined Line Width 3 Pixels Text E Blue M Sp calibrati Display Image _ _ ____ PSR SELLE an Save Load Reset T Text Background LUT E dia gt TT Contrasting Contours lt
25. T Framework Components K Pointer Components i C Program Files MYTeciActivYisionT ActivYisionTools Windows Forms Components v C Program Files M Tec ActivVisionT ActivVisionTools Clipboard Ring Windows Forms vE C Program Files MVTec ActivVisionT ActivVisionTools General Clipboard Ring si C Program Files MVTec ActivVisionT ActivVisionTools Activisio afl General vg C Program Files MYTec ActivVisionT ActivVisionTools ActivVisionTools a vE C Program Files M Tec ActivVisionT ActivVisionTools Ta B S E K Pointer i Mi nigi C Program Files MYTec ActivVisionT ActivYisionTools O se Z Free Gass bi fi C Program Files MyTec ActivvisionT ActivVisionTools mE 00 C Program Files M Tec ActivVisionT ActivvisionTools III MI OS xa ActiveXPlugin ActorByr Class Ci WINDOWS System32 Imrt dil SI ZE AVTAlignment z aae inni SE Bx Es n drain Yctiv Tools AVTZoom Ei E E mi lignmentUse C Brows UIL AVTBarcode1D car ione S Bn HI ayTBarcode1DParameters S Br S m 77 AVTBlobFinder w 22 9g AVTElobFinderProcess R w g J R AVTDataCode z o Fora E AvTDataCodeParameters e BR un Bi ANTDataCodePreprocessing S FI R gt AVTDataCodeSettings 3 select all ActivVisionTools components and click OK ala S AVTDataView to add them to the toolbox su Gol bs AVTDecision e S AYTDecisionResult 4 open context menu via right mouse click and iae S List View to get a compact representation Figure 3 2 Adding Act
26. a 48 43 Ke D bl L 2 D O 44 Tips amp Tricks 4 1 Error Messages and the Status of an Application In an ActivVisionTools application three classes of errors may occur Run time errors which are not critical to the application are logged in files for a later review Critical errors e g the failure to connect to an image acquisition device are indicated in AVTViewStatus a support tool of ActivView This tool also displays the status of the application see the User s Manual for ActivView Finally in case of a severe error like for example a missing license an error dialog pops up Non critical run time errors are logged in the file ActivVisionTools log which resides in the directory specified in the environment variable TEMP Please attach this file when sending a problem report to your distributor see also section 4 3 3 on page 48 Note that error messages are appended to the log file until it reaches a size of 20kByte then at the next start of an ActivVisionTools application the log file will be cleared 4 2 Installing the Dongle Driver Manually If you did not select the dongle drivers to be installed during the installation of Activ Vision Tools you can install it manually afterwards as described in the following two sections which correspond to the two types of supported dongles dongles for the parallel port and USB don gles Please note however that you cannot use an
27. and note the content of the text box Interface DLL e If possible attach the application itself e If it is not possible to send the application please describe the steps one should take to repeat your problem If extra data e g an image is needed to cause your problem please attach this data to your problem report or indicate how to obtain it Please also include any additional important information Include all the details that would be necessary for someone else to recreate the problem however obvious Sometimes seemingly arbitrary or obvious information can point the way toward a solution e Please indicate whether you encountered any problems during the installation of Activ VisionTools and whether the example application ActivViewer works Getting Started 2008 04 23
28. ctiv FeatureCalc see section 3 3 on page 28 and ActivOCR see section 3 3 on page 54 e ActivSerial Selection of results for output and configuration of the communication via serial interface RS232 How to use ActivSerial is described in the User s Manual for ActivSerial e ActivDigitallO Input and output via a digital I O board How to use ActivDigital O is described in the User s Manual for ActivDigitallO e ActivGenericInterface Tool without own activity which allows to integrate your own functionality How to use ActivGenericInterface is described in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools chapter 4 on page 107 e ActivGUIComponents The ActivVisionTools version of scroll bars combo boxes etc that allow to create cus tomized GUIs interactively How to use ActivGUIComponents is described in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools chapter 2 on page 39 e ActivHALCONFoundation A virtual tool providing a license to use HALCON within ActivVisionTools applications Note that ActivHALCONFoundation does not comprise the full functionality of HAL CON please refer to the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 4 2 on page 108 for more information ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 14 About ActivVisionTools 1 4 System Requirements To use ActivVisionTools you need a platform with at least D gt D gt gt D gt Microsoft Windows
29. d as the new start directory This may lead to the loss of some settings To further use the current settings of the project the DSC file must be copied manually to the new directory Therefore we recommend to create executables only in the project directory You can start the executable from a DOS shell or from the Explorer e g by double clicking the corresponding item It will show the same behavior as within the Visual Basic environment Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 5 Creating a Stand Alone Application 39 Edit Yiew Project Format Debug Run Query Diagram Tools Add Ins Window Help select File gt Make xyz exe Make Project 21 xi Save in application Jem e E select a name for the executable and click OK 37 now you can start the application directly without needing Visual Basic File name gs_application exe Options la x iq A First ActivYisionTools Application r Acquisition Interface 13941IDC Y Name Detect Refresh r Device DUUE 310000005619 v Board vj Port r Format Frame default lt CamType Full Size vj Size Gray 8 Color Progressive Y Field r Grabbing MW Connected More Parameters l Save Image Save Window Execute Stop Shoe Run M Tia Figure 3 7 Creating a stand alone application ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions LH gt b
30. directory will be used as the new start directory This may lead to the loss of some settings To further use the current settings of the project the DSC file must be copied manually to the new directory Therefore we recommend to create executables only in the project directory The programming interface of ActivVisionTools provides you with additional functionality for handling DSC files For example you can switch off the automatic saving of the state of your application or save it at arbitrary moments Furthermore you change the state by reading a ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 10 About ActivVisionTools specified DSC file For more information please refer to the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools section 3 5 on page 83 1 2 5 The Three Modes of Working with ActivVisionTools The concept of ActiveX knows two modes At design time you can place ActiveX controls onto a form edit their shape and appearance and change properties in the Property Window By executing an application you automatically switch to run time In this mode you interact with ActiveX controls via their graphical user interfaces In ActivVisionTools this concept has been extended by offering two execution modes configu ration mode and application mode This allows you to create two versions of your application one for its initial configuration and one for the final running system 1 3 The Family of Tools Currentl
31. e 40 describes how to use ActivLineProfile to analyze and en hance the quality of acquired images Further examples can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 3 4 2 2 on page 80 and section 4 4 1 on page 119 e ActivGeoCalib Geometric camera calibration for 3D measurements LH gt b fo 2 2 D E gt How to use ActivGeoCalib is described in the User s Manual for ActivGeoCalib Fur ther examples for using ActivGeoCalib can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 3 6 2 3 on page 105 and section 4 4 3 1 on page 137 e ActivAlignment Automatic alignment of ROIs to moving parts How to use ActivAlignment is described in the User s Manual for ActivAlignment Fur ther examples for using ActivAlignment can be found in the User s Manual for Activ Decision and in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 3 6 2 2 on page 104 and section 4 4 3 2 on page 141 e ActivMeasure Measurements along lines or arcs with subpixel accuracy How to use ActivMeasure is described in the User s Manual for ActivMeasure Further examples for using ActivMeasure can be found in the User s Manual for ActivAlignment e g in chapter 3 on page 15 in the User s Manual for ActivGeoCalib chapter 3 on page 17 in the User s Manual for ActivDecision and in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools section 3 4 1 1 on page 68 section 3 4 2 2 on page 80 sect
32. e of permanent licenses If you choose to install the dongle drivers the corresponding setup will be launched automat ically without any further action necessary from your part If you do not install the dongle drivers when installing ActivVisionTools you may install them manually afterwards for details please refer to section 4 2 on page 44 Now the HALCON and ActivVisionTools run time environments are actually installed on your system On some systems a reboot may be necessary after the installation ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions LH gt b S 2 2 D E gt 18 Installation 2 1 2 The Resulting File Structure of ActivVisionTools After the installation the Windows start menu contains the folder Start gt Programs gt MVTec ActivVisionTools 3 2 which lets you open the user s manuals or uninstall ActivVision Tools see also section 2 1 4 Furthermore you can start ActivViewer which is a ready to run application consisting of ActivView ActivZoom ActivLineProfile and ActivHistogram and some ready to run eample applications Let s have a quick look at the file structure which results after the installation in the base direc tory of ActivVisionTools bin The subdirectory x86 win32 of this directory contains the ActivVisionTools OCX ActivVTools ocx plus additional libraries Furthermore it contains the precompiled Activ View application ActivVie
33. ect select ActivVision Tools 3 2 in the menu Project gt Components save the project and exit Open the project again and create a new executable ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 48 Tips amp Tricks An application shows strange problems which did not appear before In some cases the application s description file see section 1 2 4 on page 9 is corrupted e g if different tools are added and removed often To test this close Visual Basic or the executable remove or rename the description file and start the application again To check whether you found the actually used description file take a look at its modification date this should be the time when you last stopped the application 4 3 3 What to Put Into a Problem Report We recommend to include the following information when sending a problem report to your distributor e A description of your system environment i e the used ActivVisionTools version the version of the used operating system etc e The exact ActivVisionTools error message which appears in AVTViewStatus as described in the User s Manual for ActivView It may be easier to create a screen dump of the application and attach it to the problem report e The error log file described in section 4 1 on page 44 e If the problem concerns the access to your image acquisition device open AVTViewFG Parameter see the User s Manual for ActivView for more information
34. encies are loaded COM InterOp assemblies are generated and references to those are added to the project You see this by viewing References in the Solution Explorer or by checking the contents of the subdirectories bin and obj in your project directory COM InterOp wrapper assemblies can also be generated outside the IDE using the NET command line tools tlbimp and aximp please consult your system s documentation for further details Since they are generated automatically by Visual Studio NET we do not distribute the InterOp assemblies Perform typical design time activities e g move the control by click and dragging any point inside it Change some other properties in the Property Window e g switch off the scrollbars by modifying UseZoomScrollBars D If you are using Visual Basic NET the only difference is that you must add AVTNET Control to the form after adding AVTView otherwise an error message is displayed by double clicking the icon SS in the toolbar Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 2 At Design Time 33 double click the icon with the left mouse button move the control by dragging it gt the control appears on the form i Designmode Microsoft visual Basic design D x File d Ins Window Help Aaa FRA ty 240240 g 5775x4455 Project Desi d ara w Designmode gs_designmode Form JA DIS 5E c S Activ ex 2 ug Pr BRR amp A Fs E S Aa A Rik EmA TH
35. erent languages Native Language Support For this the installation process checks the language used by the operating system on your computer and installs the corresponding files containing e g the text for the labels in the directory nls The files correspond to the ActiveX controls their name consists of the name of the control and the extension n1s e g AVTView nls If you use a language which is not supported yet the english version will be installed You can switch the language by copying the corresponding language files from the DVD into this directory Getting Started 2008 04 23 2 1 Installing ActivVisionTools 19 ocr This directory contains special resources for ActivOCR see the User s Manual for ActivOCR res This directory contains internally used AVI files 2 1 3 Additional Information for HALCON Users ActivVisionTools 3 2 is based on HALCON 8 0 2 If you already installed HALCON 8 0 or 8 0 1 the ActivVisionTools setup will update this HALCON installation by replacing the modi fied parts Otherwise it will install a runtime version of HALCON 8 0 If the ActivVisionTools setup detects an older HALCON version e g HALCON 7 1 x it will ask you whether to upgrade remove or keep this version In fact you get the same behavior as if you installed HALCON 8 0 2 over an existing older version If you choose to keep an older version you can switch between the versions by modifying t
36. evaluation phase you decide to actually employ ActivVisionTools you will have to purchase permanent license keys for those tools beside ActivView ActivZoom ActivLine Profile ActivHistogram ActivDataView ActivFeatureHistogram and ActivGenericInterface you want to use Getting Started 2008 04 23 2 2 Licensing 21 FEATURE MVTec_ActivSerial mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO N SIGN 12BC 3012 369C 8E93 AB14 OBD3 5366 6CC6 BF4D DA53 2259 DAE8 4139 2828 0D40 0C24 A33F 66C5 B428 CEAB 34AE 08BB 2B4C 2263 AD4B 0103 1195 EAAC 2C0C DFBF FEATURE MVTec_ActivFile mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO SIGN 0C90 E735 F76B 4D3F 8D11 B567 9FBB 1E5F AAFD 74B8 9C26 EBF4 9603 D10F F856 13DF DCDC 3A4F OA1A C25E 1E60 2D75 2466 5978 FB5B 8796 C35D 62DF 7E92 A556 FEATURE MVTec_ActivDecision mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO SIGN 1F37 4C4C 8D2B B78D FDBC 1701 1508 OD10 O6FC 5147 A169 92DA 7226 DF21 895D 0440 C4DF AD95 EA4B 82B7 1CD4 E95C B9AF 9455 9E99 7ACO 1A99 6CO7 5821 C361 FEATURE MVTec_ActivBlob mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO N SIGN 1663 AC1D A295 DDF9 0213 BEEC 4851 F2AB B506 90FA D22B DDB4 EBC2 F393 CF61 1689 ASDA BDA9 62B9 B767 F7BB 5469 4DC1 AD66 1D81 894D 3DCD EE5F C677 3B0E FEATURE MVTec_ActivBarCode1D mvtecd 3 2 01 jun 2008 uncounted HOSTID DEMO SIGN 1445 1DFE D4BE 4A13 ASAO EB99 FD21 2605 7049 AFCD 2326 3739 2CD4 63CB AB55 1236 406E 7B8F AB1A 1CF1 7232 F47D D6B7 D69
37. he environment variable XHALCONROOT To use ActivVisionTools you must set this variable to the base directory you selected for HALCON during the installation of ActivVisionTools To use the older HALCON version set the variable to the corresponding base directory Please note that even if you keep an older HALCON version you cannot use the older COM interface anymore The reason is that ActivVisionTools is based on the COM interface and therefore create corresponding entries in the Windows registry which are difficult to switch 2 1 4 Uninstalling ActivVisionTools You can uninstall ActivVisionTools by selecting the entry Uninstall ActivVisionTools in the Windows menu Start gt Programs gt MVTec ActivVisionTools 3 2 Please note that you need administrator privileges in order to uninstall ActivVisionTools successfully If you try to uninstall ActivVisionTools without administrator privileges the setup program might falsely state that the uninstallation was successful but leave some parts behind e g in the Win dows start menu s ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions ao D b f po n D O 20 Installation _ 2 2 Licensing Activ VisionTools checks whether the product is licensed to the user with the help of the FLEX m license manager package from Macrovision This section describes how to obtain and install a license 2 2 1 The License for
38. he USB Port Depending on your operating system you can install configure and uninstall the dongle driver manually using an auxiliary program which is part of each ActivVisionTools installation Please note that you need administrator privileges to install the driver s 1 Open a Windows Command Prompt and change into the folder where you installed HALCON typically C Program Files MVTec Halcon see section 2 1 1 on page 16 From there change into the subdirectory FLEX1m x86 win32 flexid9 Here start the program hinstall exe As an alternative open the dialog Start gt Run and start the program by specifying its full path 2 This program can be used in the following ways hinstall opens a dialog explaining how to use hinstall hinstall info shows the status of the drivers hinstall install installs the drivers hinstall remove removes the drivers 3 Afterwards reboot your computer To check whether the dongle driver was installed successfully open the Windows dialog Start gt Settings gt Control Panel p gt Devices Now there should be two entries called Hardlock and HASP or similar ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 46 Tips amp Tricks 4 3 Troubleshooting The sections below contain information to help you to solve problems arising with Activ Vision Tools in general If the information given does not solve your problem please have a look at the Activ VisionTools F
39. he current platform RC License Information Activ isionTools 3 2 r System formation Host ID DO0e262e8711 3j Flex ID FLEXID 6 a6305at4 HALCON 8 0 2 x86sse2 win32 halconx dil r License Status Used ActivFeatureCalc Y ActivView Pa ActivOCR Pd Unused ActivDecisior Y ActivAlignment VW Ac VW PA ActivFile DA PA ActivDigitallO PA VW ActivBHtTomponent Y Da Copy Used ActivHALCONFoundation 7 available licenses and whether they are used by the application Figure 2 3 ActivViewer s dialog showing the available host IDs and licenses Send the ID to your local distributor together with the name of the host computer in your network and the names of the tools you want to use As you can see in the figure the dialog also shows the available licenses in the example all tools and which ones are actually used by the current application The latter information is of course especially relevant for real ActivVisionTools applications Therefore you can open the dialog also via Activ View This is shown in section 3 6 on page 40 Licenses Bound to a Dongle You can also use a hardware dongle for licensing In this case the license will be coupled to this dongle i e you can use Activ VisionTools on another computer by moving the dongle This has the advantage that you don t commit yourself to using a certain computer You can obtain such a dongle for the parallel p
40. his tool allows to evaluate the results of other tools by formulating conditions like the measured dis tance must lie between certain values in order for the part being okay These evaluations are then treated as additional results therefore you can output them together with the al phanumeric results Moreover depending on these evaluations you can decide what is to be written to a log file or sent via the serial interface Output tools allow to open and initialize channels to output alphanumeric or symbolic results Depending on evaluations you can select the output data Currently tools are provided for output into file via a serial interface and via a digital I O board vision tools rimary vision tools result processing tools output tools ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions LH L 2 2 D O G About ActivVisionTools inspection tools A special kind of output tools are ActivDataView and ActivFeatureHistogram Those two tools do not perform real output but display the alphanumeric results in a spreadsheet or a histogram respectively They are very useful when setting up and configuring an ActivVisionTools application as you can check at once the validity of the results e Inspection tools allow to check the setup of camera optics or illumination They can be used for the initial configuration of a vision system but also for monitoring it during run t
41. ime Currently Activ VisionTools includes three inspection tools which allow to zoom into the current image to inspect the gray value profile along a line or arc and to calculate gray value histograms The example configuration of tools in figure 1 1 on page 4 illustrates the typical connections between Activ VisionTools Note that the following tools defy the above classification ActivGenericInterface and Ac tivGUIComponents ActivGenericInterface can be used to create your own ActivVisionTool therefore you can configure it to play the role of any of the tool types described above Ac tivGUIComponents on the other hand is a set of components that allow to create customized GUIs 1 2 2 Interaction Via Graphical User Interfaces ActivVisionTools can be configured and parameterized completely via graphical user interfaces without having to write a single line of code To facilitate this interaction even more each ActivVisionTool provides multiple ActiveX controls which concentrate on different groups of properties In other words each ActivVisionTool consists of multiple sub tools The so called master tool contains the full functionality together with a window to configure the main parameters while the so called support tools provide more detailed access to the parameters of the master tool Thus you can adapt your working environment easily to the different phases of development As an example figure 1 2 on page 8 displays s
42. information about this can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools chapter 4 on page 107 ActivVisionTools and Programming Environments ActivVisionTools comes as a set of ActiveX controls thus it can be used in all environments that can deal with ActiveX controls As Visual Basic can be seen as the native environment for ActiveX most examples in the ActivVisionTools manuals stem from this environment They are based on version 6 0 as you can convert projects from this version to Visual Basic NET but not the other way round The basic steps are also shown in this manual for Visual Basic NET Since Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET differ regarding the programming language the basic examples using the ActivVisionTools programming interface are provided for both ver sions Detailed information about using ActivVisionTools in Visual Studio NET and Visual C is given in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools in section 1 2 on page 3 and section 1 3 on page 14 respectively Please note that ActivVisionTools are only available as ActiveX controls not as NET Windows Controls The support of NET is therefore restricted to the use of ActiveX controls within a NET environment In fact Activ VisionTools is more than a set of ActiveX controls It also includes further software components that automatically connect the tools to each other and configure the data streams between them Getting Started
43. ion 3 6 2 3 on page 105 section 4 4 1 on page 119 and section 4 4 3 on page 137 e ActivBarcode Extraction and decoding of various common bar codes How to use ActivBarcode is described in the User s Manual for ActivBarcode Further examples for using ActivBarcode can be found in the User s Manual for Activ View chap ter 3 on page 27 in the User s Manual for ActivSerial and in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 1 3 on page 14 section 2 2 on page 42 section 3 6 1 4 on page 98 and section 3 4 1 1 on page 68 e ActivDataCode Extraction and decoding of various common data codes How to use ActivDataCode is described in the User s Manual for ActivDataCode e ActivBlobFinder Robust blob extraction and further processing of blobs ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 12 About ActivVisionTools How to use ActivBlobFinder is described in the User s Manual for ActivBlobFinder Fur ther examples for using can be found in the User s Manual for ActivFeatureCalc and in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 3 4 1 2 on page 72 section 3 4 2 1 on page 76 section 3 4 2 2 on page 80 section 3 6 1 2 on page 94 section 3 6 1 3 on page 96 and section 4 4 1 on page 119 e ActivFeatureCalc Calculation of more than 50 shape and gray value features for blob analysis How to use ActivFeatureCalc is described in the User s Manual for ActivFeatureCalc Further examples for using Ac
44. ired components should already be included in the ActivVisionTools installation For NET applications the NET Framework which can be downloaded from Microsoft s web pages is sufficient please check that you use the correct version e g 1 0 for Visual Studio NET 2002 Then you copy the executable together with its DSC file and if existing the files containing the alignment anchor and the data code model see the manuals User s Manual for ActivAlignment and User s Manual for ActivDataCode respectively For a Visual Studio NET application except unmanaged C you simply copy the subdirec tory bin of the release configuration of your project Getting Started 2008 04 23 Chapter 4 Tips amp Tricks This chapter contains additional information which helps working with ActivVisionTools e g where to find error log files or how to install the dongle driver manually The chapter ends with a list of problems you might encounter with Activ VisionTools in general together with tips how to solve them 4 1 Error Messages and the Status of an Application 44 4 2 Installing the Dongle Driver Manually 22 206 44 42 1 WDongles tor the Parallel Pott gt lt poo 544684485 82 Dae 44 42 2 Donglestorthe USB Port gt Lia 45 4 3 Teoubleshooung ses x e e ners tins 46 Hse Z gt it a We we ee Ee ew owe Ee 46 4 3 2 Using ActivVisionTools LL 47 4 3 3 What to Put Into a Problem Report
45. ivVisionTools to the Visual Studio NET toolbox ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 30 Using ActivVisionTools Configuring Visual Basic NET continued As described in detail in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools in section 1 1 on page 2 Visual Basic NET imposes some restrictions that made using ActivVisionTools not as convenient as in Visual Basic 6 0 In previous versions of Activ VisionTools this meant that you had to add code to each ActivVisionTools application to perform garbage collection save DSC files and obtain modeless dialogs Starting with ActivVisionTools 3 1 the ActivVisionTools fileset provides the necessary functionality in form of the control AVTNETControl which can be added to the form interactively If for some reason you don t want to use the control but add parts of the functionality manu ally please refer to Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 1 2 1 on page 3 and section 1 2 2 on page 4 The following steps are visualized in figure 3 3 To add AVTNETControl to the toolbox click on the tab containing the Activ VisionTools with the right mouse button and select Customize Toolbox In the dialog select the tab NET Framework Components and click on Browse In the appearing file selection box change to the subdirectory de venv dotnet vb ActivVToolsNET bin of the folder where you installed Activ VisionTools Here load ActivVToolsNET d1l The
46. m Files MVTec ActivVisionTools In Getting Started 2008 04 23 2 1 Installing ActivVisionTools 17 the following we will call this folder the base directory Furthermore the setup will ask for the name of a program folder in the Windows start menu where it will add program icons e g the user s manuals or the ready to use example application ActivViewer By default these icons will appear in the submenu Start gt Programs gt MVTec ActivVisionTools 3 2 The setup allows you to choose between different types of installations D Typical All parts of ActivVisionTools recommended for most users Custom Select the desired parts Runtime Minimal installation requires less disk space Then the setup starts to install the required components of HALCON If you are already using HALCON please make a quick detour to section 2 1 3 on page 19 at this point Again you will be asked to select a folder this time for the HALCON software by default it will be installed parallel to the ActivVisionTools software Then the setup asks whether to install the dongle driver programs which are necessary for using a license bound to a dongle We recommend to install the dongle drivers Note that this choice only concerns the permanent licenses If you just want to use ActivView ActivZoom etc or evaluate ActivVisionTools with a temporary license we nevertheless recommend to install the dongle driver to facilitate a later us
47. mes The fastest way to do so is to select the first tool by clicking on ActivVTools AVTAlignment Then scroll down to the last tool ActivVTools AVTZoom and press the key Shift while clicking on it all Activ VisionTools should be marked as selected Now click on the box to the left of Ac tivVTools AVTZoom as a result all ActivVisionTools check boxes should become checked Finally click OK to add the tools to the toolbox As you can see the list of tools is quite long To get a more compact representation right click on the toolbox and disable the item List View We continue with the configuration on the next double page Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET 29 open dialog to customize toolbox via right mouse click O add a new toolbox tab via right mouse click WindowsApplication1 Microsoft Yisual Basic NET design Forza1 b Design View Project Build Debug Data Tools dow Help tedio prem JBE H e a la x aln of oh S tt LH b S pa Sn E Ea 4 L x Solution 1 A x 4 aalala Windows Forms Teh sal Solution Wrens 1 pro E __ a puns mmm TE E Gengjal ustomize Toolbox ActivVisionTools T COM Components E
48. ogram e ActivDecision Interactive formulation of conditions to evaluate results and display of individual results and evaluations How to use ActivDecision is described in the User s Manual for ActivDecision Further more the following User s Manuals describe how to use ActivDecision to evaluate the Getting Started 2008 04 23 1 3 The Family of Tools 13 results of other ActivVisionTools ActivAlignment see section 3 2 on page 18 Activ Measure see section 3 2 on page 20 ActivBarcode see section 3 2 on page 16 Activ BlobFinder see section 3 2 on page 28 ActivFeatureCalc see section 3 2 on page 26 and ActivOCR see section 3 2 on page 52 How to access evaluation results via the programming interface is described in the fol lowing User s Manuals ActivMeasure see section 4 3 2 on page 36 ActivBarcode see section 4 3 2 on page 32 ActivFeatureCalc see section 4 2 2 on page 41 and ActivOCR see section 4 3 2 on page 67 LH gt b o 2 2 D E E e ActivFile Selection of results for output and customization of the log file format Currently there is no separate manual for ActivFile Instead the following User s Manuals describe how to use ActivFile to output the results of other ActivVisionTools Activ Alignment see section 3 3 on page 20 ActivMeasure see section 3 3 on page 22 Activ Barcode see section 3 3 on page 18 ActivBlobFinder see section 3 3 on page 30 A
49. ort or for the USB port from your local distributor you just need to specify which tools you want to use The dongle will be delivered together with the corresponding license file Note that dongles are more expensive than network cards Getting Started 2008 04 23 2 2 Licensing 23 FEATURE MVTec_ActivMeasure mvtecd 3 2 permanent uncounted N HOSTID 000ea62e7fa4 SIGN 8D65 03EB 10B7BF11 0C41 8528 150E 5D5F E1B5 1090 E96A 7CCB 7E6C 8946 2F39 1056 D711 DB3B C239 C46F E2F5 245B 3DFO B9F9 893B 5E8E C22C 1C65 3B99 AAE7 FEATURE MVTec_ActivDecision mvtecd 3 2 permanent uncounted N HOSTID 000ea62e7fa4 SIGN 03EF A10E 6D69 67BB CAEA 3F50 3CE5 F48E 9E1F B1DB 5E6B EE25 FBC2 BCB4 3A32 1461 B8D2 77B4 A211 34ED 1BFB 34C7 BD33 54BE 69CF F9CF 577F SAAO ABAA 430C Figure 2 4 Permanent license keys bound to a network board Installing the License File After sending the ID to your distributor or requesting a dongle you will receive a license file containing the permanent license keys for the requested tools This file must be placed in the the subdirectory license of the ActivVisionTools base directory and renamed to license dat if necessary Example license keys for ActivMeasure and ActivDecision bound to a network board with the ID 000ea62e7fa4 are depicted in figure 2 4 Note that if you use a dongle bound license and move the dongle to another computer you must copy the license file to this computer as well _ If you u
50. our Fast Track to Solutions About ActivVisionTools basic tools gt ActivDataView r vision tool output tool N Le ActivView a ActivDecision visiontool vision tool Lel output tool primary vision tool H ActivDataView Figure 1 1 Example configuration of tools decide once and forever which language you want to use instead you can switch between lan guages as you like This also means that you can develop an ActivVisionTools application in one language and then switch the language for its final use 1 2 Basic Concepts This section explains the basic concepts behind ActivVisionTools the different groups of tools and how they cooperate with each other how to interact with a tool via its graphical user in terfaces how to put together suitable tools to create an application and the different modes for designing and executing an ActivVisionTools application 1 2 1 The Different Types of Tools ActivVisionTools come in different flavors basic tools vision tools primary vision tools result processing tools output tools and inspection tools e Basic tools provide the functionality that is needed in each machine vision application There is only one basic tool ActivView This tool is in charge of displaying the current image together with regions of interes
51. pgrade ActivVisionTools to a newer version your distributor provides you with a new license file which contains the new license keys This new license file should replace the old one ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions ao D b G 2 n D O 24 Installation Getting Started 2008 04 23 Chapter 2 Using ActivVisionTools In this chapter we create your first example application It addresses the elementary problem of all machine vision tasks How to get images from file or image acquisition device and how to display and inspect them For this task only ActivView is needed While solving this task you will get to know the basic steps of working with ActivVisionTools How to add and remove tools how to adapt their properties and how to test and execute the application The example application is developed within Microsoft Visual Basic For each step there is a Visual Basic 6 0 project in the subdirectory examples manuals getting_started of the ActivVisionTools base directory you selected during the installation default C Program Files MVTec ActivVisionTools However we recommend to develop your own project from scratch especially if you are using Visual Basic NET 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET 26 3 2 AtDesign Times s es esri ese aT R eee 32 3 3 Displaying Images R r a XT e ee R R ee ee ee ee te ees 34 3 4 Connecting to an Image Acq
52. previous dialog now lists the control as shown in the figure and the toolbox contains its icon ay x Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET 31 M open dialog to customize toolbox via right mouse click on ActivVisionTools tab L S LG Components dp ll Windows Forms n Clipboard Ring COM Components NET Framework Components Gara LH Name Nahespace Assembly name S pesca E lO O anope icrosoft VisualBasic Comp Microsoft YisualBasic Compatibility Dat Su Gol bh on on on Qapopcarray Microsoft VisualBasic Compatibility B6 pft VisualBasic Compatibility Dat Ww AE R no SR en A AdRotator System Web UI WebControls System Web 1 0 3300 0 ni mo u 25 CO AssemblyInstaller System Configuration Install rE A A VTNETControl Activ ISNET ish 3 2 ps pr G L Se E Ee R Button System Windows Forms ms 1 0 3300 0 fe te AE E KE m M Button System Web LI WebControls System Web 1 0 3300 0 45 A Z DUBurtanarrav Microsoft VisualBastoComp Microsoft VisualBasic Compatibility 7 0 4 reat EBBE M calendar System Web UI WebContrals _ System Web 1 0 3300 0 4 CheckBox System Windows Forms System Windows Forms 1 0 3300 0 Bi E FA Taini orari trevi he a TR Ge annann m Di Pi Bel 02 ni AVTNETConffol S fal ge as oe Language Invariant Language Invariant Country Big amp Version 3 1 0 0 Retail Ba eee E a gt T
53. size How to do this is described in the User s Manual for Activ View Getting Started 2008 04 23 3 3 Displaying Images 35 S H bie Ga 3 di Q a ria Haasa pij indi 1 start the application via the toolbar icon D stop the application via the toolbar icon or by pressing the exit icon of the form select File G choose image file s in the combo box or via a file selection dialog LH b fo pa Sn E 4 load and display the selected image Displaying Images Acquisition Interface File Name Detect Refresh Device e Board vj Port r Input File v Choose Directory Choose File Grabbing barcode code3 _01 Execute Est MW Connected More Parameters j Single Run F Trigger Save Image Save Window zoom into the image using the scrollbar change the displayed part of the image using the other two scrollbars Figure 3 5 Loading images from files ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 36 Using ActivVisionTools 3 4 Connecting to an Image Acquisition Device Before accessing an image acquisition device from within ActivVisionTools we recommend to check that it s working correctly Please consult the User s Manual for Activ View for more information Visnal Basic Preparation for the following example Example
54. t ROIs and image processing results Furthermore ActivView possesses interfaces to about 50 image acquisition devices so that you can connect to your device and grab images in less than five mouse clicks Finally Activ View allows to specify regions of interest ROIs for other ActivVisionTools in order to focus and speed up image processing Getting Started 2008 04 23 1 2 Basic Concepts Vision tools provide the functionality specifically needed for the machine vision appli cation at hand i e bar code reading measuring gauging or blob analysis In most applications only one vision tool is needed As input vision tools typically receive the current image respectively regions of interest in it from ActivView together with calibration and alignment information if present see below But vision tools can also be connected to each other in a chain e g ActivFeature Calc expects extracted blobs as an input which stem from ActivBlobFinder Vision tools can provide two types of results iconic and alphanumeric or symbolic results Iconic results are e g preprocessed images or regions blobs Typical alphanumeric results also called features are distances measured in the image or in 3D a recognized character or a decoded bar code symbolic results could be error messages like no bar code found or part is not okay Primary vision tools are not directly responsible for solving your vision task but
55. time Add AVTViewFG to the form by double clicking A with the left mouse button move the appearing control to a suitable position on the form Otherwise open the project display gs_display vbp The following steps are visualized in figure 3 5 O Execute the application via the menu item Run gt Start or by pressing the corresponding button in the toolbar To load image files select File in the combo box Name In the upper combo box in the frame Input File you now can select among a list of image files provided with the ActivVisionTools CD Alternatively you can open a file selector by clicking Choose File To open all the image files from a directory consecutively click Choose Directory This is a simplification over using a sequence file If the image is not automatically displayed click Single If you selected an image sequence clicking this button loads the next image and displays it in the window of AVTView You may zoom into the image using the rightmost scroll bar of AVTView With the other two scroll bars you can vary the displayed part of the image To stop the application select Run gt Stop or press the corresponding button in the toolbar or the exit button of the form Note that the image is automatically scaled to fit into the display We recommend to adapt the size of the display so that it corresponds to the full half or quarter image
56. tivFeatureCalc can be found in the User s Manual for Activ BlobFinder e ActivOCR Easy to use fast and reliable OCR How to use ActivOCR is described in the User s Manual for ActivOCR Further examples for using ActivOCR can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools section 3 6 1 1 on page 92 section 3 6 1 4 on page 98 and section 3 6 2 2 on page 104 e ActivWordProcess Grouping characters to words and checking them against syntax rules or dictionaries How to use ActivWordProcess is described in the User s Manual for ActivOCR chapter 3 on page 41 Further examples for using ActivWordProcess can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for Activ VisionTools section 3 6 1 1 on page 92 section 3 6 1 4 on page 98 and section 3 6 2 2 on page 104 e ActivDataView Display of alphanumeric results Currently there is no separate manual for ActivDataView Instead the following User s Manuals describe how to use ActivDataView to view the results of other ActivVisionTools ActivGeoCalib see section 3 1 on page 18 ActivAlignment see section 3 1 on page 16 ActivMeasure see e g section 2 3 on page 14 ActivBarcode see e g section 2 2 on page 8 ActivBlobFinder see section 3 1 on page 26 ActivFeatureCalc see e g section 2 2 on page 20 and ActivOCR see section 2 4 on page 38 e ActivFeatureHistogram Histogram of features i e alphanumeric results Currently there is no manual for ActivFeatureHist
57. ub tools of Activ View Support tools can be either placed on the form at design time or opened at run time via a click with the right mouse button on the corresponding master tool How you can further adapt the GUI to your needs is described in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools chapter 2 on page 39 1 2 3 A Look Behind the Tools Learning about the different tools sub tools and their connection you might start to wonder whether you really need no programming to get all these tools working together Getting Started 2008 04 23 1 2 Basic Concepts 7 The reason why you really do not need to write a single line of code to work with Activ Vision Tools is that it already comes with built in mechanisms that serve as a sort of operating system In fact you do not need to know much about these mechanisms only that they e automatically connect the tools and their data streams to each other e automatically connect support tools to their master tool ao D b S n D 0 e set up acorrect order of execution for the tools scheduling e monitor the application for events e g user interactions and trigger suitable reactions e save and restore the state of your ActivVisionTools application see also the next section Thus you can concentrate on your machine vision problem at hand ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 8 About ActivVisionTools Li AVTView Fai AVTView
58. uisition Device 2 26 36 3 5 Creating a Stand Alone Application 2 022000 38 3 6 Checking the Necessary Licenses 0 tt 40 3 7 Deploying an Application 2 2 eee eee ee ewes 42 25 Ke D bl L 2 D O 26 Using ActivVisionTools Visual Basic Example 3 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 and Visual Basic NET During the installation of ActivVisionTools the corresponding OCX ActivVTools ocx and other libraries are registered and therefore ready to use in a development environment In this section we show how to configure Microsoft Visual Basic 6 0 to use ActivVisionTools followed by the procedure for Visual Basic NET Visual C NET is similar If you want to use ActivVisionTools within Visual C please refer to the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 1 3 on page 14 More details about using Activ Vision Tools in Visual Studio NET can be found in the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools section 1 2 on page 3 3 1 1 Configuring Visual Basic 6 0 Preparation for the following example Start Microsoft Visual Basic and create a new project The following steps are visualized in figure 3 1 For each new project you must add ActivVisionTools to its components Open the menu dialog Project gt Components check the box labeled ActivVisionTools 3 2 and press Apply Q In the toolbar
59. w o LIC AWINDOWSISysl BNSZ tde ocx lm BackColor E 8 8000000F Cdla d BorderStyle 2 Sizable on L cic 1 0 Type Library E Za s g H Caption ActivYisionTools k CompatUI 1 0 Type Library 3 7 Re x P ClipControls True 9 E ComSnap 1 0 Type Library E m N Browse Controlbox True CoolviewCtl ActiveX Control module v BL ize fa S 4 F DrawMode 13 Copy Pen L T Selected Items Only DrawStyle 0 Solid Re S m ANivtisionTools 3 1b Drawwidth g Enabled True HD 25 SE 23 LocStion C 4 bin i586 nt4 Activ Tools ocx Fillcolor T 300000000 FillStyle 1 Transparent A Font MS Sans Serif xl Aa Name Returns the name used in code to ActivVisionTools L identify an object G create a group and move ActivVisionTools icons add ActivVisionTools the ActivVisionTools inside appear in the tool bar to project components Figure 3 1 ActivVisionTools in the environment of Visual Basic 6 0 ActivVisionTools 3 2 Your Fast Track to Solutions 28 Using ActivVisionTools Visual Basic NET Exam ple 3 1 2 Configuring Visual Basic NET This section describes the basic steps necessary to use ActivVisionTools in Visual Basic NET In contrast to Visual Basic 6 0 you need to perform them only once then you can use Activ VisionTools without further action in all new projects If you get warnings or even run time errors in the following please check the system requirements listed in section 1 4 on page 14
60. wer exe if installed devenv This directory contains special extension you need when using ActivVisionTools in Visual C or Visual Studio NET For details see the Advanced User s Guide for ActivVisionTools chapter on page doc If you installed the documentation you can find the User s Manuals in form of PDF files in the subdirectory doc pdf manuals The reference manual is available as compiled help and can be found in the subdirectory doc chm examples The subdirectory demo contains ready to use example applications In the subdirectories of examples manuals you can find the example Visual Basic 6 0 projects that allow you to follow the examples in the User s Manuals actively Examples for using Activ VisionTools in Visual C and Visual Studio NET can be found n the subdirectories of examples vcpp and examples dotnet respectively We recommend to create a private copy of the example projects before working on them _ images This directory contains image files TIFF format which are used in the examples in the user s manuals license The license file License dat resides in this directory After the installation this file contains the unlimited license key for ActivView ActivZoom ActivLineProfile and ActivHistogram see section 2 2 on page 20 for more information nls As mentioned in chapter on page 1 ActivVisionTools supports diff
61. will receive the keys in form of a new license file license dat to replace the original one An evaluation license is valid for one month After the evaluation phase you will have to purchase permanent license keys for those tools beside Activ View ActivZoom ActivLineProfile and ActivHistogram you want to use Again these keys will come in form of a new license file license dat Licenses are bound to one specific host computer or one hardware dongle Licensing is described in more detail in section 2 2 on page 20 ActivVisionTools and HALCON Activ VisionTools is based on HALCON MVTec s unique machine vision library Therefore the installation process will automatically install the required components of HALCON if necessary i e if it does not find a current HALCON version on your system Note that you do not need a HALCON license to run ActivVisionTools 2 1 1 The Installation Process _ Please note that you need administrator privileges in order to install ActivVisionTools To install ActivVisionTools simply insert the DVD This should automatically start the setup program If the setup program doesn t start automatically e g because you switched off this feature on your system execute the program Setup exe located in the directory install windows on the DVD At the beginning you will be asked to select a folder where the ActivVisionTools software will be installed A typical place would be C Progra
62. y the following Activ VisionTools are available e ActivView Interfaces to about 50 image acquisition devices regions of interest ROIs display of images ROIs and results 2D calibration execution control How to use Activ View is described in the User s Manual for ActivView Since Activ View is part of every ActivVisionTools application its use is also described in other User s Manuals e ActivZoom Zooming of live images inspection of pixel values Currently there is no separate manual for ActivZoom The User s Manual for Activ BlobFinder chapter 2 on page 9 describes how to use ActivZoom to determine suitable parameters for the extraction and the processing of blobs e ActivLineProfile Analysis of pixel values along lines or arcs calculation of statistical information e g the mean pixel value Currently there is no separate manual for ActivLineProfile The User s Manual for Activ View section 4 1 on page 40 describes how to use ActivLineProfile to analyze and en hance the quality of acquired images The User s Manual for ActivBlobFinder chapter 2 on page 9 describes how to use ActivLineProfile to determine suitable parameters for the extraction and the processing of blobs Getting Started 2008 04 23 1 3 The Family of Tools 11 e ActivHistogram Analysis of the distribution of gray values Currently there is no separate manual for ActivHistogram The User s Manual for Activ View section 4 1 on pag
63. y dongle but only those supplied by MVTec via your distributor 4 2 1 Dongles for the Parallel Port You can install configure and uninstall the dongle driver manually using an auxiliary program which is part of each ActivVisionTools installation Please note that you need administrator privileges to install the driver If you try to install the driver without administrator privileges the setup program might falsely state that the installation was successful 1 Open a Windows Command Prompt and change into the folder where you in stalled HALCON typically C Program Files MVTec Halcon see section 2 1 1 on page 16 From there change into the subdirectory FLEX1m x86 win32 flexid6 7 win_nt Here start the program setupx86 exe a large window appears As an alternative open the dialog Start gt Run and start the program by specifying its full path 2 Select the menu item Functions gt Install which starts the installation process 3 Afterwards reboot your computer Getting Started 2008 04 23 4 2 Installing the Dongle Driver Manually 45 To check whether the dongle driver was installed successfully open the Windows dialog Start gt Settings gt Control Panel gt Devices Now there should be an entry called Sentinel The dongle driver setup program can also be used to configure the driver e g if your computer has more than one parallel port ao D b G 2 n D O 4 2 2 Dongles for t

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