Advantech I/O Interface for Advantech digital I/O devices

Interface:	Advantech
Revision:	24.11.6
Date:	2026-09-23

General

This page provides the documentation of the HALCON Advantech interface for accessing the Advantech Digital I/O cards. Only interface specific parameters and features are described here. For general information of the operators for I/O interfaces please have a look at the HALCON Operator Reference.
Registered customers can download the latest revision of this interface from the MVTec WWW server.

System Requirements

Intel compatible PC with Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) or newer that is also supported by the vendor-specific SDK, also WoW64 (using 32-bit HALCON on 64-bit Windows).
Installed Advantech DAQNavi SDK version 3.1.6 (or higher). See Limitations section for version 4.0 (or higher).
Windows: HALCON I/O interface hioAdvantech.dll or hioAdvantechxl.dll, respectively. If you have properly installed the interface, all these DLLs should reside in bin\%HALCONARCH% within the HALCON base directory %HALCONROOT% you have chosen during the installation of HALCON.

Installation

Only when installing or updating the interface manually follow these steps:

Extract the archive containing the interface files to the HALCON base directory %HALCONROOT% (Note: Administrator privileges may be required for this step). Additionally, you have to move the interface examples to the directory %HALCONEXAMPLES% manually.

Features

Opening and using of multiple Advantech I/O ports.
Opening and using of multiple specific channels (specific port values).

Limitations

No support of event counters
No support of pattern matching
No support of analog functions
In case of DAQNavi SDK version 4.0 (or higher), the device settings defined in the Advantech Navigator are not automatically stored and loaded from the registry anymore, but from a configuration file. Since the current interface does not support loading a configuration file, the default settings of the device are used instead. This may be critical for bidirectional devices, since the port direction can not be changed.

Operator control_io_interface

Not supported by this interface.

Operator query_io_interface

query_io_interface(::IOInterfaceName, Query:Result)

Query information about the specified I/O device interface.

Parameter	Values	Type	Description
IOInterfaceName	'Advantech'	string	HALCON I/O interface name.
Query		string	Parameter name of the query.
'io_device_names'	'<name>'	string	Returns a list of available devices.
'param_name'	'<parameter>'[,'<parameter>'...]	string	Returns the possible parameter names.
'revision'	'<version>.<revision>.<build>'	string	Revision number of the interface.
Result		integer, real, string	List of result values (according to Query).

Operator open_io_device

open_io_device(::IOInterfaceName, IODeviceName, GenParamName, GenParamValue:IODeviceHandle)

Open and configure an I/O device.

Parameter	Values	Default	Type	Description
IOInterfaceName	'Advantech'	[]	string	HALCON I/O interface name.
IODeviceName		[]	string	I/O device name.
GenParamName		[]	string	Dynamic parameter names.
GenParamValue		[]	integer, real, string	Dynamic parameter values.
IODeviceHandle			handle	Handle of the opened I/O device.

Operator control_io_device

Not supported by this interface.

Operator set_io_device_param

Set the device parameters. Currently, no parameters are defined.

Operator get_io_device_param

get_io_device_param(::IODeviceHandle, GenParamName:GenParamValue)

Query settings of an I/O device instance.

There may exist additional parameter attributes, which can be accessed as 'ParamNames.AttributeName'. The following standard attributes may be available:

'.access': This attribute provides the access permissions of the corresponding parameter as a string. Possible values are 'ro' (read-only), 'wo' (write-only), 'rw' (read/write), 'na' (unavailable, perhaps due to insufficient access rights), and 'ni' (unavailable, not defined for this device or channel).
'.category': This attribute provides the category of the corresponding parameter as a string. 'I/O interface' for all pre-defined I/O interface parameters.
'.default': This attribute provides the default value of the corresponding parameter.
'.description': This attribute provides the description of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.displayname': This attribute provides the displayname of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.range': This attribute provides the minimum and maximum, (and the step width, if applicable) for the corresponding integer or float parameter as a tuple with 2 (or 3) elements.
'.representation': This attribute provides how the value of the parameter should be displayed in a GUI: 'ip address', 'hex', ...
'.tooltip': This attribute provides the tool-tip of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.type': This attribute provides the HALCON value type (integer, real, or string) of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.values': This attribute provides the valid value list for the corresponding parameter as a tuple.
'.visibility': This attribute provides the visibility of the corresponding parameter as a string. Possible values are 'common', 'extended', and 'dangerous'.
'.unit': This attribute provides the units of the corresponding parameter as a string. For example: 'ns', 'us' and 'ms', or 'mm', 'cm', 'dm' and 'm'.

Parameter	Values	Type	Description
IODeviceHandle		handle	Handle of the opened I/O device.
GenParamName		string	Parameter names.
'io_device_name'	'<name>'	string	Returns the name of the device.
'param_name'	'<parameter>'[,'<parameter>'...]	string	Returns the possible parameter names.
GenParamValue		integer, real, string, handle	Parameter values.

Operator query_io_device

query_io_device(::IODeviceHandle, IOChannelName, Query:Result)

Query information about channels of the specified I/O device.

Parameter	Values	Type	Description
IODeviceHandle		handle	Handle of the opened I/O device.
IOChannelName		string	Channel names to query.
Query		string	Name of the query.
'channel_type'	'digital_input', 'digital_output'	string	Returns the type of the passed channel.
'io_channel_names'	'<name>'	string	Returns a list of channels provided by the device, e.g., 'di_0.2' describes input port channel 2 on port 0. To list only the channels of a specific type, use the special form io_channel_names.<channel_type> (for a list of valid channel types, see the description of the channel_type parameter).
'param_name'	'<parameter>'[,'<parameter>'...]	string	Returns the possible parameter names.
'value.range'	[<min>,<max>,<step>]	string	Return the possible range of the used I/O channel name parameter
Result		integer, real, string	List of values (according to Query).

Operator open_io_channel

open_io_channel(::IODeviceHandle, IOChannelName, GenParamName, GenParamValue:IOChannelHandle)

Open and configure I/O channels.

Parameter	Default	Type	Description
IODeviceHandle		handle	Handle of the opened I/O device.
IOChannelName		string	HALCON I/O channel names of the specified device.
GenParamName	[]	string	Parameter names.
GenParamValue	[]	integer, real, string	Parameter values.
IOChannelHandle		handle	Handles of the opened I/O channel.

Operator control_io_channel

Not supported by this interface.

Operator set_io_channel_param

Not supported by this interface.

Operator get_io_channel_param

get_io_channel_param(::IOChannelHandle, GenParamName:GenParamValue)

Query specific parameters of I/O channels.

There may exist additional parameter attributes, which can be accessed as 'ParamNames.AttributeName'. The following standard attributes may be available:

'.access': This attribute provides the access permissions of the corresponding parameter as a string. Possible values are 'ro' (read-only), 'wo' (write-only), 'rw' (read/write), 'na' (unavailable, perhaps due to insufficient access rights), and 'ni' (unavailable, not defined for this device or channel).
'.category': This attribute provides the category of the corresponding parameter as a string. 'I/O interface' for all pre-defined I/O interface parameters.
'.default': This attribute provides the default value of the corresponding parameter.
'.description': This attribute provides the description of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.displayname': This attribute provides the displayname of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.range': This attribute provides the minimum and maximum, (and the step width, if applicable) for the corresponding integer or float parameter as a tuple with 2 (or 3) elements.
'.representation': This attribute provides how the value of the parameter should be displayed in a GUI: 'ip address', 'hex', ...
'.tooltip': This attribute provides the tool-tip of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.type': This attribute provides the HALCON value type (integer, real, or string) of the corresponding parameter as a string.
'.values': This attribute provides the valid value list for the corresponding parameter as a tuple.
'.visibility': This attribute provides the visibility of the corresponding parameter as a string. Possible values are 'common', 'extended', and 'dangerous'.
'.unit': This attribute provides the units of the corresponding parameter as a string. For example: 'ns', 'us' and 'ms', or 'mm', 'cm', 'dm' and 'm'.

Parameter	Values	Type	Description
IOChannelHandle		handle	Handles of the opened I/O channels.
GenParamName		string	Parameter names.
'channel_type'	'digital_input', 'digital_output'	string	Returns the type of the passed channel.
'data_mask'	0,<channel_width>	integer	Returns the data mask. This information specifies the format of the data that could be read out via read_io_channel or that could be set via write_io_channel. If a channel is opened, the range of possible values is 0 and 1 because of the data mask with the value 1. If a complete port is used all channels of a port will be accessed. In this case the format of the data mask depends also on the port size. A port with 8 channels (8bit) has the format 0xFF in this case e.g. a value of 255 could be used with write_io_channel to set the complete port (all channels) to 1. With 0 the complete port will be set to 0. Of course, any other values between 0 and 255 could also be written to the port.
'io_channel_name'	'<name>'	string	Returns the name of the channel.
'param_name'	'<parameter>'[,'<parameter>'...]	string	Returns the possible parameter names.
'programmable'	'true', 'false'	string	Specifies if the used channel parameter is programmable or not.
GenParamValue		integer, real, string, handle	Parameter values.

Operator read_io_channel

read_io_channel(::IOChannelHandle:Value, Status)

Read the value from the specific I/O channel or from a port.

Parameter	Type	Description
IOChannelHandle	handle	Handles of the opened I/O channels.
Value	integer, real, string, handle	Read value.
Status	integer	Status of read value. A status of '0' indicates success, while any other value indicates an error condition.

Operator write_io_channel

write_io_channel(::IOChannelHandle, Value:Status)

Write a value to the specific I/O channel or to a port. If several handles are passed, an atomically write is only supported if the order of the handles is not arbitrary. Ports and channels will be written atomically if an ascending order with no gaps is given, e.g. if the following handle values will be passed (the name (do_x.x) represents the handle queried via open_io_channel) ['do_0.1', 'do_0.5', 'do_1.4', 'do_2.0']. In case of ['do_0.0','do_2.0'] or ['do_1.0','do_0.0'] the execution is not atomically and two write calls will be executed internally.

Parameter	Type	Description
IOChannelHandle	handle	Handles of the opened I/O channels.
Value	integer, real, string, handle	Write values.
Status	integer	Status of written values. A status of '0' indicates success, while any other value indicates an error condition.

Operator close_io_channel

close_io_channel(::IOChannelHandle:)

Close I/O channels.

Parameter	Type	Description
IOChannelHandle	handle	Handles of the opened I/O channels.

Operator close_io_device

close_io_device(::IODeviceHandle:)

Close the specified I/O device.

Parameter	Type	Description
IODeviceHandle	handle	Handle of the opened I/O device.

Query the requested information from the specified I/O channels. The parameter 'ParameterNode' is not used by this interface.

HDevelop Examples

For this interface the following examples are available:

advantech_digital_read.hdev - Example to show how to read several parameters and values.
advantech_digital_write.hdev - Example to show how to write several parameters and values.

Release Notes

Revision 24.11.6 (Sep 23, 2026):
- Minor bug fixes.
- A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) in the System Package Data Exchange (SPDX) format has been added next to each binary file with the same name extended by ".spdx.json".
Revision 20.11.5 (Aug 1, 2023):
- The distribution package of this interface now contains files providing meta information for the HDevelop example browser.
- If the device description or name contained UNICODE characters HALCON was unable to set them correctly. This problem has been fixed.
Revision 13.0.4 (Nov 22, 2017):
- The technical dependency from the HALCON Library has been removed.
- DAQNavi SDK version 4.0 (or higher) is not fully supported. A compatibility note has been added to the Limitations section.
Revision 13.0.3 (Oct 4, 2017):
- With DAQNavi SDK version 4, the output ports could not be retrieved when querying 'io_channel_names' or 'io_channel_names.digital_output' in query_io_device. This problem has been fixed.
Revision 13.0.2 (Feb 22, 2017):
- After a channel is initialized, the first call of write_io_channel could result in wrong output values. This problem has been fixed.
Revision 13.0.1 (Oct 28, 2016):
- HALCON 13 version of the interface.
Revision 1.2 (May 13, 2016):
- In read_io_channel, when reading an input port, the value of the returned Status parameter was always 1 (failure). This problem has been fixed.
Revision 1.1 (Apr 25, 2016):
- When querying the channels list with query_io_device, the current port direction configuration was not taking into account for bi-directional ports. This problem has been fixed.
- When querying the channel list of unsupported channel types an error message was returned. This problem has been fixed and now an empty tuple is returned.
- The query of the possible parameter names accepted by query_io_device returned an error. This problem has been fixed.
- query_io_device returned an empty tuple when querying the channel type without specifying a channel. This problem has been fixed and now an error is returned.
- query_io_device crashed when querying 'value.range' without specifying a channel name. This problem has been solved and now an error is returned.
Revision 1.0 (Jan 10, 2014):
- First official release.

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