Today's Automation News Headlines from Automation.com

February 12, 2011 - Cognex enhanced VisionPro 7.0 machine vision software with Inspection Designer and 1DMax.

Inspection Designer provides vision systems integrators and end users with the functionality to simplify the specification, development and maintenance of inspection applications. Inspection Designer offers three main benefits:

1.  Definition of Defects. A new image grading utility allows integrators and end users to easily grade product images and to specify different defect types within each image. The image grading utility creates a library of graded images for the next step of the process.
2. Verification. The verification tool helps developers quickly confirm that the vision system is producing the desired results by comparing the grades of the inspection results with hundreds, or even thousands, of stored and graded images.
3. Field Maintenance.The verification tool also allows the end customer at any time to re-test the inspection tools against the library of graded images to confirm that factory floor adjustments have not compromised a previously working inspection application. It also allows them to add new images to the library of graded parts.

VisionPro 7.0 also includes several new features and enhancements, including:

• The addition of the software tool 1DMax, for omnidirectional and difficult to read barcodes. 1DMax can read the barcodes that other software cannot, including codes with specularity, damage, background noise and/or rotation. 
• Support for the MVS-8602e CameraLink frame grabber under the Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit OS for fast acquisition of large images that require large amount of memory.

"The introduction of Inspection Designer now gives system integrators and their end user customers a common communication tool because it provides a formal baseline for defining good and bad parts," said Markku Jaaskelainen, Vision Software Business Unit Manager, “It is a more convenient way of defining a project and will help to ensure integrators and end users are in agreement at the start of a project.”

About Cognex
Cognex Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and markets machine vision and industrial ID systems, or devices that can "see." Cognex vision and ID systems are used around the world for a wide range of inspection, identification and guidance applications throughout the manufacturing and distribution process. Cognex is the world's leader in the machine vision and industrial ID industries, having shipped more than 500,000 systems, representing over $2.5 billion in cumulative revenue, since the company's founding in 1981. Headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, USA, Cognex has regional offices and distributors located throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Japanand Latin America.