HALCON Progress Key Visual shows a person swimming

Unique Technologies

From Basics to High Tech

MVTec’s software solution HALCON offers the full set of standard machine vision technologies. Beyond that, HALCON provides many unique features.

HALCON offers a huge range of latest deep learning technologies

In combination with its large variety of rule-based methods, HALCON offers a huge range of the latest deep learning technologies. The result is a unique, completely integrated toolbox. The deep learning functions include:

Deep OCR, a holistic deep-learning-based approach for OCR
Pretrained CNNs (Convolutional Neural Networks) for
quickly building deep-learning-based applications
Classification
Object detection, also considering the objects' orientation
Semantic segmentation
Anomaly detection
Edge Extraction
Labeling of data
HALCON's deep learning inference can be executed on GPUs, on CPUs, and on Arm^® processors
HALCON's deep learning training can be performed on CPU & GPU

HALCON offers the largest variety of robust matching techniques for any task

Correlation-based matching (NCC)
Shape-based matching
Component-based matching
Descriptor-based matching
Perspective and local deformable matching
Shape- and surface-based 3D matching
Deformable surface-based 3D matching

HALCON enters the next dimension with revolutionary methods for 3D vision

Multi-view 3D calibration
Hand-eye-calibration
3D alignment
3D matching
3D surface comparison
Circle pose
Rectangle pose
3D reconstruction
Multi-view stereo
Depth from focus
Sheet of light
3D object processing
3D primitives fitting
3D scene flow
Generic box finder
Deflectometry

HALCON contains many more unique techniques

Sample-based identification capable of differentiating a large number of objects
Arbitrarily shaped regions of interest (ROIs) for significant flexibility and speed
Extremely fast morphology and a wide set of subpixel-accurate methods
Reading of bar codes and data codes with maximum robustness to occlusions and print quality
Processing of extremely large images (more than 32k x 32k) without a limit
Automatic operator parallelization (AOP)
Surface-based 3D matching to find locally deformed objects in 3D data

Complete Hardware Independence

HALCON supports many different operating systems and processors:

Operating System	Processor	Compiler
Windows x64	Intel^® 64 or AMD64	Visual Studio 2005 or higher
Linux x86_64	Intel 64 or AMD64	gcc 5 or higher
Linux armv7a (hard-float ABI)	Armv7-A with NEON support	gcc 5 or higher
Linux aarch64	Armv8-A with AArch64 support	gcc 5 or higher
macOS	Intel 64	XCode 10.0

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.

HALCON is optimized to profit from the possibilities of the hardware

HALCON utilizes SIMD, multi-core CPUs, and multiprocessor computers. Moreover, HALCON provides an efficient automatic GPU acceleration based on the OpenCL standard. HALCON's deep learning algorithms are optimized for NVIDIA GPUs and Intel CPUs. With the generic AI Accelerator Interface (AI²), HALCON customers can also use supported AI accelerator hardware for the inference part of their deep learning applications.

HALCON supports a multitude of different image acquisition devices

Universal acquisition interfaces for all GigE Vision compliant cameras from Allied Vision, Automation Technology, Basler, Baumer, Daheng, e2v, FLIR, Gardasoft, Hitachi, IDS Imaging, Imperx, JAI, Kappa optronics, MATRIX VISION, Mikrotron, NET, odos imaging, Photonfocus, Pleora, Quelltech, Roboception, Sentech, SICK, SMARTEK Vision, Sony, SVS-VISTEK, Tattile, Teledyne DALSA, The Imaging Source, Toshiba Teli, Vieworks, wenglorMEL, XENICS, and others.

Universal acquisition interfaces for all USB3 Vision compliant cameras from Allied Vision, Basler, Baumer, Daheng, FLIR, IDS Imaging, JAI, MATRIX VISION, NET, Sentech, The Imaging Source, Toshiba Teli, XIMEA, and others.

Universal acquisition interfaces for all GenICam GenTL compliant boards or cameras from Active Silicon, ADLINK, Allied Visiion, Basler, Baumer, Euresys, Gidel, KAYA Instruments, LMI, IDS Imaging, MATRIX VISION, Nerian, NET, Roseek, Silicon Software, SmartRay, SICK, VRmagic, XIMEA, ZividLabs, and others.

Universal acquisition interface for all IIDC 1394 (FireWire) compliant cameras from Allied Vision, Basler, Baumer, FLIR, Hitachi, Kappa, Imaging Solutions Group, Kappa optronics, NET, PixeLINK, Sony, The Imaging Source, Toshiba Teli, and others.

Universal acquisition interface for all capture devices with DirectShow, TWAIN, Video4Linux drivers or a GStreamer media framework plugin.

Specific acquisition interface for cameras and frame grabber boards from ABS, ADLINK, Andor, Basler, BitFlow, Bluetechnix, Crevis, Daheng, Enseo, Euresys, heliotis, IDS, ifm, Leuze, LinX, Lumenera, MATRIX VISION, Matrix BV, Matrox, Opteon, PixeLINK, Photoneo, Raytrix, Sentech, SICK, Silicon Software, Teledyne DALSA, and VRmagic.

HALCON supports a multitude of different digital I/O devices

Universal digital I/O interfaces for all OPC UA and OPC Classic compliant devices.
Specific digital I/O interfaces for digital I/O devices from Advantech, Contec, Interface, National Instruments.
Additional digital I/O devices can be integrated easily via a generic interface.
A specific digital I/O interface for interacting with the GPIO character device on Linux systems.

Thus, HALCON enables scenarios of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as well as agile production processes, increasing production efficiency (e.g., by predictive maintenance). Here, HALCON communicates with the respective system servers as an OPC UA client.