Product information
MERLIC is an all-in-one software for quickly building machine vision applications without programming. It is based on MVTec's extensive machine vision expertise and combines reliable, fast performance with ease of use. An image-centered user interface and intuitive interaction concepts like easyTouch provide an efficient workflow, which leads to time and cost savings.
Discover our MERLIC leaflet
In our Leaflet, you will find all important information about MERLIC at a glance. Discover MVTec MERLIC and benefit from new it's easy-to-use feature.
Image processing in MERLIC
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*With the free MVTec Deep Learning Tool, you can easily label and train your dataset. Get more information here.
MERLIC tools and features
Image-centered user interface
The very clear and reduced interface presents a large view on the processed image in the center of the program. The tool library on the left side provides many standard vision tools such as acquisition, calibration, alignment, measuring, counting, checking, reading, position determination, and defect detection. It can also be extended with customized tools. Each tool has its own graphical representation in the workspace, which allows you to see and review every step of your vision application. The image-centered design allows you to configure the application directly via the image without the need to write source code or to adjust lots of parameters.
easyTouch
An outstanding, innovative, and unique feature in MERLIC is the easyTouch concept. It helps to guide the user interactively towards the solution. For example, simply hover the mouse pointer over an image and easyTouch recognizes and marks objects to be identified.
You can choose relevant objects with just a single click. Thus, you don't have to configure complex parameters. In addition, some tools support easyTouch+ where you can select multiple objects (by holding the ctrl-key) to configure parameters even better for your purpose. easyTouch saves you a lot of time during development.
Machine vision application without programming
While most common machine vision programs require extensive programming knowledge, MERLIC was created to build a machine vision application without programming a single line of code. So instead of coding line by line, you can simply step through your application and rely on the many standard machine vision tools. The vision tools in the MERLIC "MVApp" are connected automatically. Alternatively, you can simply reconnect them by drag & drop.
Integrated tool library
MERLIC’s integrated tool library contains a wide range of tools for the most common vision processing tasks – all based on the latest state-of-the-art vision technologies, such as matching or deep learning.
The tool library can also be expanded by adding custom tools. To facilitate the ease of use, all included tools are named after the task they are meant to execute. Several “Evaluation” tools support you with a variety of evaluation processes. Finally, the existing tool library can be extended flexibly with customized, user-defined tools to suit any additional needs. These tools can be developed in MVTec HALCON's integrated development environment HDevelop.
Custom Tools
MERLIC's existing tool library can be extended flexibly with customized, user-defined tools to suit any additional needs. These "custom tools" can be developed in MVTec HALCON's integrated development environment HDevelop.
Customers who want to create a new custom tool for MERLIC need a HALCON development license (preferred "HALCON Progress" for availability of the newest features) for developing and the MERLIC add-on "Custom Tools" for executing it.
Parallelization
One highlight of MVTec MERLIC is the parallel processing and execution of different tools. This simplifies the implementation of multi-camera setups and allows for a more efficient use of the system's computing power.
Different machine vision tasks can now be performed in one single instance, for example, reading bar codes or lot numbers.
Multiple & Remote Frontends
With MERLIC, various remote frontends can be connected to one machine simultaneously. Parameters and values can easily be checked and adjusted directly from the office instead of having to monitor them on the factory floor.
Also, by supporting multiple frontends, MERLIC allows using different frontend designs at the same time. While the production engineer can check and adjust settings on the machine, several remote frontends can be connected as well to show statistics to a supervisor. Running multiple frontends simultaneously does not affect the processing speed – MVTec MERLIC operates as usual.
Frontend Designer
MERLIC's Designer lets you create a customized operator interface in just a few steps. Interactively design a frontend for your application: choose between various widgets and simply place them by drag-and-drop. MERLIC's Designer links the widgets to parameters of MERLIC tools. The parameter values can then be used for visualization. Properties of widgets can be adjusted easily with just a few clicks. You may even customize the frontend, for example, by integrating any company logo.
The Frontend can be visualized on your local machine or remotely. It is also possible to use multiple Frontends per MVapp e.g., for different user level.
Take a look at this video of MERLIC's Designer. It shows how to build a customized frontend to check fuses based on a simple MERLIC application.
Multiple languages
MERLIC realizes a highly user-friendly and efficient workflow and is available in the following languages: simplified Chinese, English, German, and Japanese.
All parts of the graphical user interface (GUI) are translated and even most of the standard documentation is available in these languages including the complete MERLIC manual.
MERLIC also enables the user to provide the Frontend in any other language. For this, the preferred language can be selected in the MERLIC Designer. The respective texts can be easily exported for translation and imported again. The machine operator will then be able to change the language of the displayed texts directly in the Frontend.
PLC Communication and Runtime Environment Setup
MERLIC includes a graphical user interface called MERLIC Runtime Environment Setup, which enables the user to manage MERLIC "recipe" files, to configure devices for which MERLIC provides a built-in plug-in, e.g., digital I/O devices, and to configure all types of MERLIC Communicator plug-ins. Each of these tasks can be performed in its own tab in the MERLIC Runtime Environment Setup.
MERLIC also allows to connect the MERLIC Runtime Environment Setup to a remote system which enables the user to configure Communicator plug-ins on the remote system.
MERLIC offers the following plug-ins:
- OPC UA Server plug-in
- MQTT plug-in
- REST plug-in
- TCP socket plug-in
- Siemens SIMATIC S7 plug-in
- MELSEC Communication plug-in
- MODICON®* plug-in
- "save-results" plug-in
Get more information about process integration with MERLIC in this video.
* Modicon® is a registered trademark of Schneider Electric USA, Inc.
Image Acquisition Interfaces
MERLIC supports all USB3 Vision and GigE Vision compliant cameras as well as image acquisition hardware supporting the GenICam GenTL standard.
Digital interfaces of cameras are supported through GenICam digital I/O control.
The Image Source Manager (ISM) detaches the image acquisition source from the Tool Flow and allows MVApps to be easily copied and executed between different systems without adjustments to the camera settings. Thanks to a graphical user interface, the image sources can be managed and configured easily and conveniently.
Apps protection
MERLIC secures your know-how: you can protect the content of MERLIC applications (MVApps) with a password. The password protection can be enabled for each MVApp in the MERLIC Creator (note: it is not enabled by default). Thus, when loading the MVApp in the MERLIC Creator the password must be entered to change the MVApp.
Using the password protection can be useful if you want to pass on a MERLIC MVApp to customers who should not be able to change the application. Furthermore, this is important to protect your MVApps against non-authorized access from third parties to secure your intellectual property of the application.
3D Vision with height images
MERLIC also offers 3D vision tools based on height images which, for example, enable users to read embossed text and perform other 3D machine vision tasks.
For this, tools are included that make it possible to prepare images from 3D sensors or 3D cameras so that inspections can be subsequently carried out using MERLIC’s existing 2D tools.
These tools enable the conversion of a disparity image into a 3D height image, the alignment of a selected plane, the compensation of outliers and invalid pixels in the image data, as well as the scaling of height image values into an 8-bit image.
Please find some configuration tips for 3D sensors in the chapter "Acquisition" of the MERLIC general manual that comes with your MERLIC installation. You can also find additional information here on our website.
Deep Learning
With the release of MERLIC 5, MVTec’s state-of-the-art deep learning technologies are finding their way into the all-in-one machine vision software MERLIC. Easier than ever before, users can now harness the power of deep learning for their vision applications.
Try MERLIC for free
Test all features and tools in the free trial version of MERLIC for 45 days right now!