Here you can read the release notes for MVTec MERLIC 5.4.1, as released in Dezember 2023.
Windows
MERLIC 5.4.1 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit) or newer.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
- Fixed Problems
- The REST plug-in sometimes mishandled action requests sent in
parallel or short succession due to a race condition. Once the plug-in was in
an erroneous state, it refused all subsequent action requests until it was
restarted. This problem has been fixed.
- When using the "VisionCompanion" extension of the OPC UA
Server plug-in and setting the result mode to "Sync", starting a job for a
recipe failed the first time it was called if a change of recipe was executed
beforehand. This was caused by an incorrect signal of the internal result
queue. This problem has been fixed. Now, the queue is only signaled if a user
is waiting for a result.
- Fixed Problems
- MERLIC Creator sometimes failed to start if one of the
defined custom tool paths was invalid, for example, because the directory had
been deleted. This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- The CodeMeter Runtime, the license management bundled with
MERLIC, has been updated to version 7.6.0d as recommended by WIBU Systems.
In this section, you can find the release notes that apply only for Windows systems.
- The licenses for the MERLIC trial version and the MERLIC RTE
Setup were only installed if the user granted administrator privileges during the
installation. This led to license errors and it was not possible to use the trial
version or MERLIC RTE Setup. This problem has been fixed. The licenses are now also
installed during an unprivileged installation if CodeMeter is already installed on
the system.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC 5.4.0
This document provides the release notes for MVTec MERLIC 5.4.0, as released in October 2023. You
can also refer to the topic What's New in MERLIC5.4.0 in the MERLIC manual for further
information on new features and enhancements.
Windows
MERLIC 5.4.0 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit) or newer.
Please refer to the Readme in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
REST Plug-in for MERLIC
MERLIC 5.4 extends the available MERLIC Communicator plug-ins with a REST plug-in. This
interface opens the door to the world of web services.
MERLIC users benefit from being able to control the software through this important
interface, using a Frontend on the web browser. Furthermore, the results of the machine
vision application can also be displayed in a device-independent manner, for example on
mobile devices.
Modicon®* Plug-in for MERLIC
A new plug-in in MERLIC 5.4 allows users to access the Schneider Electric Modicon PLC ®.
This broadens the range of applications that can be easily integrated with MERLIC. For
instance, this integration would enable robots and MERLIC to collaborate directly using a
Modicon PLC ® that operates on the Modbus protocol.
* Modicon® is
a registered trademark of Schneider Electric USA, Inc.
Acquisition Sequences
MERLIC users regularly have the opportunity to test new developments at an early stage and
to contribute to further advancements. In MERLIC 5.4 this is the case with "Acquisition
Sequences". This concept feature introduces new possibilities for image acquisition. For
instance, when dealing with a poorly lit object, users can now acquire images with both
short and long exposure times, which are then merged into a single image. As a result,
challenging object characteristics are balanced, resulting in improved visibility of
details.
Enhanced Image Handling in the MERLIC RTE Setup
In MERLIC 5.4 working with images in the MERLIC RTE Setup has been improved. It is now
possible to save acquired images directly to a file. This makes generating image datasets
for training deep learning models very easy, for example.
Since the last MERLIC version we have
been working hard to improve MERLIC in every way.
This has, however, resulted in a few of incompatibilities. We apologize for the
inconvenience.
- Communicator
- The Communicator API has been updated to version 2.2.1.
Plug-ins build against a previous version of the Communicator API 2.x.y remain
source- and binary-compatible to the present version of MERLIC Communicator.
Plug-ins build against the present version of the Communicator API remain
binary-compatible to MERLIC Communicator 5.2 and 5.3 (API version 2.2.0) but
should expect that the new features in the API version 2.2.1 are not available
in previous versions. More information.
- Miscellaneous
- Due to the new underlying HALCON version, the behavior of
existing custom tools might have changed since the last MERLIC version.
Therefore, it is recommended to check the functionality of existing custom
tools in this MERLIC version. More information.
- New Features
- The list of camera parameters and EasyParams provided for the
configuration of camera devices in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup has been extended to allow the user to query the internal name of a
camera parameter or EasyParam. Each camera parameter and EasyParam now provides
a new context menu when right-clicking on the respective parameter. The context
menu allows the user to copy the internal name of the respective camera
parameter or EasyParm.
- The configuration of image sources via the Image Source
Manager (ISM) has been improved. When configuring a camera device in the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, it is now possible to save the snapshot
of the acquired image that is displayed in the image preview. The snapshot can
be saved via the new "Save image" button on the bottom right of the image
preview. This allows the user to save a series of images from a camera device
on the local system. These images can be used for the development of a MERLIC
Vision App (MVApp) and many other purposes.
- Enhancements
- The image preview of the Image Source Manager (ISM) in the
"Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup has been improved. Previously,
zooming of the currently displayed image was only possible for image sources
representing camera devices. In addition, when zooming the image, a new image
was acquired from the camera device. Now, zooming does not trigger the
acquisition of new images anymore and it is now also possible to zoom the
images from file.
- The image acquisition interfaces that are used for the Image
Source Manager (ISM) as well as for the tools "Acquire Image from Camera" and
"Acquire Image from File", respectively, have been updated to a new revision.
MERLIC now contains the following versions of the interfaces:
- GigEVision2: Revision 20.11.16
- GenICamGenTL: Revision 20.11.16
- USB3Vision: Revision 20.11.19
- File: Revision 18.11.5
In addition, the GigEVision2 streaming filter has been released in a new
revision. MERLIC now contains the version 2.2.8.4-1 of the streaming filter.
- The configuration of image sources via the Image Source
Manager (ISM) has been improved. Previously, the user did not get any feedback
if the active configuration could not be used for running jobs in MERLIC RTE.
The "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup now displays a warning if the
active configuration contains image sources that could not be connected to warn
the user that this configuration cannot be used for running jobs in MERLIC RTE.
- Fixed Problems
- When renaming an image source in the MERLIC RTE Setup and
trying to set the mouse cursor at the beginning of the original name, the edit
mode was terminated and the image source name was still unchanged. This problem
has been fixed.
- When configuring camera devices on the "Image Sources" tab of
the MERLIC RTE Setup and switching from the "EasyParams" tab to the "All
Parameters" tab, the collapsing state of the list in the "All Parameters" tab
was not preserved. In addition, the collapsing state was also not preserved
when refreshing the parameter list in the "All Parameters" tab. These problems
have been fixed.
- When using the live image mode in the "Image Source" tab of
the MERLIC RTE Setup and pressing CTRL to activate the pan mode on a zoomed
image, the mouse cursor did not change to reflect this mode. This problem has
been fixed.
- If the name of an image source was changed in the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the live image of other image sources did
not work anymore. This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- In networks where DNS resolutions take more than 5 seconds,
it was not possible to connect the MERLIC RTE Setup to a remote host. This
problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- In the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the
values of plug-in parameters were sometimes elided if the respective text field
was not in focus. This problem has been fixed.
- If an image tool result was used as an MVApp result for
MERLIC RTE but the associated image was empty, for example, because the name of
the respective image source was invalid, MERLIC RTE did not emit a
"ResultReady" event for the whole result record. Therefore, no results were
available at all for Communicator plug-ins, including MVApp results of other
data types. This problem has been fixed. Now, the "ResultReady" event is
emitted but the data component descriptor corresponding to the empty image has
dimensions of 0 by 0 pixels.
- When configuring user parameters of Communicator plug-ins in
the MERLIC RTE Setup, information about unsaved changes was sometimes lost if
parameters with dependencies to other parameters were adjusted. This problem
has been fixed.
- When running MERLIC RTE with a recipe that contained at least
one MVApp parameter, MERLIC RTE sometimes stopped responding after some time.
This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- The Communicator API has been updated to version 2.2.1. It
extends the information associated with the "JobStarted" event by the ID of the
recipe that is being executed, the type of job (single vs. continuous job), and
the start parameters used to execute the job. It also allows to query the name
of the acquisition sequence associated with a recipe, provided an acquisition
sequence has been set for the recipe. Both of these extensions are also
reflected in the C++ support library.
To profit from these improvements, the Communicator plug-in "MQTT" has been
updated to version 2.3.0. The JSON payload published on the
"<prefix>/recipes" topic has been extended by the names of the
acquisition sequences associated with each recipe. The documented JSON schema
has been updated accordingly. In addition, the example plug-in "event-logger"
has been updated to version 2.0.1. It will now print the additional
information that are available as part of the "JobStarted" event. Note that
this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by the new Communicator plug-in
"MODICON". It enables the user to communicate directly with
Schneider-Electric's programmable controllers of the MODICON® Series and allows
the user to control and monitor the vision system in the process integration
mode. For the communication between the "MODICON" plug-in and the
Schneider-Electric Modicon® PLC, the Modbus communication protocol is used.
The plug-in offers a rich set of configuration options in the "Communication"
tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, for example, plug-in parameters to set the
connection settings to the PLC, to select the number of MVApp results that
shall be available to be queried by the PLC, as well as the number of
iteration parameters that shall be available for the PLC to overwrite the
parameter values defined in the recipe. After configuring the plug-in, the
user may export the symbols of the selected MVApp parameters and results and
import the exported file into the PLC program. The imported symbols can then
be accessed by both the plug-in and the PLC to transmit commands, results,
and further information.
- The MERLIC Communicator plug-in "MELSEC_Communicaton" now
also supports the communication with Mitsubishi
ElectricPLCsof
the MELSECiQ-F
and iQ-R series in addition to the MELSEC-L and MELSEC-Q series.
Furthermore, the plug-in now supports the label
format for GxWorks3. For this, the plug-in has been extended by the new user
parameters "Environment" and "Locale". They are provided in the category
"Global Label CSV Export". The parameter "Environment" can be used to select
the GxWorks version and the parameter "Locale" can be used to select between
"English" and "Japanese". This enables the user to export the global label
file in a compatible format for the respective PLC IDE.
- MERLIC now provides the new Communicator plug-in "REST". It
exposes a subset of the Communicator's C API in the form of a RESTful API which
is served on an embedded HTTP server. This allows the user to create an
application-specific frontend and to control MERLIC RTE by using the available
endpoints of the RESTful API.
The REST plug-in itself provides a built-in example web application that
allows the user to explore the MERLIC RTE state machine and monitor recipe
results directly from a web browser. It also enables an interactive
documentation of the RESTful API. For this, only a MERLIC installation and a
web browser are required.
- Fixed Problems
- The "MELSEC_Communication" plug-in received invalid responses
when using a recipe that defined iteration parameters requiring more than 250
words of PLC memory for a given data type. This problem has been fixed.
- When using the "MELSEC_Communication" plug-in and the field
"gMV_ReqCommandCode" was set to an invalid command code value in the
plug-in, this code was mirrored on the field "gMV_AckCommandCode"
without any other side effects. In particular, no indication was given to the
PLC that the command code is invalid, likely pointing to a user error. This
problem has been fixed. Now, an error occurs indicating that the requested
action is unknown.
- New Features
- The MERLIC Creator now allows adding new MERLIC tools
directly from the "Tool Flow" panel. For this, the context menu of the "Tool
Flow" panel has been extended by the menu entry "Insert tool" which allows the
user to browse the available tools without switching to the Tool Library.
- Enhancements
- The graphical user interface of the preference dialog in the
MERLIC Creator has been revised to fit the look and feel of other components of
MERLIC and to allow more flexible user controls.
- MERLIC now provides the possibility to inspect the values of
tool parameters and tool results directly at the Tool Board. When hovering the
mouse pointer over the connector of the tool parameter or result, the
respective values will be shown in a tooltip. For tuples, even the number of
tuple elements as well as the minimum and maximum value are shown. This is
especially useful if the parameter or result contains multiple values that are
not visible in the respective connector.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of navigating through the Tool Library has been
improved. Previously, tool categories and tools could only be selected via
mouse clicks. Now, it is possible to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate through
the Tool Library and to add the selected tool to the Tool Flow.
Action
|
Keyboard shortcut
|
---|
Moving up and down the Tool Library
| Up/down arrow keys
|
Expanding and collapsing tool categories
| Right/left arrow keys or Enter |
Switching to the search field of the Tool Library
| Esc or Up arrow key
|
Adding the selected tool
| Enter or Space |
- When using MERLIC Creator in Chinese or Japanese, texts that
are displayed in vertical directions are now written from top to bottom instead
of bottom-to-top rotated by 90 degrees.
- Fixed Problems
- While dragging a tab header in the MERLIC Creator, the text
within the header was sometimes not positioned correctly. This problem has been
fixed.
- If a custom tool was selected in the Tool Library, opening
the context-sensitive help via "F1" did not work. In addition, when using "F1"
in the "Custom Tools" tab of the preferences dialog in the MERLIC Creator, the
context-sensitive help opened a wrong section in the MERLIC manual. These
problems have been fixed. Pressing "F1" in the Tool Library when a custom tool
is selected will now open the documentation of the Tool Library and pressing
"F1" in the "Custom Tools" tab of the MERLIC preferences will open the
description of the available settings for custom tools.
- In some cases, the tool flow visualized wrong connections
that led to no tools. This could lead to unexpected connections in the Tool
Flow panel. This problem has been fixed.
- In rare cases, MERLIC crashed when using the keyboard
shortcut CTRL+U to ungroup a tool group in the Tool Flow panel of the MERLIC
Creator. This problem has been fixed.
- When adding multiple training images to a training tool and
immediately trying to group tools multiple times in the Tool Flow panel while
the process of adding the training images has not finished yet, MERLIC Creator
crashed. This problem has been fixed.
- In the Tool Library of the MERLIC Creator, the tool category
"Communication (legacy)" was translated without the "legacy" add-on. This
problem has been fixed.
- If a tool was moved and then immediately de-selected or moved
again in the Tool Flow panel, MERLIC sometimes crashed. This problem has been
fixed.
- When starting the MERLIC Creator using a trial license, the
dialog informing about the modalities of the trial version could only be
accepted after closing the start dialog. This problem has been fixed.
- The texts for "Acquisition Time" and "Total Acquisition Time"
that are displayed in the status bar of the MERLIC Creator when using the
"Image Source" tool were not translated. This problem has been fixed.
- The MERLIC Creator refused to start up if an invalid
directory was configured in the "Tool paths" or "Additional procedure paths"
settings for custom tools. This problem has been fixed. Now, MERLIC Creator
displays an error message but continues starting up.
- Fixed Problems
- In rare cases, MERLIC crashed when adding the "Image Display"
widget very quickly via drag-and-drop.
- Fixed Problems
- If the "Image Display" widget in the MERLIC Frontend showed
editable ROIs and the connected tool supported easyTouch, the ROIs were not
displayed anymore as soon as the easyTouch functionality had been activated.
This problem has been fixed. The ROIs will now be displayed in read-only mode
when easyTouch is active.
- If the MERLIC Frontend provided multiple tabs with different
views and one of these tabs contained a "Training" widget, the MERLIC Frontend
crashed when switching between the tabs. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The tools "Find Objects" and "Read Text and Numbers with Deep
Learning" have been improved for the usage with AI2 interfaces for
the NVIDIA® TensorRT™ SDK and the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit.
Previously, the deep learning model of the "Find Objects" tool was created
anew each time the following parameters for the model were changed after the
optimization:
- Minimum Confidence
- Overlap of Different Classes
- Overlap of Same Classes
Now, these parameters can be changed without performing the model
optimization anew which leads to faster processing of the parameter
changes.
In addition, in the tool "Read Text and Numbers with Deep Learning", the
following tool parameters were previously set to read-only after the
optimization.
- Automatic Detection Of Orientation
- Detection Orientation
- Detection Tiling
- Minimum Character Detection Score
- Minimum Word Connection Score
- Minimum Word Score
Now, these parameters can also be changed after the optimization without
changing the selected processing unit first.
- The "Image Source" tool now allows the user to quickly access
the configuration of the image sources directly from the Tool Board. For this,
a new button has been added on the left of the Tool Board to open the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup.
In addition, the tool now also provides feedback if a warning occurs because
no image could be received. A warning text will be displayed with specific
information on the possible cause together with a button to open the image
source configuration. This way, the user can quickly access the configuration
to fix the problem.
- The tool "Read Text and Numbers with Deep Learning" has been
extended by the new tool parameter "Detection Model File". It allows the user
to select which of the provided detection models shall be used, that is, which
Deep OCR model component shall be used for the word detection. Currently, two
pre-trained detection models can be selected,
"pretrained_deep_ocr_detection.hdl" and
pretrained_deep_ocr_detection_compact.hdl". However, you can also use your own
detection model.
- Fixed Problems
- If the tool "Find Objects" used a deep learning model that
was trained with images of a smaller dimension than the one of the images that
were used in the tool for the processing, the scaling of the X and Y
coordinates, the regions, and the contours did not work as expected. This led
to wrong result values and to a wrong visualization of the results. This
problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- The example MVApp "check_bent_leads.mvapp" contained some
wrong configuration. The expression defined in the "Evaluate Expression" tool
is meant to change the format of the "Maximum Distance" value to show three
digits after the comma. However, it was not set correctly and therefore changed
the format to show only three digits overall. In addition, the "Label" Designer
widget showing the value of the maximum distance was incorrectly connected to
the unformatted result instead of the formatted value returned by the "Evaluate
Expression" tool. This problem has been fixed. In addition, the "Evaluate
Expression" has been renamed in the example MVApp to "Create Maximum Distance
Parameter" to better reflect the purpose of the tool in the application.
- In the MVApp example "find_and_count_screw_types.mvapp", some
screws were not correctly identified. This problem has been fixed. The deep
learning model was trained anew and the classes representing nuts were removed
from the example.
- New Features
- The documentation of the user interfaces in the MERLIC manual
has been improved. Previously, the user interfaces of the MERLIC RTE Setup and
the MERLIC Frontend were not described in the MERLIC manual. Now, the
description has been added to the overview of the user interfaces in the
"Getting Started" chapter as well as in the "MERLIC Process Integration"
chapter and "MERLIC Frontend" chapter, respectively.
- The information about the used third-party components
provided in the "About" dialog of the MERLIC Creator now contains hyperlinks to
the respective project websites to allow quick access to the used components.
- Enhancements
- The layout of several overview topics in the MERLIC manual
has been improved. Previously, the overview topics of the chapters "MERLIC
Creator", "MERLIC Designer", and "MERLIC Frontend" still had an outdated
layout. Now, all overview topics use the same layout.
- The layout of the MERLIC manual, the MERLIC Communicator
manual, and the Tool Development manual have been improved for responsive
design. Previously, the settings of the table of contents and the toolbar icons
on the top right were not optimized for smaller browser widths which led to
overlapping content. In addition, the table of contents switched to the right
side in tablet and mobile mode. Now, the width of the table of contents adjusts
according to the browser width and it is always accessible on the left.
Furthermore, the menu bar with the toolbar icons has been revised to avoid
overlapping content and to ensure a correct alignment of the icons in all
modes.
- The documentation of the "MELSEC_Communication" plug-in in
the MERLIC Communicator manual has been improved. The description of the
available commands now also provides a link to the description of the available
MERLIC states and transition in the MERLIC manual.
- Fixed Problems
- The visualization of some graphics showing the MERLIC states
and processes during the process integration mode has been improved.
Previously, the font in the graphics was small and it could be hard to read the
text in the image, especially when the graphics were scaled on a small browser
width. Now, the graphics have been revised to use a bigger font and to allow
the user to enlarge the image to better see the content.
- In the topic "Standard Plug-ins > OPC UA Server Plug-in
> Operating the OPC UA Server > Available Methods" in the MERLIC
Communicator manual, the table showing the available methods for the respective
MERLIC states was cut off for browser widths below 1300px. This problem has
been fixed. The table is now resized for browser widths between 800px to
1350px.
- In the German MERLIC manual, the tiles in the topic "Erste
Schritte mit MERLIC > MERLIC Komponenten" were cut off if the width of the
browser was lower than 1250px. This problem has been fixed.
- In some cases, images showing numbers as overlays were not
displayed correctly in the MERLIC manuals when scrolling down the page. This
problem has been fixed.
- In the MERLIC manual, the description of the tool state
result "info" with code 99 was missing in the topic "MERLIC Creator > MERLIC
Creator Concepts > Error Handling > Tool State Result". In addition, the
description of the respective interface procedure
"Me_set_toolstate_info" that can be used for the development of custom
MERLIC tools was missing in the Tool Development manual. These problems have
been fixed.
- New Features
- The options for the installation of MERLIC via the MVTec
Software Manager (SOM) have been extended. To profit from these improvements,
it is required to use the new SOM version 1.4 for the installation. With the
new version, it is now possible to choose between multiple MERLIC "packages"
for the installation. This allows the user to install only selected MERLIC
components, for example, the MERLIC Frontend, instead of a full MERLIC
installation.
In addition, MERLIC comes with some new options for multiple MERLIC
installations. The new version of SOM allows to "activate" a MERLIC
installation. If multiple MERLIC versions are installed, the user can
activate the desired installation to associate the MERLIC files such as
MVApps to the respective version. When double-clicking on an MVApp in the
file browser, it will be automatically opened in the associated MERLIC
version. However, it is still possible to open an MVApp in a different MERLIC
version by using the context menu of the MVApp. It now provides clear menu
entries to choose the desired MERLIC version.
Moreover, it is now possible to open all manuals directly from the SOM
frontend.
- New Features
- The behavior on how to check whether the license restrictions
for image acquisition are met have been changed. Previously, the number of
acquisition tools "Image Source" and "Acquire Image from Camera" that were
allowed per MVApp was determined by the used MERLIC license. If multiple "Image
Source" tools were used in an MVApp to retrieve images from the same image
source, it was not possible to use a MERLIC license that allows the use of only
one image source because the number of tools were decisive for the license and
not the number of used image sources. Now, the license restricts only the
number of used camera devices. In detail, the new license restrictions are as
follows:
- When using the Image Source Manager (ISM), the MERLIC license restricts
the number of camera devices in the active image source configuration. The
number of camera devices in inactive image source configuration is not
restricted. As a consequence, image source configurations which contains
more camera devices that allowed by the license cannot be activated.
However, the number of images sources from file is not restricted.
- When using the deprecated acquisition tools, the MERLIC license
restricts the number of "Acquire Image from Camera" tools per MVApp. The
number of "Acquire Image from File" tools is not restricted.
- It is not permitted to acquire images using both Image Source Manager
(ISM) and the deprecated tool "Acquire Image from Camera" within one and
the same MVApp.
- Fixed Problems
- When hovering the mouse pointer over an image result of a
custom tool, MERLIC could crash if the result was not assigned to a valid image
object in the main procedure of the tool. This problem has been fixed.
- To profit from the improvements of the new HALCON version, the
HALCON libraries used by MERLIC have been upgraded to the HALCON 23.05 Progress
version. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- The recipe files as well as the configuration files for image
source configurations and Communicator plug-ins created by MERLIC are defined in
JSON format. However, the newline character at the end of the files were missing.
This problem has been fixed.
- The "MERLIC Collect Support Information" program failed to create
a .zip file if the configuration directory "%APPDATA%\MVTec" was missing.
This problem has been fixed.
In this section, you can find the release notes that apply only for Windows systems.
- On some machines with an Intel UHD Graphics 620 graphics card,
the MERLIC Creator showed no content. Instead, the window was completely black.
This problem has been fixed.
- If non-ASCII characters were used in the name of an image source
configuration in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, MERLIC Creator
and MERLIC RTE could crash on startup depending on the selected Windows system
locale. This problem has been fixed.
- MERLIC Vision Apps could not be overwritten anymore if the path
of the %TEMP% or %TMP% folders contained any non-ASCII characters. This problem has
been fixed.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC 5.3.2
This document provides the release notes for MVTec MERLIC 5.3.2, as released in July 2023.
Windows
MERLIC 5.3.2 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit). During the installation of MERLIC via the
MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
- Fixed Problems
- If the MERLIC Frontend provided multiple tabs with different
views and one of these tabs contained a "Training" widget, the MERLIC Frontend
crashed when switching between the tabs. This problem has been fixed.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC 5.3.1
This document provides the release notes for MVTec MERLIC 5.3.1, as released in June 2023.
Windows
MERLIC 5.3.1 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit). During the installation of MERLIC via the
MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
- Fixed Problems
- If the name of an image source was changed in the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the live image of other image sources did
not work anymore. This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- In some cases, the tool flow visualized wrong connections
that led to no tools. This could lead to unexpected connections in the Tool
Flow panel. This problem has been fixed.
- In rare cases, MERLIC crashed when using the keyboard
shortcut CTRG+U to ungroup a tool group in the Tool Flow panel of the MERLIC
Creator. This problem has been fixed.
- If a MERLIC tool was de-selected or moved in the Tool Flow
panel of the MERLIC Creator while the respective tool flow connections were
broken, MERLIC sometimes crashed. This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- If the tool "Find Objects" used a deep learning model that
was trained with images of a smaller dimension than the one of the images that
were used in the tool for the processing, the scaling of the X and Y
coordinates, the regions, and the contours did not work as expected. This led
to wrong result values and to a wrong visualization of the results. This
problem has been fixed.
In this section, you can find the release notes that apply only for Windows systems.
- If non-ASCII characters were used in the name of an image source
configuration in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, MERLIC Creator
and MERLIC RTE could crash on startup depending on the selected Windows system
locale. This problem has been fixed.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC 5.3.0
This document provides the release notes for MVTec MERLIC 5.3.0, as released in April 2023. You can
also refer to the topic What's New in MERLIC5.3.0 in the MERLIC manual for further
information on new features and enhancements.
Windows
MERLIC 5.3.0 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit). During the installation of MERLIC via the
MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
Training Functionalities in the MERLIC Frontend
With the new version 5.3 it is now possible to use training functionalities in the
MERLIC
Frontend even during runtime. For example, new matching models or code reading
parameters can be trained. This increases the user-friendliness since the intermediate step
via the MERLIC Creator for
training is no longer necessary.
Plug-in for Mitsubishi Electric MELSEC PLCs
With MERLIC 5.3 it is possible to communicate directly with the widespread Mitsubishi
Electric PLC via the MC/SLMP protocol. This is made possible by a newly developed plug-in
included in MERLIC. This plug-in supports the Mitsubishi Electric iQR, iQF, L- and
Q-series. MERLIC thus offers significant added value for customers working with Mitsubishi
Electric PLCs.
New Tool for Deep Learning-Based Object Recognition
The deep learning technology Object Detection is now also available in MERLIC. The "Find Objects"
tool locates trained object classes and identifies them with a surrounding rectangle
(bounding box). Touching or partially overlapping objects are also separated, which allows
counting of objects. Labeling and training are also possible without programming knowledge
using the free MVTec Deep Learning
Tool. The trained network can then be loaded into MERLIC and used with a
single click.
Tool Grouping for Clearer Workflows
With MERLIC,
complex machine vision applications can be solved even without programming knowledge. To
ensure this, the visual Tool Flow helps. To maintain an overview even with complex
applications, it is now possible to group several tools into a virtual tool inside the Tool
Flow.
Concise Startup dialog for Easy Access to Functions and Machine Vision Applications
Usability is one of MERLIC's unique selling points. To further strengthen this ease-of-use
approach, an image-centric start dialog was integrated into the MERLIC Creator. This allows
users to get an overview of their most recently opened MVApps. All standard examples are
also clearly displayed. Especially for new users, these offer a guide to reliably create
their own applications. In addition, helpful introductory material as well as the
documentation can be easily accessed via quick links.
Since the last MERLIC version we have
been working hard to improve MERLIC in every way.
This has, however, resulted in a few of incompatibilities. We apologize for the
inconvenience.
- Tools
- MERLIC Vision Apps containing the previous concept tool
"Find Objects" are no longer compatible because the tool has been adjusted and
is now provided as a standard MERLIC tool in the category "Deep Learning - AI".
More information.
- Tool Development
- The procedure "MeTest_destroy_tool_handle" is not
supported anymore because it has been removed. Therefore, the corresponding
lines must be removed in any HDevelop scripts for MERLIC custom tools.
More information.
- Miscellaneous
- Due to the new underlying HALCON version, the behavior of
existing custom tools might have changed since the last MERLIC version.
Therefore, it is recommended to check the functionality of existing custom
tools in this MERLIC version in addition to other required updates of the
custom tools due to the revised interface for the tool development.
More information.
- New Features
- In the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the IP
and MAC addresses of connected GigEVision camera devices are now displayed in
the correct format in the section of the camera parameters.
- The image preview in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC
RTE Setup now supports zooming of camera images. It is now possible to zoom in
and out of the image that has been acquired for the configuration of a camera
device. For this, a new zooming toolbar is now available if a camera device is
configured. It allows the user to zoom in, zoom out, and reset the zoom via
mouse click. With each change of the zooming parameters, a new image is
acquired. It is also possible to use the mouse wheel and keyboard shortcuts for
zooming. In addition, the user can also specify the area to be zoomed by
drawing a rectangle with the right mouse button over the desired area in the
image. This allows the user to inspect certain image parts in more detail, for
example, to set the focus of the camera.
- MERLIC now provides a new program that can be used to collect
hardware information on the system. If the user runs into problems and needs to
contact the local distributor for help, the user can use this program to
collect information and provide it to the support team. It can be started via
the Windows start menu "MVTec MERLIC 5.3 > MERLIC 5.3 Collect
Support Information". The respective executable file is called
"merlic_collect_support_information.exe". The program collects information on
the available cameras, image source configurations (ISM configurations), log
files, and .ini files on the system. This information helps the support team to
find a solution for the problem more quickly.
- Enhancements
- The log messages of the Image Source Manager have been
improved. If a camera device was successfully opened, the respective message in
the log file now contains more detailed information about the used device, for
example, the name of the model and the firmware version. In addition, the
message that was logged if an image source configuration was missing has been
revised to be more clear.
- Fixed Problems
- If a camera was configured in the "Image Sources" tab of the
MERLIC RTE Setup and one of the camera parameters was set to a value that is
not supported by the camera device, an error message occurred. However, the
error message stated that the camera parameter is set to the value that is
actually not supported. This problem has been fixed. The error message has been
revised and now shows the correct value of the camera parameter.
- When configuring camera parameters via the "EasyParams" in
the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the state of the EasyParam
"Trigger Delay" was sometimes not updated correctly after changing other
EasyParams with internal dependencies. If "Trigger Method" was set to use
hardware trigger and "Trigger Activation" was set to "LevelHigh", the EasyParam
"Trigger Delay" was still enabled for configuration although it should be
disabled. If the user then adjusted the value for the trigger delay, an error
occurred. This problem has been fixed. The EasyParam "Trigger Delay" is now
disabled if it is not applicable because of the configuration of other
EasyParams.
- If the device name of a camera had changed after successfully
installing a new driver for a USB3Vision or GigEVision2 camera, an error was
shown with the information that the installation was successful and the device
name had changed. This could be confusing because an error implies that the
installation of the driver was unsuccessful. However, the error referred to the
changed device name. This problem has been fixed. Now, a warning message is
shown if the device name has changed after successfully installing a driver
instead of an error.
- If a new GigEVision camera was added to the active
configuration in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the IP
address of the camera was displayed in the "Info" section only after clicking
"Refresh". This problem has been fixed. The IP address is now displayed
automatically after a new camera has been added as image source.
- In some cases, if a new USB3Vision camera device was
connected and the installation of the respective driver was canceled, a wrong
message about a successful installation appeared. This problem has been fixed.
- If the screen resolution had been changed after acquiring an
image in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the image display was
scrambled or showed a completely gray image. This problem has been fixed.
- If an image source was renamed in the "Image Sources" tab of
the MERLIC RTE Setup after an image had been acquired, no further image was
acquired. This problem has been fixed.
- Error messages that occurred while selecting a camera device
in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup did not disappear after an
image source from a file was selected instead. This problem has been fixed.
- If an error occurred after a camera parameter within the "All
Parameters" tab had been changed in the "Image Sources" of the MERLIC RTE
Setup, the values of other camera parameters were not refreshed although a
refresh might have solved the error. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by new configuration options to
define fixed ports for the remote configuration of image sources and
Communicator plug-ins. It is now possible to define fixed ports for the
configuration services when using the MERLIC RTE Setup on a remote system. The
following .ini properties have been added:
- ImageSourceConfigurationPorts: This property defines the ports for the
configuration services of the Image Source Manager (ISM).
- PluginConfigurationPorts: This property defines the ports for the
configuration services of Communicator plug-ins.
In addition, MERLIC also provides new command line options that enable
the user to define the ports via the command line:
- --image_source_config_ports: This command line option is
available for "merlic_creator.exe" and "merlic_rte.exe". It corresponds
to the .ini property "ImageSourceConfigurationPorts".
- --plugin_config_ports: This command line option is available for
"merlic_communicator.exe". It corresponds to the .ini property
"PluginConfigurationPorts".
- Enhancements
- The layout of some GUI elements in the MERLIC RTE Setup has
been revised to be more clear on feedback regarding the configuration and to
provide better control of editing parameter values. For example, previously the
modified flag was very small and hard to detect and some parameter values could
only be set manually. Now, the MERLIC RTE Setup provides a clear visualization
of modified parameters and new sliders to adjust values more comfortable.
- Fixed Problems
- When entering a non-zero decimal digit in one of the plug-in
user parameters of the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, trailing
zeroes were immediately added to the digit until a given precision was defined.
This problem has been fixed. The plug-in user parameters now wait until the
user confirms their entry before adding the trailing zeroes.
- When using MERLIC RTE and starting single jobs with iteration
parameters, all resulting outputs were erroneously marked as outdated and
MERLIC warned about result parameters not being determined in the current
iteration. This problem has been fixed. Now, only results of tools that were
not executed in the recent iteration, for example, in inactive branches of
"Branch on condition" tools, are marked as outdated.
- If the MERLIC RTE Setup was closed while configuration
services were searched, for instance, when launching MERLIC Creator, MERLIC
RTE, or the MERLIC Communicator using the buttons in the disconnected "Image
Sources" or "Communication" tabs, the MERLIC RTE Setup window was closed but
its process still remained. Therefore, the user had to end the process of the
MERLIC RTE Setup manually in order to enable a new connection to a new instance
of the MERLIC RTE Setup. This problem has been fixed.
- If a plug-in parameter in the "Communication" tab of the
MERLIC RTE Setup provided a drop-down menu with a lot of parameter values, it
could be cumbersome to select the desired value because no scrollbar was
provided for the drop-down menu. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The MERLIC RTE Setup now allows the use of sliders for the
configuration of Communicator plug-ins. Thus, it is now possible to use the
eMVPluginParameterPresentationProperty_PreferredWidget property to
define that a plug-in parameter should be represented by a slider. The
respective configuration option in the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup will then show the desired slider for the respective parameter. When
defining a slider for a plug-in parameter, it is necessary that a range
constraint is imposed on the parameter. If additionally a step size is
provided, or if the parameter is an integer and thus has an implicit step size
of 1, the slider will snap to the allowed values. In the MERLIC RTE Setup,
ticks are displayed beneath the slider to indicate the allowed positions unless
they would be so frequent as to cause visual noise.
The new sliders are now also available for the configuration of the standard
Communicator plug-ins that are provided by MERLIC.
- Fixed Problems
- If MVApp results were added to an MVApp which was referenced
by an unprepared recipe and if that recipe was later prepared followed by a
single or continuous job, the OPC UA server crashed. This problem has been
fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by the new Communicator plug-in
"MELSEC Communication". It enables the user to communicate directly with
Mitsubishi Electric's programmable controllers of the MELSEC-L Series and
MELSEC-Q Series and allows the user to control and monitor the vision system in
the process integration mode. For the communication between the MELSEC
Communication plug-in and the Mitsubishi Electric MELSEC PLC, the MELSEC
communication (MC) protocol is used.
The plug-in offers a rich set of configuration options in the "Communication"
tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, for example, plug-in parameters to set the
connection settings to the PLC, to select the number of MVApp results that
shall be available to be queried by the PLC, as well as the number of
iteration parameters that shall be available for the PLC to overwrite the
parameter values defined in the recipe. After configuring the plug-in, the
user may export the labels of the selected MVApp parameters and results and
import the exported file into the PLC program. The imported labels can then
be accessed by both the plug-in and the PLC to transmit commands, results,
and further information.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new Communicator plug-in
"save-results". It can be used to automatically save data contained in MVApp
results to a configurable directory on disk. The data will be stored in a file
in .csv format. In contrast to the example plug-in "save-images", this plug-in
saves only non-image data and the source code of the plug-in is not available.
The plug-in offers some configuration options in the "Communication" tab of the
MERLIC RTE Setup, for example, to define the output directory and the file
name.
- Fixed Problems
- If MERLIC RTE was running while changing MVApp results of an
MVApp that is referenced in a recipe, the resulting mismatch in the result
interface could cause a crash of the provided standard plug-ins "OPC UA",
"MQTT", and "save-images" because the results that were generated by the MVApp
that is actually prepared for MERLIC RTE differed from the results that were
expected by the Communicator plug-in. This problem has been fixed. Now, the
plug-ins check for inconsistencies between the recipe interface and the results
and alert the user about any discrepancies in a log message.
- When image results have been enabled in the configuration of
the OPC UA server plug-in, a memory leak occurred. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC now enables the user to combine multiple tools of a
MERLIC Vision App in a group. A group can be used to combine tools that perform
similar processing tasks, or to provide a better overview in the MVApp. The
tools to be grouped can be selected and grouped in the Tool Flow panel within
the MERLIC Creator. In the Tool Flow panel, a group is visualized with a
graphical representation of stacked tools including a specific icon for tool
groups. In the Tool Workspace, a group is visualized similar to a regular
MERLIC tool. It shows connections to previous and subsequent tools and a
graphic window if available, and also enables some configuration options
depending on the tools within the group. The group also provides a Quick Info
with general information on how to work with groups.
- MERLIC now provides a new start dialog for the MERLIC Creator.
It provides quick access to introductory material and documentation and enables
the user a quick start to the processing of new and existing MERLIC Vision
Apps (MVApps). The start dialog shows an overview of the provided example
MVApps and recently opened MVApps, and when selecting an MVApp, you will also
see further information on the MVApp such as the location or the date of the
last modification.
- Enhancements
- The visualization of images when hovering over the respective
tool results has been improved. Previously, a black image was shown when
hovering over the connector of an empty image result. Now, the currently
displayed image, that is, the default image, will still be visible when
hovering the mouse over an empty image result.
- The context-sensitive help for the MERLIC Creator and MERLIC
Designer has been improved. Previously, context-sensitive help via the shortcut
F1 was only provided for some basic MERLIC components and dialogs. Now,
context-sensitive help is provided for many more GUI elements in focus, that
is, for the last clicked area, tool, or widget.
- Improved Usability
- The display of renamed MERLIC tools in the Tool Flow panel
has been improved. Previously, the original name of the tool was often redacted
although there was enough space to show the complete name. This made it
difficult to recognize which tool is represented, especially if there are
multiple tools with similar names. Now, the original name will be fully
displayed if there is enough space.
- Fixed Problems
- The menu entry "Help > View Help" in the MERLIC Creator
opened the context-sensitive help instead of the start page of the MERLIC
manual. This problem has been fixed. Now, the context-sensitive help is only
opened when pressing F1 and the menu entry opens the start page of the MERLIC
manual.
- Sometimes, the visualization of trigger connections in the
Tool Flow panel was broken and showed a gap. This problem has been fixed.
- Sometimes, when copying MERLIC tools in the Tool Flow panel
and pasting the tools to a position where there was not enough space for the
tools, more rows than necessary were added to the Tool Flow. This problem has
been fixed.
- If the context menu of a tool parameter was opened to connect
a result of a previous tool and "Evaluate Expression" was one of the previous
tools, MERLIC erroneously provided the option "<add connection>" for the
previous "Evaluate expression" tool. However, this option had no effect because
it is only used for tool results of tools prior to "Evaluate Expression" to
enable adding a connection to a new dynamic parameter of "Evaluate Expression".
This problem has been fixed. Now, this option is only shown if it is
applicable.
- When using easyTouch in a MERLIC tool and running the MVApp
via the keyboard shortcuts F5 or F6 without moving the mouse pointer, the
easyTouch overlay was not updated after the execution. This problem has been
fixed.
- Some of the buttons in the menu bar of the MERLIC Creator
were not positioned correctly with too much spacing on the left. This problem
has been fixed.
- If a warning dialog was shown in the Tool Flow panel when
moving a tool because any connections would be lost, it was still possible to
delete the respective tool in the Tool Workspace. If the warning was then
confirmed, other tools were moved instead. This problem has been fixed. Now, it
is not possible anymore to make any changes in other parts of the MERLIC
Creator while a warning dialog is shown in the Tool Flow panel.
- If a MERLIC Vision App contained unsaved changes and the
"File" menu was used to open the current MERLIC Vision App again, the dialog to
save or discard the changes appeared. If the user selected to discard the
changes, the MERLIC Vision App was opened again without the changes but the
window title bar of the MERLIC Creator still showed the modification flag. This
problem has been fixed.
- When changing one or more ROIs in the graphics window,
sometimes an outdated state of the ROIs was displayed in the graphics window,
which therefore seemed to respond with a time delay. This problem has been
fixed. Now, it is only possible to draw a new ROI if the latest ROI is has been
done calculating and is available.
- In some cases, the connections between tools in the Tool Flow
panel were drawn too close to the tools. This problem has been fixed.
- In some cases, trigger connections were not correctly drawn
in the Tool Flow panel. In addition, connections were sometimes unnecessarily
overlapped which made it harder to follow the connections. These problems have
been fixed.
- MERLIC sometimes crashed when renaming a MERLIC tool that was
previously connected to a "Label" widget. The crash occurred only if the
"Label" widget was deleted while connected to the renamed tool. This problem
has been fixed.
- When MERLIC could not be started because of an erroneous .ini
file, the respective error message was always shown in English even if a
different language was set. This problem has been fixed.
- The visualization of connections to tools that cannot be
executed was sometimes not correct. The arrowheads of these connections were
still displayed in blue instead of red, and in some cases, the connections were
not displayed in red at all. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC now supports training functionality in the MERLIC
Frontend. For this, a "Training" widget has been added to the MERLIC Designer.
It can be connected to the desired MERLIC tools whose training functionality
should be provided in the Frontend. The "Training" widget offers the same
training functionality as the connected MERLIC tool in the MERLIC Creator. The
user may activate the training mode, select new training images, use regions of
interest (ROIs) or easyTouch, if provided, to select training objects, and
perform the training with the new settings.
- Fixed Problems
- After the window size of the MERLIC Designer was changed or
the panels in the MERLIC Designer were moved to a different position, the
layout changes were lost after the MERLIC Creator was restarted. This problem
has been fixed.
- The scrollbar in the properties panel of the MERLIC Designer
was sometimes hard to recognize because the color of the scrollbar matched the
background color. This problem has been fixed.
- When copying Designer widgets from one view to another, they
were moved by 10 pixels. This problem has been fixed. Copied widgets are now
inserted in the other view at the same position. However, if the widgets are
copied to the same view, they are still shifted by 10 pixels to avoid a
complete overlap.
- The grid in the workspace of the MERLIC Designer was not
visible on the right and bottom borders of the workspace. This problem has been
fixed.
- The "Undo" and "Redo" functionalities did not work as
expected in the MERLIC Designer. After adding new tab views to the workspace,
using the "Undo" functionality to undo the creation of the last tab view had no
effect. In addition, when using the "Redo" functionality afterward, an extra
tab view with the same name was added although the name of a tab view must be
unique. This problem has been fixed.
- If the "Execution Control" widget was set to show only the
"Run Continuous" button, the respective allowed minimum width could only be set
via drag-and-drop of the widget in the workspace but not via the widget
properties. Instead, the minimum width of the widget for the case where both
execution buttons are displayed was expected when entering the width manually
in the properties. This problem has been fixed.
- When rearranging multiple tabs in the MERLIC Designer and then
using the "Undo" functionality on a widget, a different tab than the one that
contains the modified widget became active. This problem has been fixed.
- In the workspace properties of the MERLIC Designer, the path
of the selected background image was visible behind the actual input field and
the respective buttons instead of within the input field. This problem has been
fixed.
- New Features
- The MERLIC Frontend now supports new keyboard shortcuts which
can be used to control the execution of the MVApp (F5 and F6) and to add new
training images in the new "Training" widget (F3).
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC Frontend now offers more configuration options for
customization. MERLIC now provides the new MERLIC .ini file property
"ShowMVTecMerlicInFrontendWindow". It enables to hide the company and
product name of MVTec MERLIC in the window title and in the status message that
is shown while the Frontend is being loaded.
- Fixed Problems
- If an ROI toolbar was provided at the "Image Display" widget
in the MERLIC Frontend and the drop-down menu of the available ROIs was opened,
scrolling the list of ROIs in the drop-down had the effect that the image was
zoomed instead of scrolling through the ROI list in the drop-down menu. This
problem has been fixed.
- If the size of the workspace exceeded the initial size of the
MERLIC Frontend window, the workspace area was cropped to the Frontend window
size and could not be resized. This problem has been fixed.
- When starting the MERIC Frontend via the MERLIC Creator or
Designer, for example, by using the provided keyboard shortcuts or menu
entries, or when starting the MERLIC Frontend via the command line by using the
"--frontend" option for the "merlic_creator" or "merlic_rte"
applications, no error message or information was provided to the user in case
the Frontend could not be launched. This problem has been fixed. If the
Frontend fails to start via the user interface, an error message will now be
displayed. If the command line is used, an error message will be logged when
the Frontend could not be launched and the startup of the "merlic_creator" or
"merlic_rte" application, respectively, will be inhibited.
- Entering parameter values of type "long" in the "Spin Box" and
"Label" widgets in the MERLIC Frontend led to unexpected behavior if commas
were used as a thousand separator. This problem has been fixed. Now, entering
"long" values in the "Spin Box" and "Label" widgets is only allowed without
commas or dots to ensure a correct conversion.
- When using the "Spin Box" widget or the "Radio Button Group"
widget in the MERLIC Frontend and the modification in the Frontend was
deactivated, for example, because the MERLIC Vision App was executed in the
MERLIC RTE mode, the "Spin Box" and "Radio Button Group" widgets were not
displayed grayed out. Therefore, it seemed as if the widgets were still active
for modification. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The tool category "Preprocessing > ROI Creation" has been
renamed to "Preprocessing > ROI" in accordance to the new MERLIC tools
"Convert Region to ROI" and "Convert ROI to Region" which are now provided in
this category. This way, the name of the tool category fits to the new tool as
well as to the ROI creation tools that were already available in previous
MERLIC versions.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new tool "Convert Region to
ROI" in the tool category "Preprocessing > ROI". It enables the user to
convert region outputs of previous tools to regions of interest (ROIs). Each
region will be converted into a separate ROI. This might be useful if a MERLIC
tool is used that accepts only ROIs as input. The new tool can then be used in
a preprocessing step to convert the results into the required semantic type.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new tool "Convert ROI to
Region" in the tool category "Preprocessing > ROI". It enables the user to
convert regions of interest (ROIs), i.e., circles, paraxial rectangles, points,
rectangles or segments, to regions. The ROIs can either be connected from a
previous tool or be drawn using the ROI buttons in the Tool Board. This might
be useful if a MERLIC tool is used that accepts only regions as input. The new
tool can then be used in a preprocessing step to convert the results into the
required semantic type.
- The tool "Evaluate Expression" now allows changing the order
of expressions. This is especially useful if you are using multiple expressions
and want to change their order. You can simply drag and drop the expressions to
the new positions instead of removing and adding the respective expressions
again as previously required.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new MERLIC tool "Find
Objects" in the tool category "Deep Learning - AI". Previously,
this tool was provided as a concept tool in an early stage of development. The
tool has been revised and improved and is now provided as a standard MERLIC
tool, ready for productive use. It can be used to locate objects within an
image and classify them based on a deep learning model that has been trained
for object detection in MVTec's Deep Learning Tool or in MVTec HALCON. For the
final integration as a standard MERLIC tool, the names of the tool parameters
and tool results have been revised to be more clear. In addition, the Quick
Info of the tool has been revised and a tool reference has been added to the
MERLIC manual. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- The "Image Source" tool has been extended by several new tool
results:
- "Used Source": This result returns information on the image source that
was used for the image acquisition.
- "Acquisition Time": This result returns the time it took to acquire an
image from the selected image source. It is provided as an additional
result and is also displayed in the status bar of the MERLIC Creator.
- "Total Acquisition Time": This result returns the time it took to
acquire an image from all image sources in the currently active
configuration. It is provided as an additional result.
- The following tools of the tool category "File Access" have
been extended:
- Read from File
- Read Region from File
- Write to File
- Write Region to File
All of these tools have been extended by the new result "Current File
Name" which returns the name and path of the file that has been saved in the
last iteration. In addition, the tools "Write to File" and "Write Region to
File" have been extended by the new parameter "Create Directories". It allows
the user to define whether the directory specified in the parameter "File
Name" should be created if it doesn't exist.
- Enhancements
- The concept tool "Segment Image Pixel Precise" has been
revised. The tool results "Segmentation Image" and "Preprocessed Image" were
obsolete and have been removed. In addition, the description in the Quick Info
has been improved to be more clear.
- Improved Usability
- The MERLIC tools of the category "File Access" have been
revised. Relative paths that have been defined for the tool parameter "File
Name" are now handled relative to the location of the saved MERLIC Vision App
and if an empty "File Name" is defined, the default value of the parameter is
restored.
- Fixed Problems
- Some tool parameter names of the tool "Convert Disparity to
Height Image" were incorrectly translated into Chinese and Japanese. These
parameters refer to specific camera parameters and should therefore not be
translated. This problem has been fixed.
- When copying and pasting an instance of a trained "Detect
Anomalies" tool, the trained model was not copied. Therefore, the copied tool
needed to be manually trained again. This problem has been fixed.
- In some cases, the value defined as an expression of an
"Evaluate Expression" tool was not applied anymore if an invalid expression was
entered and then corrected after switching to the "Evaluate Expression" tool
from another one. This problem has been fixed.
- If the "Image Source" tool was used but no image source was
connected, the displayed warning was outdated and not very helpful. This
problem has been fixed.
- The tool "Read from File" needed to be executed twice to
start reading from the specified file but it also read from the file when a
parameter was changed. In addition, changing a parameter of the tool "Write to
File" was handled as an error that was instantly cleared. These problems have
been fixed.
- After changing the write mode for an already connected file
in the tool "Write to File", the file was not automatically reconnected again.
Instead, the user had to manually reconnect to the file before starting writing
with the new write mode. This problem has been fixed.
- When entering an integer that was larger than the numeric
maximum of signed 64-bit or lower than the numeric minimum, for example, a
value greater than 9223372036854775807 or less than -9223372036854775808, the
number was automatically set to the nearest numeric limit without any user
notification. This problem has been fixed. The value will not be adjusted
automatically anymore and an error will occur instead.
- In some MERLIC tools, the usage of the parameter sliders for
tool parameters that define the minimum and maximum values of a feature has
been improved. In general, the parameter that defines the maximum value of a
feature cannot be set lower than the current minimum value of that feature.
Previously, the value range of the sliders did not adjust according to the
value of the other corresponding tool parameter. For example, if the parameter
for the minimum value was increased, the corresponding parameter for the
maximum value could not be set lower than the new minimum value but the range
of the slider still allowed the user to move the handle to lower values than
allowed even if they could not be set. Now, the value range of the sliders is
adjusted automatically to the allowed value range to make it easier to set the
respective value.
- The translations of some tool messages were missing. Thus,
they were always displayed in English even if a different language was set.
This problem has been fixed.
- If an incompatible model was used in the concept tool
"Segment Image Pixel-Precise", an internal error message of HDevEngine was
shown which did not provide any helpful information. This problem has been
fixed.
- If multiple codes were detected in a MERLIC tool for reading
data codes, the decoded data were not returned in the same order as the
extracted contours which made it hard to assign the decoded data to the
respective contours. This problem has been fixed.
- If an ROI of an unsupported type was connected to a MERLIC
tool, often no warning or error occurred. This problem has been fixed. Now, all
MERLIC tools show a warning or an error if an ROI is connected that is not
supported.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by the new MVApp example
"count_frozen_dough_with_training.mvapp" which demonstrates the use of the new
"Training" widget and the training mode in the MERLIC Frontend.
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC Vision App (MVApp) examples provided with the
MERLIC installation have been improved. Previously, they were not
write-protected and could therefore be overwritten. Now, all MVApp examples are
delivered write-protected to ensure that they cannot be overwritten.
- New Features
- The MERLIC manual has been extended by a new topic "What's
New in MERLIC 5.3.0". It gives an overview of the new features and enhancements
in this MERLIC version. This topic will also be provided in future MERLIC
versions to give an overview of the respective new features.
- Enhancements
- The documentation of the Image Source Manager (ISM) in the
MERLIC manual has been improved. Previously, the process of configuring image
sources was documented on a single page. Now, this page has been divided into
several subpages for better clarity.
- The language settings when switching from the Tool
Development manual and the Communicator Reference documentation which are only
provided in English to one of the translated manuals have been revised.
Previously, the settings were inconsistent. When opening the MERLIC manual from
the Tool Development manual, the help was opened in the language that was set
as default in the browser. However, when opening the manual from the
Communicator Reference, the help was opened in English. Now, the MERLIC manual
and the MERLIC Communicator manual will be opened in the default language of
the browser if the manual is available in the default language and if they are
opened from the Tool Development manual or the Communicator Reference.
- The documentation of the example Communicator plug-in
"save-images" in the MERLIC Communicator manual has been improved. It now
provides more detailed information on how to use the plug-in.
- The documentation of the tool "Delay Execution" has been
improved. Now, the tool reference and the quick info also provide information
about the delay of the execution of a single tool.
- The MERLIC manual has been extended by a new "Getting
Started" section. It provides an overview to help the user get started with
MERLIC. It also gives practical information such as an introduction to the user
interface, an overview of the available keyboard shortcuts, and an introduction
to MERLIC’s various components.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the MERLIC tool documentation has been
improved. The quick info of the MERLIC tools has been extended to provide a
hyperlink to the respective tool reference in the MERLIC manual. Thus, the
documentation for a tool can be accessed more quickly and easier.
- Fixed Problems
- Some tables in the MERLIC manual and the MERLIC Communicator
manual were not scaled correctly for smaller browser widths. This problem has
been fixed.
- In the quick info of the tools "Branch on Condition" and
"Evaluate Expression", the example expressions were not completely visible if
the quick info area was too narrow. This problem has been fixed.
- In the MERLIC manual and MERLIC Communicator manual, some
translations were missing. This problem has been fixed.
- Some videos in the MERLIC manual were a bit blurry. This
problem has been fixed.
- If the user login dialog of the MERLIC Frontend was open and
the shortcut F1 was pressed to open the respective context-sensitive help, the
MERLIC manual was opened with the overview topic of the MERLIC Frontend instead
of the description of the user login. This problem has been fixed.
- The topic "Working with the Training Mode" in the MERLIC
manual was not up-to-date. Some of the newer MERLIC tools were missing in the
list of MERLIC tools with training mode. In addition, the list of example
applications in the reference documentation of some Designer widgets was not
up-to-date. This problem has been fixed.
- The tool reference of the tool "Delay Execution" contained
wrong information. It stated that the maximum value for the parameter
"Milliseconds" is 1000 ms. However, it is possible to set a delay of more than
1000 ms. This problem has been fixed.
- The documentation of the interface procedure
"Me_set_parameter_disabled" was missing in the Tool Development
Manual. This problem has been fixed.
- The Communicator Reference documentation contained outdated
information and did not mention clearly where example plug-ins are installed by
default. This problem has been fixed.
- The documentation of the OPC UA server plug-in in the MERLIC
Communicator manual stated in the "Requirements" section that for the full
feature set also the features of the recommended features set are required.
However, there is no recommended features set. This problem has been fixed. It
now states correctly that the features of the extended feature set are required
for the full feature set.
- In the Communicator Reference documentation, the instructions
for linking Boost libraries to a plug-in were outdated. This problem has been
fixed.
- Enhancements
- MERLIC now supports to start further MERLIC applications
directly from the MVTec Software Manager (SOM). Previously, only the MERLIC
Creator could be started from the MVTec Software Manager. Now, also the MERLIC
RTE Setup and MERLIC Frontend can be started via new launch buttons. In
addition, it is also possible to start MERLIC RTE, MERLIC Communicator, and the
MERLIC Frontend together. This allows the user to immediately open the
applications after the installation.
- Fixed Problems
- MERLIC could not be uninstalled via the MVTec Software
Manager (SOM) if the installation directory contained non-ASCII characters.
This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The license restrictions for the MERLIC RTE Setup have
changed. Previously, a license dongle was required to use the MERLIC RTE Setup.
Now, a license is installed automatically for the MERLIC RTE Setup with each
MERLIC installation. This allows the use of the MERLIC RTE Setup without any
licensing dongle, for example, on remote systems.
- The license restrictions for image acquisition have changed.
The license of the MERLIC package determines how many image acquisition tools
are allowed for use per MERLIC Vision App. Previously, this restriction applied
to all tools of the category "Acquisition". Now, the tool "Acquire Image from
File" is excluded from the license restriction. Thus, it may be used in the
MERLIC Vision App as often as desired without any license restriction.
- Enhancements
- The configuration options for custom tools have been
improved. Previously, the setting for the location of custom tools and the
setting to enable remote debugging in HDevelop needed to the defined in the
.ini file of MERLIC. Now, these settings can also be defined in the preferences
dialog of the MERLIC Creator. The configuration options are provided in a new
tab "Custom Tools". It enables the user to comfortably define the path settings
for custom tools and additional procedures via the user interface. In addition,
it also allows the activation of the HDevelop remote debugging mode. In
contrast to previous versions, it is now also possible to change the port for
the remote debugging mode.
The new "Custom Tools" tab in the MERLIC preferences will only be available
if the MERLIC license supports the use of custom tools, that is, if the
licensing package "X-Large" or the licensing add-on "Extension Tools" is
activated. If the used license does not support custom tools, the new tab
will not be visible in the preferences.
- The interface procedure "Me_set_drawing_color" has
been updated. Previously, the procedure could be used for iconic output
parameters and for ROI parameters although there are also other interface
procedures to define the color of ROIs. To avoid confusion about which
procedure should be used, the procedure "Me_set_drawing_color" can now
only be used for iconic output parameters but not for ROI parameters. To change
the color of ROI parameters, the procedures "Me_set_active_roi_color"
or "Me_set_inactive_roi_color" can be used instead.
- With the new HALCON version, the interface procedure
"MeTest_destroy_tool_handle" is not necessary anymore because handles
are now cleared automatically in HALCON. Therefore, this interface procedure
has been removed. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- Fixed Problems
- If a non-ASCII path was configured multiple times for the
parameter "ToolPath" in the [General] section of the
.ini file, MERLIC did not start. This problem has been fixed. Now, MERLIC logs
information containing the multiple configured paths and starts normally.
- To profit from the improvements of the new HALCON version, the
HALCON libraries used by MERLIC have been upgraded to the HALCON 22.11 Progress
version. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- A MERLIC Vision App could be executed at most 25 times per
minute. This problem has been fixed.
- The behavior of MERLIC during a crash has changed. Due to the new
CodeMeter version that is used for MERLIC's licensing, stack traces are no longer
provided if MERLIC crashes. Therefore, the respective log file and crash data are
no longer available after a crash.
- The logging mechanism of MERLIC has been improved. The log files
of the MERLIC Creator, MERLIC RTE, and the MERLIC RTE Setup now provide information
on the used CPU and the available cores. This information helps the support team to
find suitable solutions more quickly if the user runs into problems and needs to
contact the local distributor or MVTec for help.
In this section, you can find the release notes that apply only for Windows systems.
- If an update or uninstallation of MERLIC was started via the
MVTec Software Manager (SOM) while there were still MERLIC processes that were
currently running, the update or uninstallation was stopped which could led to an
incomplete MERLIC installation. This problem has been fixed. Now, a warning dialog
occurs if any MERLIC processes are still running and the user has the possibility
to end the running MERLIC processes and to continue the update or uninstallation,
respectively.
- When using MERLIC on Windows 11 and opening a menu in one of the
MERLIC components, for example, in the MERLIC Creator, the selected menu entry was
highlighted badly and with a dark background color which resulted in a low
contrast. This made it hard to read the name of the menu entry. This problem has
been fixed.
- While installing MERLIC via the MVTec Software Manager (SOM),
some file rights were not set correctly. This could prevent users in a multi-user
environment from using the MERLIC RTE Setup. This problem has been fixed.
- If the software rendering mode was activated, MERLIC crashed when
a warning or error message in a MERLIC tool was opened. This problem has been
fixed.
In this section, you can find the release notes that apply only for Linux systems.
- On Linux systems, the parameter "Start Time" of the tool "Get
Execution Info" could not handle time values of time format "relative" that were
connected from another instance of the same tool. This problem has been fixed.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC 5.2.1
This document provides the release notes for MVTecMERLIC5.2.1, as released in November 2022.
Windows
MERLIC 5.2.1 is available for
Windows 10 (64-bit). During the installation of MERLIC via the
MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
- Fixed Problems
- Some of the #include directives in the example code of the
"save-images" plug-in could not be resolved when building the plug-in from
source using the installed Communicator SDK. This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- If the size of the workspace exceeded the initial size of the
Frontend window, the workspace area was cropped to the Frontend window size and
could not be resized. This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- The tools "Read from Serial Interface" and "Write to Serial
Interface" did not open the selected ports anymore. This problem has been
fixed. The semantic type "serial_id" has been changed to "serial".
- Fixed Problems
- The link in the table of content of the MERLIC manual to the
MERLIC Communicator Reference Documentation did not work if a sub-topic in the
MERLIC manual was currently open. This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- If a non-ASCII path was configured multiple times for the
parameter "ToolPath" in the [General] section of the
.ini file, MERLIC did not start. This problem has been fixed. Now, MERLIC logs
information containing the multiple configured paths and starts normally.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC5.2.0
This document provides the release notes for MVTecMERLIC5.2.0, as released in October 2022.
Windows
MERLIC5.2.0 is available for Windows
10 (64-bit). During the installation of MERLIC via the
MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for Linux
on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both embedded
devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the typical
Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This is a
first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
Integration of "Global Context Anomaly Detection"
In MERLIC 5.2, the newly developed Deep Learning method "Global Context Anomaly Detection"
will be available. The outstanding feature: The new technology "understands" the logical
content of images and thus detects new variants of anomalies. The feature is useful for any
industry in which, for example, completeness checks, quality inspections, defect detection
or print inspections have to be carried out. A concrete example is the inspection of
imprints and whether they are in the right place. For training, "Global Context Anomaly
Detection" only requires good images. This means that no labeling is required. For the
training of Deep Learning applications, it is possible to use the free Deep Learning Tool
(DLT) from MVTec. The results can then be imported from the DLT into MERLIC and executed
there without any programming effort.
MVTec EasyParams
The introduction of MVTec EasyParams in MERLIC 5.2 allows users to quickly and easily find
and set the relevant camera parameters. Regardless of the camera manufacturer, this
simplified configuration tool means that the application can be put into operation more
quickly. In addition, MERLIC automatically saves all EasyParams. This increases the number
of compatible cameras supported by MERLIC.
Export Image Data from MERLIC
MERLIC 5.2 now also makes it possible to export image data from MERLIC to other interfaces.
This is a handy feature for users, because now they can use the images for visualization
purposes directly via the communication interface. A communication plug-in, now also
included in the scope of delivery, makes it possible to save images separately, such as for
quality assurance purposes.
Extension of the Functional Scope of Custom Tools
With the "Extension Tool Add-On" in MERLIC 5.2, it is now much more convenient to implement
even sophisticated machine vision applications. Experienced users in particular benefit
from being able to develop their own custom tools based on MVTec HALCON. For example, the
development environment HDevelop can now be connected to MERLIC. This makes debugging the
custom tools much easier. The execution of a custom tool can be tracked directly in
HDevelop.
Concept Tools: Foretaste of "Segment Image Pixel-Precise“
"Concept Tools" in MERLIC offer customers a first taste of future functions. At the same
time, they can use the tools to carry out initial evaluations of possible new applications.
In addition, customer feedback actively contributes to development.
In MERLIC 5.2, the deep-learning-based feature "Segment Image Pixel-Precise" can be tested
as part of the Concept Tools-AI. This makes it possible to localise trained defect classes
with pixel precision. In this way, users can solve inspection tasks, for example, that were
previously not possible at all or only with considerable programming effort.
Since the last MERLIC version we have
been working hard to improve MERLIC in every way.
This has, however, resulted in a few of incompatibilities. We apologize for the
inconvenience.
- Communicator
- The behavior of the API function
MV_ActionInfo_GetParameter has been changed. Previously, it expected
users to provide a pre-initialized MVValue_t to set its value. This is in contrast to all
the other *_GetParameter functions which will initialize the
MVValue_t and require the users to clear it afterward. The behavior of
MV_ActionInfo_GetParameter has been aligned with the rest of the API
in this regard. While this is technically a breaking change of the function's
contract, it should not stop existing plug-ins from working but may cause a
(slow) memory leak. More information.
- MERLIC
Frontend
- Existing applications that are using pipe connections are
not compatible anymore because starting with this MERLIC version only
TCP/IP-based inter-process communication is supported. Therefore, the
configuration of existing applications based on pipe connections need to be
updated to use TCP connections. More information.
- Installation
- Previous MERLIC versions that were installed via the
MERLIC installer cannot be updated to the new MERLIC 5.2.0 version via the
"Check for Updates..." dialog in the MERLIC Creator because MERLIC now only
supports the installation via the MVTec Software Installer (SOM). To use the
new MERLIC version, the installation must be performed via the SOM which can be
obtained via the MVTec download area. More information.
- Tool Development
- Custom MERLIC tools that were created for a previous
MERLIC version and that make use of any of the following procedures cannot be
used in MERLIC 5.2.0 because the "ToolHandle" parameter has been removed from
the procedures.
- _Info
- Me_add_roi_support_all
- Me_add_roi_support_circle
- Me_add_roi_support_paraxial_rect
- Me_add_roi_support_point
- Me_add_roi_support_rectangle
- Me_add_roi_support_segment
Existing custom tools that make use of these procedures need to be
updated to remove the "ToolHandle" parameter from the respective procedures.
In addition, some other interface procedures are not supported anymore for
the tool development in MERLIC 5.2.0. Therefore, existing custom tools using
unsupported interface procedures also need to be updated. This can be done
with the Python script "ConvertTool.py" that is provided with the MERLIC
installation. More information.
- Miscellaneous
- MERLIC Frontends of a previous MERLIC version are not
compatible with MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of the new MERLIC 5.2.0 version
and vice versa. When connecting the MERLIC Frontend of a MERLIC 5.2.0
installation remotely to an instance of the MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of a
MERLIC 5.1 installation (or older), the connection succeeds but the window of
the MERLIC Frontend remains blank. Vice versa, the MERLIC Frontend of a MERLIC
5.1 (or older) installation fails to display the Frontend served up by an
instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of a MERLIC 5.2.0 installation.
- Due to the new underlying HALCON version, the behavior of
existing custom tools might have changed since the last MERLIC version.
Therefore, it is recommended to check the functionality of existing custom
tools in this MERLIC version in addition to other required updates of the
custom tools due to the revised interface for the tool developoment. More information.
- Due to the changes of the system requirements regarding
the fallback for OpenGL, the system configurations in which the environment
variable for OpenGL was set to use DirectX, i.e., "QT_OPENGL=desktop", do not
work anymore with the new MERLIC version. Instead, software-only OpenGL must be
used as fallback. Therefore, the configuration of the environment variable
needs to be adjusted to "QT_OPENGL=software", if required.
More information.
- New Features
- The Image Source Manager has been extended by the MVTec
EasyParams. They represent a predefined set of new parameters which serve as a
clear and easy interface to define the actual settings of the underlying camera
parameters. The predefined set of MVTec EasyParams focuses on the configuration
for the most important and most used camera features to enable a quick and
simplified configuration for the most common use cases. For this, the MVTec
EasyParams will always be displayed with the same name for all types of camera
devices. In addition, the MVTec EasyParams combine the settings of several
camera parameters into a single MVTec EasyParam to simplify the configuration,
e.g., for the trigger settings. In contrast to the actual camera parameters,
the parameter settings of the MVTec EasyParams are always saved
persistently.
In MERLIC, the MVTec EasyParams are available in the configuration area of
the "Image Sources" tab in the MERLIC RTE Setup. The configuration area for
camera parameters has been adjusted to provide two tabs. The parameter
representing the MVTec EasyParams are available in the tab "EasyParams". The
complete set of camera parameters that are available for the connected camera
are listed in the tab "All parameters". The user may switch between both tabs
for the configuration of the camera. In case the connected camera device does
not provide all underlying camera parameters of the MVTec EasyParams, the
respective configuration in the "EasyParams" tab will not be visible. This
way, only the configurable settings are provided.
- Enhancements
- The behavior when using certain features of the Image Source
Manager (ISM) in the MERLIC RTE Setup while an MVApp is running continuously in
the MERLIC Creator has been improved. Previously, ISM failed to grab an image
and returned an error after another ISM configuration was activated or after an
image source has been reconnected or newly been added. In such a situation, the
execution of the MVApp had to be stopped and started again in order to enable a
correct acquisition again. Now, the image acquisition works correctly for all
newly added or reconnected image sources as well as for all image sources of a
newly activated configuration without restarting the execution of the MVApp.
- The behavior when starting acquiring live images in the
"Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup has been improved. Previously, the
software trigger was temporarily activated on a camera when the live image was
started to acquire images from the camera. Now, the trigger settings of the
camera are not modified anymore when starting the live image.
- The image acquisition interfaces that are used for the Image
Source Manager (ISM) as well as for the tools "Acquire Image from Camera" and
"Acquire Image from File", respectively, have been updated to a new revision.
MERLIC now contains the following versions of the interfaces:
- GigEVision2: Revision 18.11.15
- GenICamGenTL: Revision 18.11.15
- USB3Vision: Revision 18.11.18
- Fixed Problems
- In some cases, the "Image Source" tool returned an error and
displayed the error image when the execution was stopped in the MERLIC Creator
while the image acquisition in the Image Source Manager was still in progress.
This problem has been fixed. Now, the "Image Source" tool always displays the
latest executed image when stopping the execution. The latest executed image
might not be the latest acquired image because the active configuration might
contain other image sources for which the image acquisition is not finished. If
the acquisition of the selected image source succeeded but the acquisition of
any other image source in the active configuration is still in progress when
the execution is stopped, the latest executed image that is shown in the "Image
Source" tool is not the same as the latest acquired image because the next
iteration of the MVApp has not started yet.
In addition, the "Image Source" tool also returned an error when modifying
the parameters of a camera in the MERLIC RTE Setup while an MVApp was running
continuously in the MERLIC Creator. This problem has been fixed. Now, the
execution of the MVApp might be suspended momentarily until the modified
camera parameters have been applied.
- When clicking the "New image source" button in the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, it took a while before the corresponding
dialog was brought up. This problem has been fixed.
- In the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the live
image mode could not be stopped and also blocked all other user actions to be
applied before a new live image was acquired or the configured "grab timeout"
(default 5 seconds) occurred. This problem has been fixed. Now the live image
and also the snapshot can reliably be aborted at any time.
- When editing and using camera configuration files for MERLIC,
i.e., ".pers" files, the line endings in the files were not compatible with
different operating systems. This problem has been fixed.
- In some cases, the live image or snapshot that was displayed
for an image source in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup was
erroneously associated with a different image source. This problem occurred if
the image source of the active configuration had exactly the same name as an
image source of an inactive configuration and if this inactive configuration
had been previously activated in the same instance of the MERLIC RTE Setup. If
the live image was then started or a snapshot was taken for the image source of
the active configuration, the respective images were still displayed when
changing to the identically named image source of the inactive configuration.
- New Features
- MERLIC RTE now supports the transmission of image results
that have been added to the MVApp results of the respective MVApp. Thus, they
will be stored in memory along with the other results when executing the
respective MVApp via an associated recipe in the MERLIC RTE mode. As with
regular results, the image results are deleted from memory when the ring buffer
that stores the results exceeds its capacity and starts dropping results,
beginning with the oldest one. It might be required to adjust the respective
setting in the .ini file, i.e., "ResultBufferSize", depending on the amount and
size of the images, the frequency of the recipes' execution, the delay between
the generation of the result and its processing by the Communicator plug-ins,
and the system resources available to MERLIC.
- The MERLIC RTE application, i.e., "merlic_rte.exe", has been
extended by the following new command line options:
- "-r", "--recipe": This option overrides the default recipe and
specifies a different recipe for the startup.
- "-R", "--no_recipe": This option overrides the default recipe and
specifies that no recipe is loaded on startup.
- "-x", "--execute": This option starts a continuous execution of the
startup recipe immediately after it is prepared.
- Improved Usability
- In the "Image Sources" and "Communication" tab of the MERLIC
RTE Setup, the contrast on disabled parameters has been improved. Previously,
the contrast was very low which made it sometimes difficult to read the
parameters. Now, the contrast has been increased to ensure better readability.
- Fixed Problems
- When the MERLIC RTE Setup was connected to a remote system on
which MERLIC RTE was currently running and the "Recipes" tab was selected, a
wrong message with misleading information was displayed. This problem has been
fixed. Now, the "Recipes" tab correctly states that recipes cannot be managed
remotely when the MERLIC RTE Setup is connected to a remote system.
- On Linux systems, the parameters defined in a recipe were not
set in the same order as on Windows systems when using MERLIC RTE. This problem
has been fixed. Now, the recipe parameters will be set in the same order as on
Windows systems.
- In the "Image Sources" and "Communication" tabs of the MERLIC
RTE Setup, the values of some parameters were clipped on the left-hand side in
the respective GUI controls if not enough horizontal space was available. This
problem has been fixed. Now, the content of the GUI controls will be elided on
the right-hand side if necessary unless the cursor is placed in the control for
editing.
- If a new MERLIC RTE Setup was opened with a forced connection
after a previous instance of the MERLIC RTE Setup had ended unexpectedly, the
configuration on the "Image Sources" tab was still locked. This problem has
been fixed. Now, the "Image Sources" tab is available even if the previously
connected MERLIC RTE Setup had ended unexpectedly.
- When scrolling the parameter list in the "Image Sources" and
"Communication" tabs of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the list was scrolled down/up too
fast which made it difficult to look through the parameters. This problem has
been fixed.
- When using the up and down arrow keys to change the selected
plug-in instance in the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, the view
in the configuration area on the right did not change to the currently selected
plug-in instance. This problem has been fixed.
- The names of camera parameters in the "Image Sources" tab and
the names of plug-in parameters in the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup were not correctly elided with an ellipsis (...) if the name did not fit
within the available space in the respective configuration area. This problem
has been fixed. Now, also a tooltip is displayed when hovering the mouse
pointer over an elided parameter name.
- On Windows systems, MERLIC RTE did not shut down immediately
if the terminate signal, e.g., CTRL+C, was received while the startup was still
in progress. In addition, MERLIC RTE could never be terminated gracefully again
afterwards. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The Communicator API now supports the transmission of image
results that have been added to the MVApp results of the respective MVApp. For
this, the results and the "ResultReady" event now include so-called "data
component descriptors" that reference the individual images as a "data
container descriptor". These can then be used to fetch a "data container"
containing the actual binary "data components", i.e., the image results, from
the vision system. The resolution and binary format of the images can be
customized by setting the corresponding properties of the data component
descriptors before fetching them.
- The C++ plug-in support library has been extended to also
support the transfer and retrieval of image results analogously to the
underlying C API.
- The Communicator API and accompanying support C++ library
have been extended to allow plug-ins to specify a preferred control widget for
a plug-in configuration parameter. Several (new) widgets are available:
- A file chooser and a directory chooser to allow specifying a path by
browsing the (local) filesystem as an alternative to a plain text field.
- A password entry text field that allows toggling between obfuscated and
plain text entry, also as an alternative to a plain text field.
- A button group which can be used as an alternative to a combo box to
let the user choose between a few options.
The MQTT plug-in, the OPC UA server plug-in, and the new "save-images"
example plug-in all make use of this ability.
- The Communicator API has been extended by a new property
eMVPluginProperty_RapidValidation which may be specified in the
MVDetails API function. Setting this Boolean to "true" allows a
Communicator plug-in to opt into a new "rapid validation" behavior which will
trigger the validation of the tentative plug-in configuration in the MERLIC
RTE Setup upon every modification. Plug-ins that do not set this property
maintain the existing behavior, i.e., a validation only takes place when the
user saves the plug-in configuration. The MQTT and OPC UA server plug-ins
support this rapid validation.
- Enhancements
- The "Config::Builder" class of the C++ plug-in support
library has been extended by the functions WithPrefix and
WithSuffix. These functions can be used to set prefixes and suffixes
for the user parameters that are available the MERLIC RTE Setup.
- The MERLIC Communicator now also supports building a
Communicator plug-in using the C++ support library in C++20 mode. Previously,
some warnings related to the deprecation of bitwise operations on enumerators
of different enumeration types might have occurred when using the C++ plug-in
support library in C++20 mode. Now, C++20 is fully compatible with
building Communicator plug-ins using the C++ plug-in support library and no
warnings are returned regarding any deprecations.
- Fixed Problems
- When using the C++ plug-in support library, some
MVValue_t objects were not cleared correctly when querying information
of the underlying C API data types. This led to a (slow) memory leak in all
plug-ins that were using these objects. This problem has been fixed. Note that
this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- New Features
- The MQTT plug-in has been extended by the ability to publish
result image data. The plug-in now also provides a new set of user parameters
for the configuration of the image data, i.e., to define how the image data
should be published. They can be accessed in the user parameter section "Image
Results" which is displayed in the configuration area of the plug-in within the
"Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup. By default, the image data are not
published and this feature has to be enabled in the configuration of the
plug-in.
- The OPC UA server plug-in has been extended by the ability to
retrieve result image data. The plug-in now also provides a new set of user
parameters for the configuration of the image data, i.e., to define how the
image data should be provided. They can be accessed in the user parameter
section "Image Results" which is displayed in the configuration area of the
plug-in within the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup. By default, the
image data are not provided and this feature has to be enabled in the
configuration of the plug-in.
- MERLIC has been extended by a new Communicator example
plug-in "save-images". It demonstrates the use of the new "data container
descriptors" and "data component descriptors" of the image API. When running,
the plug-in automatically saves the image data contained in MVApp results to a
configurable directory on disk. The plug-in offers a rich set of configuration
options to customize the image format, output directory structure, and
conditions upon which to output an image. The source code for this plug-in is
available at "examples/communicator_plugins/save-images" inside the MERLIC
installation directory.
- Enhancements
- The "event-logger" example plug-in has been improved. It now
also logs the data information of image results that have been added to the
MVApp results for the process integration, i.e, MERLIC RTE. In addition, the
new "data component descriptors" that are included in each "ResultReady" event
are logged.
- The MQTT plug-in is now capable of connecting to MQTT brokers
which require authentication via username and password. Authentication can be
enabled via newly added parameters in the plug-in's configuration on the
"Communication" tab of MERLIC RTE Setup. Please note that these credentials are
stored and transferred in plain text.
- The OPC UA server plug-in has been extended by a new optional
add-in, i.e., the "VisionCompanion" object. It facilitates the integration with
OPC UA clients that are not able to handle the complexities of the information
model specified by the "OPC UA for Machine Vision - Part 1" companion
specification, e.g., simple OPC UA clients such as PLCs. It enables the user to
operate the OPC UA server in an easier way by providing an alternative approach
to start the execution and get the results.
- New Features
- MERLIC now supports adding image results of a MERLIC tool to
the MVApp results for the process integration, i.e., for MERLIC RTE. The
connector of the respective tool results representing an image now also
provides the button for adding the result to the MVApp result. The required
data type is automatically selected when adding an image result to the MVApp
result. They will then appear in the panel "MVApp Parameters and Results" and
they will be available to Communicator plug-ins through the new "data container
descriptors" of the Communicator API.
- The update mechanism of MERLIC has been improved. Previously,
the user had to check for available updates manually via the "Help > Check
for Updates" menu. Now, the MERLIC Creator automatically checks for new updates
at every startup, and if a newer version is available, the user will be
notified via a dialog.
- MERLIC now supports a preview of all types of graphical data
in MERLIC tools, i.e., images, contours, or regions. When hovering the mouse
pointer over a tool parameter or tool result that contains graphical data, the
respective graphical data will be displayed in the graphics window of the
MERLIC tool. Tool parameters and results that enable such a preview can now be
recognized by a new icon that appears on mouse hover. MERLIC also enables to
display the graphical data permanently by clicking on the connector of the
respective tool parameter or tool result. This functionality is especially
helpful if a MERLIC tool has multiple tool parameters or results with graphical
data, or if you would like to check the graphical data of a tool result without
connecting it to a subsequent tool.
- Enhancements
- If an MVApp with user management of a previous MERLIC version
was converted while loading the MVApp in the MERLIC Creator, the back-up of the
MVApp did not contain a back-up of the user management database. Instead, the
original user management database was overwritten with the new database schema
and the original database was lost. Therefore, the back-up of the MVApp no
longer worked correctly in the MERLIC version in which it was originally
created because the older MERLIC version did not work with the new database
schema of the user management. This problem has been fixed. Now, also a back-up
for the user management database is created when converting MVApps of previous
MERLIC versions.
- Fixed Problems
- If a reserved keyword that is not allowed has been entered
while renaming a tool parameter or tool result, the displayed error message was
not clear and did not mention the actual cause for the error. This problem has
been fixed.
- If an MVApp contained a large amount of MERLIC tools, the
context menu with the list of available tools for connecting was not completely
visible in some cases. This problem has been fixed.
- In rare cases, MERLIC Creator could crash on shutdown if the
Tool Flow of the MVApp contained crossing points. This problem has been fixed.
- A wrong tooltip was shown at a MERLIC tool when hovering the
mouse pointer over the arrow icon of an MVApp result. The tooltip mentioned
"MVApp Parameter" instead of "MVApp Result" which might have led to confusion.
This problem has been fixed.
- In some cases, deleting a MERLIC tool could take very long if
the MVApp contained a large number of "Branch on Condition" tools. This problem
has been fixed.
- After resolving a race condition in an MVApp, the respective
tool parameter has been set to its default value even though a tool result of a
previous tool was connected to the parameter. This problem has been fixed. Now,
the value of the connected tool result is correctly propagated.
- When switching between the processing image and a training
image of a MERLIC tool with training mode, the MVApp was incorrectly marked as
modified even though this has no effect on the program state. This problem has
been fixed.
- After selecting the connector of a tool parameter for editing
and deleting the current value, some problems occurred when trying to edit the
value again. This problem has been fixed.
- In the "About MERLIC" dialog in the MERLIC Creator, the
translation of some texts were missing when using MERLIC in German. This
problem has been fixed.
- If an error was returned at a MERLIC tool and the respective
error message dialog was opened in detailed view, the information provided
under "Details" vanished when changing the focus to a different tool, e.g., by
clicking on a different tool in the Tool Flow panel. This problem has been
fixed.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the Frontend Designer has been improved.
Previously, the color of the grid in the workspace was too dark which made it
hard to focus on the actual Designer widgets. Now, the default color for the
grid has been changed to a lighter color to keep the focus on the Designer
widgets.
- Fixed Problems
- The grid properties within the Frontend Designer were not
saved persistently. This problem has been fixed.
- In the Frontend Designer, a white border was visible on the
right and bottom of the workspace. This problem has been fixed.
- When adding, deleting, and removing groups within the user
management settings in the MERLIC Designer, some issues related to the display
of the list of user groups could occur. This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- Starting with this version, only TCP/IP-based inter-process
communication is supported. The inter-process communication using Microsoft
pipes has been removed for the MERLIC Frontend. Note that this change affects
the compatibility. Read more.
- Fixed Problems
- When using the MERLIC Frontend in one of the MERLIC languages
other than English, the error messages in the login dialog of the MERLIC
Frontend were not translated. This problem has been fixed.
- When using the MERLIC Frontend in one of the MERLIC languages
other than English and closing the MERLIC Frontend with pending changes, the
buttons in the dialog asking the user whether changes should be saved were not
translated. This problem has been fixed.
- The MERLIC Frontend leaked memory at a rate of about 0.7 MB/h.
This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC now makes it easier to recognize if a MERLIC tool has
mutually exclusive parameters, e.g., parameters that are not applied during
computation depending on the value of some other parameters. In case such a
parameter is not applied, the corresponding connector is now visually grayed
out and its value cannot be changed manually anymore. Currently, the following
tools are affected:
- Check Presence With Matching
- Count with Matching
- Evaluate Contours
- Evaluate Regions
- Level Surface
- Locate with Matching
- Read Bar Code
- Read ECC 200
- Read QR Code
- Read Text And Numbers With Deep Learning
- Remove Outlier Pixels
- Scale Gray Range To 8 Bit
- MERLIC has been extended by the new concept tool "Segment
Image Pixel Precise". It enables a pixel-precise segmentation of the image in
pre-trained classes using a deep-learning-based approach. The tool requires a
classifier, i.e., a trained deep learning model, as input which needs to be
trained in MVTec HALCON. This concept tool can be used to evaluate the current
stage of development for the deep-learning-based approach of pixel-precise
segmentation in MERLIC. MVTec appreciates any feedback on desired changes or
further feature requests. The feedback can be submitted on the MERLIC feedback
website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the feedback
icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
- MERLIC has been extended by a new tool "Detect Anomalies in
the Global Context" in the tool category "Deep Learning - AI". It enables the
user to detect structural and logical anomalies in images on a larger scale,
e.g., structural anomalies including unknown features such as scratches,
cracks, or contamination, as well as logical anomalies that violate constraints
regarding the image content such as a wrong number or a wrong position of an
object. In contrast to the tool "Detect Anomalies", a pre-trained deep learning
model is required as input for the tool. The tool allows the user to select
which data of the trained deep learning model should be used to detect
anomalies. It also supports the use of Artificial Intelligence Acceleration
Interfaces (AI²) for the NVIDIA® TensorRT™ SDK and the Intel® Distribution of
OpenVINO™ toolkit.
- Enhancements
- The tool "Write Image to File" has been extended by two new
additional tool parameters "File Prefix" and "File Suffix". They allow the user
to add a prefix and/or suffix to the respective file name under which the image
is stored. In addition, the tool has been extended by the new tool result
"Current File Name" which returns the complete path and file name of the last
written image.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the tool "Evaluate Expression" has been
improved. Previously, it was not possible to see the complete name of an
expression if the name was truncated due to its lengths. Now, the complete name
is displayed in a tooltip when hovering the mouse over the respective name in
the tool board.
- Fixed Problems
- The following MERLIC tools of the category "ROI Creation" did
not report any error when an inappropriate ROI was connected to its ROI tool
parameter. This problem has been fixed.
- Create Circle
- Create Paraxial Rectangle
- Create Rectangle
- Create Segment
- After selecting a defect cluster in the tool "Evaluate Defect
Clusters", the preview of further defect clusters via easyTouch was hard to
distinguish from the previously selected defects because they were displayed in
the same color. This problem has been fixed.
- When adding a parameter to the MERLIC tools "Evaluate
Expression" or "Branch on Condition" by connecting a result with the semantic
type "condition" from a previous MERLIC tool, the new parameter was created
with the wrong semantic type. Instead of the semantic type "long", the type
"double" was set for the new parameter. This caused logical operators (e.g.,
"not", "and", "or") in the expression to fail as they can only handle integral
values. This problem has been fixed.
- If the tool results "Confidence", "Classes", "Angle", "X", or
"Y" of the concept tool "Find Objects" have been connected to a tool parameter
of the tool "Evaluate Expression", only the first tuple element of the results
were transferred to the connected parameter of "Evaluate Expression". This
problem has been fixed. The semantic type of these tool results has been
changed to reflect the fact that they contain tuples with multiple values.
- The tool "Locate with Matching" did not report any error if no
object could be found within the processing image. This problem has been fixed.
- MERLIC crashed when using a tool of the category "Deep
Learning - AI" if the PATH environment variable contained a directory with an
incompatible version of "libprotobuf.dll". This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by a new MVApp example
"segment_pill_defects.mvapp". It shows the use of the new concept tool
"Segment Image Pixel Precise". The concept tool is meant for evaluation only
and is not recommended to be used in production because it may be unstable,
work-in-progress, or be changed or removed in future MERLIC releases.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new MVApp example
"detect_anomalies_of_bottles_in_the_global_context.mvapp". It shows the use of
the new tool "Detect Anomalies in the Global Context".
- New Features
- The Communicator manual has been extended with new language
versions. It is now available in the same languages as the MERLIC manual, i.e,
in German, Japanese, and simplified Chinese.
- MERLIC has been extended by the MERLIC Tool Development
manual, a revised version of the manual that was provided in MERLIC 3. It
provides documentation of the required development process for custom MERLIC
tools including step-by-step instructions on how to develop a custom tool, and
it contains a procedure reference with a description of all available
procedures that can be used for the tool development. In addition, it also
provides some further information that is relevant for the tool development
such as the available tool template or debugging information.
- The MERLIC manual has been extended by the topic "Parameter and
Result Types". It offers an overview of the different types of parameters and
result that are supported in MERLIC.
- Enhancements
- The tool reference of the following tools of the category
"Preprocessing > Filter" has been improved.
- Adapt Brightness
- Apply Gray Morphology
- Correct Shading
- Emphasize Edges
- Merge Images
- Reduce Image Noise
The description of the tool result "Processed Region" now provides more
detailed information.
- The MERLIC documentation has been improved. Previously, the
underlying HALCON version of the respective MERLIC version was only mentioned
in the release notes. Now, the HALCON version is also mentioned in the "Readme"
topic of the MERLIC manual and in the Tool Development manual.
- The documentation of the I/O configuration in the MERLIC
manual has been improved. It now describes in more detail which requirements
and restrictions need to be taken into consideration when connecting an I/O
device to the MERLIC RTE Setup.
- The MERLIC documentation regarding the usage of multiple
cameras has been improved. It now provides some more details on possible
alternatives.
- The print settings for the MERLIC manuals have been improved.
Previously, it was possible that some content was not visible when printing a
topic, e.g., in large tables. Now, the print settings have been revised and all
contents of a topic are visible in the print output.
- Fixed Problems
- Previously, the MERLIC documentation used the term "run time
environment" when speaking of the MERLIC Designer or the MERLIC Frontend. This
could be confusing, as the term was not referring to the MERLIC Runtime
Environment, i.e,. the MERLIC RTE mode. This problem has been fixed.
- The topic "Checking the MERLIC State (Hilscher)" in the
MERLIC manual contained wrong information that did not refer to the process
integration with Hilscher cards. This problem has been fixed.
- The MERLIC documentation mentioned a wrong installation path
of MERLIC in several topics. This problem has been fixed.
- In the MERLIC Communicator manual, the links to the EULA and
the third-party license information in the "Legal Notices" were broken. This
problem has been fixed.
- In the topic "Protocols for the Data Exchange" within the
MERLIC manual, the overview table with the description of the respective
members of the protocol "FromMERLICProtocol" was missing. This problem has been
fixed.
- In the MERLIC manual, some example images in the overview
topic for the MERLIC tools of the category "ROI Creation" were mixed up. The
example image of a paraxial rectangle was displayed at the description for
regular rectangles and vice versa. This problem has been fixed.
- The topic "Keyboard Shortcuts" in the MERLIC manual did not
mention all available shortcuts. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- Starting with this MERLIC version, MERLIC can be installed
only via the MVTec Software Manager (SOM). The new MERLIC version will be
installed beside all previous MERLIC versions. Thus, previous MERLIC versions
must be uninstalled manually. Note that this change affects the compatibility.
Read more.
- New Features
- The support of the quick info for custom MERLIC tools has
been revised. Previously, the quick info had to be added to the procedure
settings of the respective HDevelop procedure library representing the custom
tool. Therefore, it could only be provided in one language. Now, the quick info
needs to be provided as an HTML file in a predefined structure at a predefined
location next to the respective HDevelop procedure library. This way, the quick
info can be provided in all languages that are available in MERLIC, i.e.,
English, German, Japanese, and simplified Chinese. In addition, it is now also
possible to provide a tool tip that is shown when hovering over the custom tool
in the Tool Library of the MERLIC Creator.
- The interface for developing custom MERLIC tools has been
extended with the new procedures to aid in the development of custom tools
whose execution conveys side effects such as tools that communicate with the
outside world or tools performing I/O.
- Me_get_tool_execution_context
- MeTest_set_execution_context_to_running
- MeTest_set_execution_context_to_unknown
The procedure Me_get_tool_execution_context allows the tool to
detect whether it is being executed as part of a regular execution of the
MVApp or due to (partial) executions of the tool flow, e.g., to propagate the
effects of a parameter change. It is provided in the procedure library
"MERLICDefinedOperators.hdpl" which can be found in the directory "examples
ool_development\procedures" within the MERLIC installation. The procedures
MeTest_set_execution_context_to_running and
MeTest_set_execution_context_to_unknown allow to set the respective
execution context for testing purposes in HDevelop programs. They are
provided in the auxiliary procedure library "ToolTestFramework.hdpl" which
can be found in the directory "examples ool_development\procedures" within
the MERLIC installation.
- MERLIC now supports remote debugging of custom MERLIC tools
in HDevelop. This enables the user to attach to the process of a MERLIC
application to debug custom tools "live" in the special debug mode of HDevelop.
- MERLIC has been extended by the new tool template
"Check_Wafer". It represents an example of a custom MERLIC tool and can be used
as a basis for the development of a custom tool. The tool template is provided
in the directory "examples ool_development ool_templates"" within the MERLIC
installation.
- The interface for developing custom MERLIC tools has been
extended. It now supports logging of parsing error messages to help the user
when developing new custom tools.
- Enhancements
- The interface for developing custom MERLIC tools has been
revised. Previously, the "_Info" procedure of a custom tool and all interface
procedures, i.e., procedures with the prefix "Me_*", required the parameter
"ToolHandle" even though the ToolHandle was not necessary for the actual
processing in all procedures. Therefore, the "ToolHandle" parameter has been
removed from the signature of the following procedures:
- _Info
- Me_add_roi_support_all
- Me_add_roi_support_circle
- Me_add_roi_support_paraxial_rect
- Me_add_roi_support_point
- Me_add_roi_support_rectangle
- Me_add_roi_support_segment
In addition, the following procedures are not supported anymore:
- Me_convert_from_encoding_to_utf8
- Me_quickinfo
- Me_set_drawing_linestyle
- Me_set_drawing_linewidth
- Me_set_drawing_mode
- Me_set_drawing_style
- Me_set_font
- Me_set_font_color
Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- Fixed Problems
- MERLIC could crash if an inappropriate value was assigned to a
tool parameter of a custom tool, i.e., if the assigned value did not fit the
respective semantic type of the parameter. This problem has been fixed.
- To profit from the improvements of the new HALCON version, the
HALCON libraries used by MERLIC have been upgraded to the HALCON 22.05 Progress
version. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- On AArch64 systems, the wrong CPU architecture has been reported
in the log files. This problem has been fixed.
- The system requirements regarding the fallback of OpenGL have
changed. Previously, DirectX or software-only OpenGL was automatically used as
fallback if the required versions of OpenGL were not available. Now, software-only
OpenGL will be automatically used as the only fallback. Note that this change
affects the compatibility. Read more.
- If a setting in the preferences dialog of the MERLIC Creator had
been changed, the default values of the other settings in the preference dialog
were also written to the .ini file although they had not been changed. This problem
has been fixed. Now, only the modified settings are written to the .ini file.
- The support for HiDPI scaling has been improved. Previously, only
integer scaling factors such as 100% and 200% were supported. Now, also fractional
window scaling factors such as 125% are supported.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.0 is remotely configured
using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1 or newer, removing an image source from a configuration will
cause the Creator or RTE application to crash. We recommend to upgrade Creator/RTE to the
current version or, in lieu of that, to use RTE Setup 5.0 to configure Creator/RTE 5.0.
- When an instance of MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE of version 5.2 (or newer) is remotely
configured using a MERLIC RTE Setup 5.1, it is not possible to rename image sources or
configurations, despite the fact that this feature has been added in MERLIC 5.1. We
recommend upgrading the MERLIC RTE Setup to version 5.2.
Release Notes for MERLIC5.1.0
This document provides the release notes for MVTecMERLIC5.1.0, as released in April 2022.
Windows
MERLIC5.1.0 is available for Windows
10 (64-bit).
During the installation with the MERLIC installer, the
environment variable MERLIC5EXAMPLES is set
to "C:\Users\Public\Documents\MVTec\MERLIC 5"
by default. It contains the path to the directory in which additional files such as
example applications or images are installed. If MERLIC is installed via
the MVTec Software
Manager (SOM), no environment
variable will be set.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC now provides a test version for evaluating MERLIC RTE (Runtime Environment) for
Linux on PC (Linux x86_64) and for Arm-based platforms (AArch64). This means that both
embedded devices based on the widely used Arm architecture and Linux alternatives to the
typical Windows operating system can now be tested for image processing with MERLIC. This
is a first step towards making MERLIC available on additional platforms in the future.
Developing the MVApp is still done on a Windows system with the MERLIC Creator. The
application can then be tested on the "new" systems using MERLIC RTE for Arm-based
platforms and Linux. Cameras can be set up remotely with the help of MERLIC RTE Setup.
The test version requires a specific license. Please contact MVTec to get more information about
how to obtain this license.
MVTec appreciates any feedback on the test version. The feedback can be submitted on the
MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the MERLIC Creator either via the
feedback icon on the top right or via the "Help" menu.
Deep OCR
MERLIC 5.1 includes a new tool for optical character recognition, which is based on
HALCON’s Deep OCR technology.
Compared to other algorithms, this holistic deep-learning-based approach can localize
characters much more robustly, regardless of their orientation, font type, and polarity –
and requires significantly less parameter tuning. Recognition performance is further
increased by the automatic grouping of characters. This allows the identification of whole
words and thus reduces the chance of misinterpretation of similar-looking characters. This
new tool does not require the Deep Learning Add-On. It is included in all MERLIC packages,
starting with the MERLIC S package.
Support for AI Accelerator Hardware
MERLIC 5.1 includes Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Interface (AI²) plug-ins for the
NVIDIA® TensorRT™ SDK and the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit.
This enables users to benefit from compatible AI accelerator hardware – quickly and
conveniently. MERLIC tools using deep learning functionality can thus achieve significantly
faster inference times when paired with compatible hardware like NVIDIA GPUs or Intel
processors including GPUs, CPUs and VPUs like the Intel® Movidius™ Neural Compute Stick. By
expanding the range of supported Intel devices, customers now have even more flexibility in
their choice of hardware. By adding support for AI², MERLIC will also benefit from any
future plug-ins that integrate new accelerator hardware.
Since the last MERLIC version we have
been working hard to improve MERLIC in every way.
This has, however, resulted in a few of incompatibilities. We apologize for the
inconvenience.
- Interfaces for Process Integration
- The MQTT plug-in has been updated to version 2.0.0. Due to
the revised topic hierarchy provided by the new version of the MQTT plug-in, it
might be necessary to change other MQTT clients that process the revised
topics. More information.
- Licensing
- Due to the changes for time-limited licenses of MERLIC, an
active network connection is now required when using MERLIC on a virtual
machine with a time-limited license. More information.
- New Features
- The "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup now provides a
search bar in the "Camera Parameters" section which enables the user to search
for specific camera parameters. In addition, the "Camera Parameters" section
now also provides some further features to simplify the configuration and
differentiation of camera parameters:
- Parameters that are not persistent on the camera and therefore cannot
be saved are now marked with an icon in the parameter list. This makes it
easier to recognize if changes at the respective parameter can be saved.
- A new filter menu allows the user to hide non-persistent parameters so
that the list of camera parameters shows only those that are persistent and
can be saved.
- The visibility setting is now also provided in the new filter menu.
This way, all filter options can be found in one place.
- The Image Source Manager now supports the renaming of image
sources and shared configurations in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup. The new name will be validated and accepted if it is unique and contains
only valid characters.
- Enhancements
- The detection of the current connection status of a camera
has been improved. Previously, the Image Source Manager could not recognize
when the connection to a camera was lost and continued to show the
corresponding image source as "Connected" in the "Image Sources" tab of the
MERLIC RTE Setup and in the "Image Source Configuration" panel of the MERLIC
Creator. Now, the Image Source Manager recognizes a lost connection to a
GigEVision2 camera and changes the status of the corresponding camera to "Not
Connected".
- The error messages in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC
RTE Setup have been improved. Previously, the messages for errors caused by the
connected instance of the MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE, respectively, were
available only in English. Now, all error messages are translated and will be
shown in the language of the MERLIC RTE Setup. For better consistency, the
corresponding English error messages will also be logged by the connected
instance, i.e., MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE, and they will also be shown in
the command prompt that runs MERLIC RTE with the same message as shown in the
"Image Sources" tab.
- The image acquisition interfaces that are used for the Image
Source Manager (ISM) as well as for the tools "Acquire Image from Camera" and
"Acquire Image from File", respectively, have been updated to a new revision.
MERLIC now contains the following versions of the interfaces:
- GigEVision2: Revision 18.11.13
- GenICamGenTL: Revision 18.11.13
- USB3Vision: Revision 18.11.15
- File: Revision 18.11.5
MERLIC Vision Apps that use the previous revision of the interfaces are
still compatible and require no changes.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup has been improved. Previously, no visual indication had been given when
an ISM configuration was activated by way of clicking on the link in the banner
of the image source overview. Now, a spinner is displayed while the
configuration is being activated.
- The usability of the "New image source" dialog in the "Image
Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup has been improved. Previously, if no
camera was available, a click on the drop-down menu "Available Cameras" did not
produce a reaction. Now, if there is no camera available, the drop-down menu
opens and states "No cameras available". Also, the configuration of a new image
source can now be completed by pressing the return key.
- Fixed Problems
- If an ISM configuration was removed manually outside of
MERLIC by deleting the respective folder in the file explorer, the
configuration was not removed from the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE
Setup. This problem has been fixed.
- If the IP address of an existing GigEVision image source was
configured incorrectly and the automatic reconnection failed after setting a
suitable IP address, the banner message in the "Image Source" tab still showed
the wrong status. This problem has been fixed.
- If an ISM configuration that contained at least one "File"
image source was activated in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup,
an error message was wrongly written to the log file. If MERLIC RTE was
running, the error message was also displayed in the respective command prompt.
This problem has been fixed.
- When creating a new image source in the "Image Sources" tab
of the MERLIC RTE Setup, in some cases, paths containing "<" and ">"
which were specified as "Image Directory" for image sources have been rendered
as HTML. This problem has been fixed. The paths are now displayed as plain
text; additionally, the characters "<" and ">" are no longer allowed in
the image directory path when creating new image sources.
- When using the Image Source Manager on a Windows system, the
paths of file-based image sources were shown with a regular slash "/" as
directory separator instead of the Windows-specific backslash "\". This caused
inconsistencies with other parts of the MERLIC RTE setup. This problem has been
fixed.
- If the name of a new ISM configuration ended with a space, no
image source could be added to this configuration. This problem has been fixed.
MERLIC now automatically removes spaces at the end of ISM configuration names.
- After the installation of the driver for a USB3Vision device,
an error message appeared in the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup
stating that the driver installation failed, even when it was successful. This
problem has been fixed.
- If an image directory for a new image source was selected
with the file system browser, a "file://" URL was sometimes inserted into the
text field instead of a valid path, e.g., when selecting a directory from a
network share. This problem has been fixed. The URLs are now resolved to the
correct path when possible.
- If the MERLIC Creator, i.e., merlic_creator.exe, was started
via the command line with the option "--frontend", no ISM
configuration was activated by default. Thus, the user had to activate a
configuration manually via the MERLIC RTE Setup in order to use the MERLIC
Creator in Frontend mode in conjunction with the Image Source Manager. This
problem has been fixed. Now, the shared configuration that was used last in the
MERLIC Creator will automatically be activated.
- In the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, integer
camera parameters whose actual value is greater than 231-1 were
incorrectly displayed as negative numbers and would not accept larger values,
e.g., for the camera parameter "Gev Device IP Address" or other camera
parameters that encode the IP address as a 32-bit unsigned integer. This
problem has been fixed. Integer parameters can now be displayed and edited up
to the maximum limit of 263-1.
If you run the MERLIC RTE Setup of MERLIC 5.0 while using MERLIC RTE or
MERLIC Creator of MERLIC 5.1, the same parameters are also displayed
correctly. However, their value can only be edited up to the maximum limit of
231-1.
- When the JSON file representing a "File" image source was
edited by the user such that the "ImageReference" entry contains a string that
was not a well-formed path, MERLIC Creator and MERLIC RTE could crash in some
circumstances. This problem has been fixed. The image source will now be
displayed as "Not Connected" and the log file will contain an error message
detailing the cause.
- If MERLIC was not able to properly restore the values of
camera parameters when activating the respective image source, the connection
status of the camera was erroneously displayed as "Connected" in the MERLIC RTE
Setup, whereas the status in the MERLIC Creator showed "Connected, but
parameters could not be restored". This problem has been fixed. Now, the status
is consistently displayed as "Connected, but parameters could not be restored".
When saving the camera parameters afterward, the connection status will be
updated to "Connected".
- If a camera device was connected to MERLIC via the Image
Source Manager and the respective configuration files that could be found for
the camera on the system were not compatible, the camera device could become
inoperable. This problem has been fixed. If a camera cannot be loaded with the
existing configuration files, the camera configuration will now be reset to the
previous state before MERLIC started to load the configuration files.
- Fixed Problems
- MERLIC RTE crashed sporadically on startup if the following
two conditions were met:
- MERLIC RTE was started with a default recipe that referenced an MVApp
containing tools with training images.
- A Communicator was running and one or multiple plug-ins that query
available recipes on startup, e.g., the plug-ins "OPC_UA" or "MQTT", were
running.
This problem has been fixed.
- If the MERLIC RTE Setup tried to connect to a remote system,
while another MERLIC RTE Setup was already connected locally and the service
for the Image Source Manager was already busy, it crashed. This problem has
been fixed. Now, a message is displayed stating that another user is already
configuring the host. The user can then choose to forcibly connect to the
remote system.
- When configuring a plug-in in the "Communication" tab of the
MERLIC RTE Setup, several errors occurred within the user parameters:
- In some cases, the default value of user parameters declared as Int8
was interpreted as character.
- If the values of a user parameter consisted of a large integer,
sometimes they were accidentally displayed using scientific notation, e.g.,
1e+18.
- If a number greater than 254 was entered for a user
parameter that is declared as Int64/UInt64, rounding issues could occur
resulting in a loss of precision.
- User parameters that expect an UInt32 value but whose range is
constrained by a defined step size could not process values outside of
-231 to 231-1, which could cause an integer overflow.
These problems have been fixed. Now, user parameters that expect an
UInt32 value but whose range is constrained by a defined step size are
represented by a text field instead of a spin box if the range of their
constraint covers values outside -231 to 231-1.
- If a recipe was loaded into the MERLIC RTE Setup that
contained an MVApp parameter with a value of the type SINT, no value appeared
in the MERLIC RTE Setup, because it interpreted the parameter as a character
instead of an integral number. This problem has been fixed.
- If a Communicator plug-in started the execution by calling
"StartContinuous" with iteration-specific parameters, i.e., parameters that
override the parameter values defined in the currently prepared recipe, MERLIC
RTE ignored the provided parameters. This problem has been fixed.
- When starting the execution multiple times by calling
"StartSingleJob" or "StartContinuous" with iteration-specific parameters, i.e.,
parameters that override the parameter values defined in the currently prepared
recipe, and then starting the execution again without any iteration-specific
parameters, the "StartSingleJob" and "StartContinuous" jobs were erroneously
executed with the iteration-specific parameters of the previous jobs instead of
the original parameters defined in the recipe. This problem has been fixed.
Now, "StartSingleJob" and "StartContinuous" will be executed with the original
recipe parameters if no compatible iteration-specific parameters are defined.
- In rare cases, MERLIC RTE crashed just after it was started
or when a recipe was unprepared. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The Communicator API has been extended by a C++ support
library. This header-only library provides reusable abstractions and value
wrappers around the C API's primitives to aid in the development of
Communicator plug-ins written in C++.
- Enhancements
- The setting of the plug-in directory for Communicator
plug-ins has been improved. Previously, only one directory could be specified
as the plug-in directory. Now, it is possible to specify multiple plug-in
directories which allow the user to store custom Communicator plug-ins in
different locations.
- Fixed Problems
- In case a plug-in failed to start in MERLIC 5.0, i.e., if it
returned from its implementation of "MVStart" with an error code other than
"MV_CODE_OK", the Communicator erroneously considered the plug-in to be running
nonetheless. This was not apparent from the "Communication" tab of the MERLIC
RTE Setup unless the user clicked on the "Refresh" button. This problem has
been fixed.
- When running a Communicator plug-in which defines a
configuration parameter of type Int32 or Int64, an overflow in the function
MV_PluginUserParameterDescription_ImposeConstraint sometimes wrongly
rejected constraints whose values were actually valid. This problem has been
fixed.
- When creating a new plug-in for the MERLIC Communicator it
was possible to inject HTML code into the plug-in description tooltip and the
validation message. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- The MQTT plug-in has been updated to version 2.0.0. The
structure of the topics to which the plug-in publishes and subscribes has been
revised as follows:
- The former topic "merlic/status/json" which summarized several data has
been removed. Its constituents are now published on the topics
"merlic/state", "merlic/mode", "merlic/preparedRecipeIds", and
"merlic/runningJobId".
- All topic payloads are now valid JSON and enum-like topics are
represented by JSON strings. Consequently, the user parameter "Message
format" has been removed and the suffix "/json" has been dropped from
several other topics.
- A new topic "merlic/recipes/ {id}/isPrepared" has been introduced for
each recipe which contains a Boolean indicating whether that specific
recipe is prepared.
Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.
- Enhancements
- It is now possible to pass iteration-specific parameters,
i.e., parameters that override the parameter values defined in the currently
loaded recipe, to a single or continuous job when triggering it using the MQTT
plug-in. To do so, an entry "parameters" needs to be added to the JSON message
which is published on the "<prefix>/action/json" topic, containing an
array of values which correspond to the MVApp parameters of the recipe that is
being executed. If the number of supplied parameters does not match or if at
least one of the values which have been provided cannot be converted losslessly
to the data type specified by the recipe, a warning is emitted and the whole
parameter set is ignored. In this case, the recipe is instead executed using
the recipe's default input parameters.
- New Features
- The "Help" menu of the MERLIC Creator has been extended by
the new entry "Submit Feedback" which leads the user to the MVTec MERLIC
feedback website to provide feedback and ideas regarding MERLIC.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the "Save recipe..." dialog in the "MVApp
Parameters and Results" tab of the MERLIC Creator has been improved.
Previously, no visual indication had been given that the recipe was being
saved, which could lead to the user thinking nothing was happening when they
tried to save a large recipe file. Now, after clicking the "Save" button, the
"Save recipe..." dialog is closed and a "Saving..." overlay is shown.
- The usability of the display options in the MERLIC
preferences has been improved. The option "Visualize skipped tools" has been
renamed to "Highlight tools that were not executed" to be more clear and to
avoid confusion about this setting.
- FixedProblems
- If the MERLIC5.ini file was removed from the respective
folder in the file explorer, the Tool Flow in the MERLIC Creator was displaying
unnecessary scroll bars. This problem has been fixed.
- When using the MERLIC Creator on a PC with multiple displays,
the context menu for the Tool Flow panel did not always appear in the correct
position on all of the displays. This problem has been fixed.
- If the Tool Flow in the MERLIC Creator was zoomed out, a
right-click in the Tool Flow area did not always produce the context menu. This
problem has been fixed.
- The setting of the alpha channel, which can be defined for
the colors in the "Preferences" dialog of the MERLIC Creator, was not applied
to the respective objects in the MERLIC Creator and MERLIC Frontend. This
problem has been fixed. Furthermore, the alpha channel of all colors is now set
to the new default value of 128.
- In rare case, when inserting a MERLIC tool to the Tool Flow
panel, the tool was added twice instead of only once. This problem has been
fixed.
- If a tool of the category "Deep Learning - AI" was used in
the MVApp with a user-given name, the respective icon of the tool category was
not displayed at the tool in the Tool Flow panel. This problem has been fixed.
- In the menu bar of the MERLIC Creator, the name for the MVTec
MERLIC Runtime Environment Setup (MERLIC RTE Setup) was wrongly translated in
the button and its tool tip. This problem has been fixed. The name of the
application is now always displayed in English.
- Some translated tooltips did not show the correct quotation
marks but the respective HTML encoding. This problem has been fixed.
- Sometimes the data connections and trigger connections between
tools in the Tool Flow of the MERLIC Creator were not displayed correctly or
did not lead to any tool. This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- The minimum width and height of the "Check Box" widget in the
MERLIC Designer and MERLIC Frontend have been adjusted. Previously, a minimum
width of 60px and a minimum height of 20px were required. Thus, the widget
could not be resized to the actual size of the check box itself without any
text. Now, the minimum value for the width and height is 32px which corresponds
to the size of the displayed check box.
- Fixed Problems
- If a "Table" widget was used and the input field of the
"Text" property of a cell was still being active in editing mode while clicking
on the drop-down menu of "Connected Tool", MERLIC crashed. This problem has
been fixed.
- Unlike other default names in MERLIC, the names of the main
view and any additional views in the MERLIC Designer were not translated when
switching the language in the MERLIC Creator or the MERLIC Frontend (provided
the "Tab View" widget was used). This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC Frontend has been extended by a new startup option
for a full screen mode. It is now possible to automatically start the Frontend
in full screen mode using the command line option "--fullscreen". The
full screen mode can also be set in the MERLIC5.ini file with the property
"StartInFullscreen". In addition, the new property "WindowGeometry" can now be
used to define the position and size of the Frontend in the MERLIC5.ini file.
- Fixed Problems
- If the MERLIC Fronted was used in the full screen mode and
the user successfully logged into the Frontend, the full screen mode of the
Frontend was closed. This problem has been fixed.
- If more than the defined maximum number of allowed MERLIC
Frontends have been opened, no notice was displayed in the additional MERLIC
Frontends why no content was shown. This problem has been fixed. Now, a message
is shown after five seconds in each new MERLIC Frontend as soon as the allowed
number of MERLIC Frontends has been exceeded.
- If the full screen mode of the MERLIC Frontend was ended, the
original size of the MERLIC Frontend was not restored correctly. This problem
has been fixed.
- If MERLIC was running in the process integration mode and the
MERLIC Frontend contained an "easyTouch Button" widget and the "Write Access"
widget, the handle of the easyTouch widget started toggling after activating
and releasing the write lock in the Frontend.
- In rare cases, if a MERLIC Frontend was connected via a
Windows pipe, MERLIC failed to detect when the Frontend has been closed. As a
consequence, the MERLIC Creator was not unlocked even though no MERLIC Frontend
was connected anymore. In this case, the MERLIC Creator also failed to properly
shut down so its process had to be ended via the task manager. Unfortunately,
this problem could not be fixed yet. To avoid this problem, we adjusted the
default setting for the connection between MERLIC Frontend and MERLIC Creator.
The default value for the Frontend property "UsePipe" is now set to "false".
This means that the MERLIC Frontend now uses a TCP connection by default.
Please note that in future MERLIC versions, the Frontend connection via pipe
might not be supported anymore.
- "Radio Button Group" widgets connected to tool parameters with
Boolean or arithmetic values were not initialized correctly when connecting a
Frontend. Instead of showing the current value of the connected parameter none
of the radio buttons were selected. This problem has been fixed.
- ROIs of tools that have been copied in the MERLIC Creator were
not displayed in the MERLIC Frontend if the ROI of the original tool was also
selected to be displayed in the Frontend. This problem has been fixed.
- If a custom icon for the MERLIC Frontend was used, the Windows
taskbar still showed the default MERLIC icon instead of the custom icon. Due to
restrictions of the Windows operating system, the MERLIC settings cannot
override the default settings. However, we now provide a description in the
MERLIC manual of how to change the settings in the Windows system to ensure
that the custom icon is also shown in the taskbar.
- New Features
- MERLIC tools based on deep learning technology now support
the use of the Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Interface (AI²) plug-ins
for the NVIDIA® TensorRT™ SDK and the Intel® Distribution of OpenVINO™ toolkit.
This applies not only to the existing tools of the category "Deep Learning -
AI" but also to the new MERLIC tool "Read Text and Numbers with Deep Learning"
in the category "Reading".
This enables the user to select compatible hardware, i.e., NVIDIA GPUs or
Intel processors including GPUs, CPUs, and VPUs like the Intel® Movidius™
Neural Compute Stick, as a processing unit for these tools to perform
optimized inference on the selected hardware. By expanding the range of
supported Intel devices, customers now have even more flexibility in their
choice of hardware. With the new dependencies for the AI² plug-ins, MERLIC
now requires at least 6 GB for a full installation.
- MERLIC has been extended by a new tool "Read Text and Numbers
with Deep Learning" in the tool category "Reading". It enables the user to make
use of a holistic deep-learning-based approach for optical character
recognition (OCR). In contrast to the tool "Read Text and Numbers", it
localizes characters more robustly regardless of their position, orientation,
and font type. Characters are automatically grouped which allows the
identification of whole words. Due to this, misinterpretation of characters
with similar appearances can be avoided and the reading performance increases.
- The tool library has been extended by a new category "Concept
Tools". This category contains preliminary MERLIC tools to test and evaluate
new functionality. These tools are meant for evaluation only and are not
recommended to be used in production, because they may be unstable,
work-in-progress, or be changed or removed in future MERLIC releases.
In this MERLIC version, we provide the concept tool "Find Objects". It
enables the user to find objects of predefined classes and localizes them
within the image using a deep-learning-based approach. The tool requires a
classifier, i.e., a trained deep learning model, as input. This concept tool
can be used to evaluate the current stage of development for
deep-learning-based object detection in MERLIC. MVTec appreciates any
feedback on desired changes or further feature requests. The feedback can be
submitted on the MERLIC feedback website which can be accessed from the
MERLIC Creator either via the feedback icon on the top right or via the
"Help" menu.
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC tool "Evaluate Expression" has been improved.
Previously, only one expression could be evaluated in the tool. Now, the tool
allows the user to add multiple expressions for evaluation in one tool. The
expressions will be listed and automatically numbered in the tool board. The
result of an expression can also be used for further evaluation in the
expressions that were added afterwards. This enables the user to perform
multiple evaluations in one tool instead of using multiple "Evaluate
Expression" tools.
In addition, the tool now provides a list of available operations when
clicking in the input field of an expression and it also supports
auto-completion when starting to enter the expression into the input field.
This also includes the results of previous expressions. Thus, users can now
find the desired operation much easier.
- Improved Usability
- The usability of the tools "Evaluate Contours" and "Evaluate
Regions" has been improved. Previously, the dynamic value range of the
parameters "Minimum Feature Value" and "Maximum Feature Value" was only adapted
for the respective input fields of the parameters. Now, the value range is also
adapted for the sliders to ensure that the new value range is also respected if
the parameter values are adjusted via the slider.
- The usability of the tool "Convert Disparity Image to Height
Image" has been improved. If the parameters of the tool were set to values
<= 0, no valid image was displayed and there was no hint or error message
that helped the user to fix the problem. Now, an error message will be shown
indicating that the parameter values must be greater than 0. In addition, the
value range of the slider for the parameters has been adjusted to avoid that
negative values can be set via the slider.
- Fixed Problems
- In rare cases, MERLIC falsely reported a race in MERLIC
Vision Apps with multiple "Branch on Condition" tools. This problem has been
fixed.
- For several tools with parameters that expected exactly one
file as input, it was possible to select multiple files as input for these
parameters via the file selection dialog. In this case, the respective
parameter could not be modified anymore after that. This problem occurred in
the following tools:
- Calibrate Camera
- Classify Image
- Read from File
- Read Region from File
- Read Text and Numbers
This problem has been fixed. Now, it is not possible anymore to select
multiple files if only one file is expected as input. In addition, the title
of the file selection dialog has also been adapted to indicate if only one or
multiple files can be selected.
- If the parameter "Scan3dCoordinateScale" of the tool "Convert
Disparity to Height Image" was adjusted via the slider, MERLIC crashed. This
problem has been fixed.
- If the name of a manually added parameter was reset in the
tools "Evaluate Expression" and "Branch on Condition", the name was not
automatically changed in the expression, which led to a faulty expression. This
problem has been fixed.
- If the parameter "Method" of the tool "Remove Outlier Pixels"
was set to "Predefined Minimum/Maximum Gray Value", the slider of the
corresponding parameters "Predefined Minimum Gray Value" and "Predefined
Maximum Gray Value" did not work. Thus, the values of these parameters could
not be set via the slider. The same problem occurred for the parameter "Gray
Range Source" of the tool "Scale Gray Range to 8 Bit". These problems have been
fixed. The values for the parameters "Predefined Minimum Gray Value" and
"Predefined Maximum Gray Value" and the gray range are now determined
automatically depending on the pixel type of the image as soon as "Predefined
Minimum/Maximum Gray Values" has been selected as "Method" or "Gray Range
Source", respectively.
- If a region of interest (ROI) was used in the tool "Remove
Outlier Pixels", only the processed region has been returned in the tool result
"Filled Image". This problem has been fixed. Now, the whole image is returned
with the processed and filled image patch within the ROI region.
- The tool "Classify Image" returned multiple errors if a model
file that does not support classification was selected at the parameter
"Classifier File". This problem has been fixed. The tool now returns a single
error that the given model does not support classification.
- If a gray value feature was selected for the parameter
"Feature Name" of the tool "Evaluate Region", the value range for the
parameters "Minimum Feature Value" and "Maximum Feature Value" was not adapted
according to the used input image and its pixel type when using the respective
parameter sliders. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by the new example MVApp
"read_best_before_date_with_orientation.mvapp". It shows the use of the new
tool "Read Text and Numbers with Deep Learning".
- MERLIC has been extended by the new example MVApp
"find_and_count_screw_types.mvapp". It shows the use of the new concept tool
"Find Objects". The concept tool is meant for evaluation only and is not
recommended to be used in production because it may be unstable,
work-in-progress, or be changed or removed in future MERLIC releases.
- Enhancements
- The following MVApp examples were adapted to make use of the
improved "Evaluate Expression" tool:
- calibrate_for_ruler_changed_distance.mvapp
- calibrate_for_ruler_distorted.mvapp
- calibrate_for_ruler_simple.mvapp
- check_saw_angles.mvapp
- check_single_switches.mvapp
- classify_pills.mvapp
- measure_distance_to_center_led.mvapp
Most of the expressions that previously needed to be defined in multiple
"Evaluate Expression" tools are now evaluated in only one tool. Thus, the
MVApp examples contain much fewer "Evaluate Expression" tools which makes the
application much clearer.
- Enhancements
- The documentation of the plug-in implementation has been
improved. The description of the topics "Getting Started with Plug-in
Development" and "Building a Plug-in" has been moved from the MERLIC
Communicator manual to the MERLIC Communicator API reference documentation.
Thus, all information regarding the development of a Communicator plug-in can
now be found in the API reference documentation.
- The documentation of the logging mechanism in MERLIC has been
improved. It now describes in more detail to which log files the user actions
and messages of the different types of MERLIC components are logged.
- The documentation of the tools "Apply Gray Morphology" and
"Apply Region Morphology" has been improved. The description of the different
methods has been restructured to be more clear.
- The documentation of the command line calls for the MERLIC
executable files has been improved. Previously, the description was
inconsistent. In some cases, the names of the executable files were given with
file ending, e.g., "merlic_frontend.exe", and in other cases, the names were
given without the file ending, e.g., "merlic_rte". Now, the executable files
are always given with the respective file ending in all MERLIC manuals.
- Fixed Problems
- Previously, the MERLIC manual did not provide information
about the panels "Image Source Configuration" and "MVApp Parameters and
Results" in the overview topic "The User Interface of the MERLIC Creator". This
problem has been fixed.
- In the topic "Using the Manual" of the MERLIC manual, the
outdated name "MERLIC Backend" was still used in an example description. This
problem has been fixed.
- In the MERLIC Communicator manual, the documentation of the
OPC UA server plug-in missed the information about "StartSingleJob" and
"StartContinuous" in the overview of available methods that can be called on
each MERLIC state. This problem has been fixed.
- The documentation of the installed file structure of MERLIC
missed information on the directory "dl" which contains pre-trained deep
learning models. This problem has been fixed.
- The tool reference in the MERLIC manual wrongly stated that
the calibration data from the MERLIC tool "Determine Pixel Size" can be used in
the tool "Rectify Image". This problem has been fixed.
- The Communicator manual wrongly stated that the CTRL key must
be pressed instead of the ALT key to add a plug-in instance with "debug" log
level in the MERLIC RTE Setup. This problem has been fixed.
- The topic "Checking the MERLIC State (Digital I/O)" in the
MERLIC manual wrongly stated that only the MERLIC states "Ready" and "Halted"
were available instead of "Ready" and "Error" for the process integration mode
when using a digital I/O device. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC is now also available for installation via the MVTec
Software Manager (SOM), an installation manager for software packages. It
starts a local web server and provides access to a remote catalog of products,
among others, the package for MERLIC 5.1.0. Basically, you can start SOM,
select the desired MERLIC version, and SOM takes over the installation process.
Thus, SOM allows you to install MERLIC without downloading the installer of
MERLIC.
- Fixed Problems
- In earlier versions of MERLIC, the environment variable
MERLIC5EXAMPLES was not deleted when MERLIC was unistalled. This problem has
been fixed.
- New Features
- The time-limited licenses of MERLIC have been extended to use
an additional time server. Note that this change affects the compatibility.
Read more.
- MERLIC now provides the new add-on "Double Image Source" for
the MERLIC packages. It enables the user to upgrade from MERLIC package "Small"
to "Medium" or from the MERLIC package "Medium" to "Large". In case of the
MERLIC packages "Large" and "X-Large", the add-on doubles the number of image
sources to support more than 4 image sources. To further increase the number of
image sources, the add-on can be selected multiple times.
- The command line options of MERLIC have been improved. The
version of all MERLIC applications (MERLIC Creator, MERLIC Frontend, MERLIC RTE,
MERLIC RTE Setup, MERLIC Communicator) can now be queried using
"--version" or "-V".
- To profit from the improvements of the new HALCON version, the
HALCON libraries used by MERLIC have been upgraded to the HALCON 21.11 Progress
version.
- The overall design of MERLIC has been improved. The design of the
scrollbars has been standardized in the following MERLIC applications: MERLIC
Creator, MERLIC RTE, MERLIC RTE Setup, MERLIC Communicator.
- When checking the MERLIC processes in a system monitor program,
e.g., the Windows Task Manager, no company name and description were displayed for
the MERLIC processes. This problem has been fixed.
- The behaviour of MERLIC during a crash has been improved. MERLIC
now automatically generates stack traces when it crashes and provides a log file
and crash data. They can be found in the directory
"%LocalAppData%\CrashDumps\MVTec\MERLIC". This will make it easier for the MERLIC
support team to understand what caused the crash and help the user to fix the
problem.
- If MERLIC was configured to use a logging directory whose name
contained non-native Unicode characters, an additional empty directory with a
misspelled name was created. This problem has been fixed.
The following issue is already known and in development process. It will be fixed for
upcoming releases.
- In frequent cases, when using TensorRT™ accelerated processing units in MERLIC tools with deep
learning technology,
MERLIC crashes if the required memory for the deep learning model exceeds the
available memory on the GPU.
Release Notes for MERLIC5.0.2
This document provides the release notes for MVTecMERLIC5.0.2, as released in December 2021.
Windows
MERLIC5.0.2 is available for Windows
10 (64-bit operating system).
During the installation, the environment variable MERLIC5EXAMPLES is set to C:\Users\Public\Documents\MVTec\MERLIC 5 by default. It
contains the path to the directory in which additional files such as example applications
or images are installed.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC5.0.2 is available for selected
Linux ARM 64-bit platforms. This edition requires a specific license that needs to be
activated on the ARM device. Please contact MVTec to get more information about how to obtain this license. After
the license activation, the ARM device also functions as a license dongle for the PC
version of MERLIC5.0.2, however, with some limitations.
Please refer to the "Help → About" dialog in the MERLIC Creator
for the respective limitations.
- Fixed Problems
- MERLIC RTE crashed sporadically on startup if the following
two conditions were met:
- MERLIC RTE was started with a default recipe that referenced an MVApp
containing tools with training images.
- A Communicator was running and one or multiple plug-ins that query
available recipes on startup, e.g., the plug-ins "OPC_UA" or "MQTT", were
running.
This problem has been fixed.
- The release notes of MERLIC 5.0 stated that the following bug
was fixed:
"In rare cases, MERLIC crashed if during the process integration mode a new
MVApp was loaded due to a recipe change while a Frontend was still being
connected. This problem has been fixed."
However, in further tests after the release of MERLIC 5.0, the crash occurred
again. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- Several MERLIC tools have been improved. They now make use of
a reactivated feature that provides textual feedback to the user for specific
use cases when using easyTouch or easyTouch+, i.e., if the new selection does
not fit the current parameter settings.
- Count in Back Light (also added info about how to select objects via
easyTouch)
- Locate in Back Light (also added info about how to select objects via
easyTouch)
- Measure Circle
- Measure Parallel Edges
In addition, the following tools of the category "Reading" now
immediately display the decoded data of a code in the image when hovering the
mouse pointer over the respective code.
- Read Atzec Code
- Read Bar Code
- Read Data Matric ECC 200
- Read PDF 417
- Read QR Code
Release Notes for MERLIC5.0
This document provides the release notes for MVTecMERLIC5.0, as released in October 2021.
Windows
MERLIC5.0 is available for Windows 10
(64-bit operating system).
During the installation, the environment variable MERLIC5EXAMPLES is set to C:\Users\Public\Documents\MVTec\MERLIC 5 by default. It
contains the path to the directory in which additional files such as example applications
or images are installed.
Please refer to the "Readme" in the MERLIC manual for more
information about the system requirements.
Linux
MERLIC5.0 is available for selected
Linux ARM 64-bit platforms. This edition requires a specific license that needs to be
activated on the ARM device. Please contact MVTec to get more information about how to obtain this license. After
the license activation, the ARM device also functions as a license dongle for the PC
version of MERLIC5.0, however, with some limitations.
Please refer to the "Help → About" dialog in the MERLIC Creator
for the respective limitations.
Anomaly Detection
MERLIC 5 includes deep-learning-based anomaly detection. This technology significantly
facilitates the automated surface inspection for, e.g., detection and segmentation of
defects. Trained on a low number of high quality “good” images directly in MERLIC, the
technology can unerringly and independently localize deviations, i.e., defects of any type,
on subsequent images.
Training can mostly be done in a matter of seconds. This allows users to perform many
iterations to fine-tune their application without sacrificing a lot of time.
Classification
With the new “Classify Image" tool, MERLIC 5 can make use of classification models
(trained, e.g., with MVTec’s free Deep Learning Tool) to perform deep-learning-based image
classification. This technology is especially useful for classifying defects or objects
with high variance in shape and appearance, e.g., natural products.
Improved Camera Handling
MERLIC 5 includes the Image Source Manager (ISM). The 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, managing and configuring image sources can be done simply and comfortably.
Since the last MERLIC version we have
been working hard to improve MERLIC in every way.
This has, however, resulted in a few of incompatibilities. We apologize for the
inconvenience.
- Tools
- The image sources of existing MVApps, that have been
created in a previous MERLIC version and that use the Image Source Manager
(ISM) for the image acquisition, cannot be loaded in the "Image Source" tool
because the image sources are now referenced by their name only and without the
file extension of the respective JSON configuration file. To fix this issue,
the respective image source needs to be set anew in the MVApp. For this, the
MVApp must be opened in the MERLIC Creator (formerly MERLIC Backend) and the
desired image source must be selected at the parameter "Image Source Name" of
the tool "Image Source". More information.
- Miscellaneous
- Due to the update of the underlying HALCON version, MERLIC
no longer supports Windows 7 operating systems. In addition, the legacy handle
mode of HALCON is no longer used in MERLIC, and custom tools might not be
compatible anymore. Therefore, the functionality of custom tools should be
checked for required changes. Please also check and test your custom tools to
conform with the new managed handle behavior of HALCON. This usually affects
handle comparisons, e.g., less/greater operators, and memory management, e.g.,
explicitly clearing handles is no longer necessary. More
information.
- New Features
- MERLIC now provides a new graphical user interface for the
Image Source Manager (ISM) which allows the user to manage and configure image
sources in a comfortable way. The graphical user interface is integrated into
the MERLIC RTE Setup (formerly MERLIC Process Integration Setup) in a new tab
called "Image Sources". On this tab, the user can manage the image sources for
use with ISM. Among others, the "Image Sources" tab enables the following
features:
- Adding configurations and image sources, i.e., image file directories
or camera devices.
- Configuring the parameters of camera devices.
- Checking the acquired images of the image sources with a live mode or a
single snapshot mode.
- Activating image source configuration for the use.
- Selecting an image source configuration as startup configuration for
the process integration.
In addition, the new "Image Sources" tab can also be used to manage
image sources for a remote system if the MERLIC RTE Setup is connected to the
respective remote system.
- New Features
- The process integration mode, i.e., MERLIC RTE, now also
supports the configuration of image sources via the "Image Sources" tab in the
MERLIC RTE Setup (formerly MERLIC Process Integration Setup) while MERLIC RTE
is running. However, the image source configuration is only allowed in certain
states including "Preoperational" and "Initialized". In other states, such as
"Ready", "SingleExecution", and "ContinuousExecution", the "Image Sources" tab
is locked.
In addition, the image source configuration is also allowed in the "Error"
state if the error cause is related to image acquisition. The recipe remains
prepared in such a situation. After the error has been resolved via the
"Image Sources" tab, the MERLIC RTE Setup can be closed again. This will
trigger MERLIC RTE to re-evaluate the configuration and to return to the
"Ready" state while keeping the recipe prepared. If the problem persists,
MERLIC RTE remains in the "Error" state.
Alternatively, the user may choose to call "Reset" or "Halt" to return MERLIC
to the "Preoperational" or "Halted" states, respectively, regardless of the
validity of the configuration. In this case, MERLIC will now ensure that the
recipe is unprepared upon leaving the "Error" state.
- The "Communication" tab in the MERLIC RTE Setup now provides a
checkbox as a control element for Boolean user parameters to enable a quick and
easy overview and modification of Boolean values.
- The MERLIC RTE Setup now provides landing pages in case a
configuration service, i.e., the settings of the respective tab, are not
available. When either the MERLIC Creator or MERLIC RTE is closed while
configuring it from the "Image Sources" tab of the MERLIC RTE Setup, or when
MERLIC Communicator is closed while configuring it from the "Communication"
tab, the MERLIC RTE Setup will now immediately notice this and switch the
respective tab over to the appropriate landing page. The landing pages give
information about the possible reasons why the service is not available and
they provide options to fix the problem if possible. Previously, the
"Communication" tab kept showing the configuration state on exit and any
attempt to modify it resulted in a timeout.
- Enhancements
- The log message for the case that a recipe file references a
non-existing MVApp has been improved. Previously, when using the process
integration mode (MERLIC RTE) or the MERLIC RTE Setup (formerly MERLIC Process
Integration Setup), the respective log message only stated that the MVApp could
not be loaded. Now, it also states the reason why the MVApp could not be
loaded.
- The behavior of the image acquisition in the process
integration mode of MERLIC when using the Image Source Manager (ISM) has been
improved. Previously, when running a job, the execution of the Tool Flow was
triggered after the image acquisition regardless of the result of the
acquisition. The user had to ensure that the execution of the tool flow returns
meaningful results in case of a failed image acquisition by evaluating the
"Tool State" result of the "Image Source" tool.
Now, the execution of the Tool Flow is triggered only if the image
acquisition succeeded. In case the image acquisition timed out while a
"SingleExecution" is running, an error event is fired, and MERLIC transitions
back to the "Ready" state. If the timeout happens while a
"ContinuousExecution" is running, an error event is fired, and MERLIC
continuous with the next image acquisition. If the image acquisition failed
with a severe error, MERLIC fires an error event and transitions to the
"Error" state. In addition, MERLIC generates a "Result" with "ResultState"
set to "Failed" and fires a corresponding "ResultReady" event whenever a job
is finished due to an erroneous image acquisition.
- The MERLIC Process Integration Setup of the previous MERLIC
version has been revised. It has been renamed to MERLIC Runtime Environment
Setup (MERLIC RTE Setup). In addition, the tabs have also been renamed and
reordered as follows:
- The "Hardware Setup" tab has been renamed to "I/O".
- The "Recipe Manager" tab has been renamed to "Recipes".
- The order of the tabs has been adjusted to display the new "Image
Sources" tab in the first place followed by the tabs "Communication",
"Recipes", and "I/O".
- Fixed Problems
- If a recipe file was added multiple times to the "Recipes"
tab (formerly "Recipe Manager") in the MERLIC RTE Setup, the respective error
dialog, which informs the user that the recipe has already been added, was not
shown anymore. This problem has been fixed.
- In rare cases, the former MERLIC Backend (now MERLIC Creator)
and the process integration mode of MERLIC crashed during shutdown if a
Frontend was still connected. This problem has been fixed.
- In rare cases, MERLIC crashed if during the process
integration mode a new MVApp was loaded due to a recipe change while a Frontend
was still being connected. This problem has been fixed.
- If an instance of the MERLIC Communicator was no longer
running because it failed to shut down properly earlier, e.g., due to a
(plug-in) crash, it was possible that the "Select System" dialog in the MERLIC
RTE Setup still tried to connect to the previous instance of the MERLIC
Communicator. This problem has been fixed. Now, a periodic "Keep alive" signal
is required.
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC Communicator API has been extended by a new
function MV_PluginDetails_SetProperty(MVPluginDetails_t,
MVPluginProperty_t, MVValue_t) that allows the plug-in developer to set a
version number for the plug-in, as well as some textual descriptions. Both will
be visible in MERLIC RTE Setup.
- Fixed Problems
- Specifying the desired debug level for a Communicator plug-in
on the command line via "merlic_communicator.exe --plugin
<plugin-name> d:<log-level>" did not work and caused the
Communicator to exit with an error message stating that the plug-in
d:<debug-level> could not be loaded. This problem has been
fixed.
- In the previous MERLIC Process Integration Setup of MERLIC
4.8.0 (now MERLIC RTE Setup), it was possible to cause a connected Communicator
to crash by choosing the "Start" menu item from the context menu of a plug-in
instance while the same instance is already starting. This problem has been
fixed.
- If a user was logged in to a computer with a different user
account than the one that was used for the MERLIC installation, the user was
not able to start the MERLIC Communicator or to configure Communicator plug-ins
in the "Communication" tab of the former MERLIC Process Integration Setup (now
MERLIC RTE Setup). This problem has been fixed.
- Enhancements
- The protocols for exchanging data when using MERLIC in
process integration mode in combination with a Hilscher card have been extended
by a new field "ResultState". It is set whenever a result is queried and
indicates the state of the queried result data as "Completed", "Processing",
"Aborted", or "Failed".
- The built-in plug-in for digital I/O devices has been
extended by a new signal "ResultState". It is set whenever a completed result
is ready and unset when a job has failed or was aborted.
- The MQTT plugin has been updated to version 1.0.1. It now
supports the ability to resolve acquisition-related errors from the "Error"
state back to "Ready" while keeping the recipe prepared.
- Fixed Problems
- If the parameter "RecipeList" of the Simulated PLC was set to
a value that referenced more recipes than are configured in the "Recipes" tab
of the former MERLIC Process Integration Setup (now MERLIC RTE Setup), the
resulting error message when running the process integration mode contained a
wrong result ID. This problem has been fixed.
- The numeric severity of alarms and conditions of the OPC UA
server plug-in previously deviated from the values laid out by the "OPC UA for
Machine Vision (Part 1)" specification. In addition, the
ErrorResolvedEvent was missing the information for the properties
ToState, FromState, and Transition. These problems
have been fixed.
The new values for VisionCondition types based on the severity of
the error are 600 for warnings, 700 for errors, and 800 for critical errors.
The type of critical errors has been changed from
VisionPersistentErrorConditionType to
VisionErrorConditionType. Warnings are now of the type
VisionWarningConditionType and they no longer need to be
acknowledged. Lastly, critical errors now set the StopReaction and
BlockReaction flags of the VisionCondition to "true"
because these errors do not allow the system to continue as normal.
- New Features
- The MERLIC Creator has been extended by a new panel "Image
Source Configuration". It provides an overview of the currently active image
source configuration and its image sources that can be used in the MVApp for
image acquisition via the Image Source Manager. When creating an MVApp, the
panel can be used to get a quick overview of the available image sources. The
overview shows detailed information of the image sources, i.e., the name, the
status, and the unique camera name or file path, respectively.
- Enhancements
- The menu entries and menu bar of the MERLIC Creator have been
improved. As part of the revision of the MERLIC RTE Setup (formerly MERLIC
Process Integration Setup), the menu entries and buttons for opening the MERLIC
RTE Setup and the Designer from the menu bar have been adjusted to be more
clear and prominent. In addition, new tooltips have been added for the buttons
to provide information about the respective keyboard shortcuts.
- As part of the new naming concept, the MERLIC Backend has been
renamed to MERLIC Creator. In addition, the name of the corresponding
executable "merlic.exe" has been changed to
"merlic_creator.exe".
- Improved Usability
- The usability of moving tools in the Tool Flow panel has been
improved. Previously, it was not possible to recognize if any connections will
be lost when moving a tool. Now, the user gets immediate feedback if any
connections will be lost by the color of the dashed lines that show the
possibly new position in the Tool Flow. If all connections can be maintained,
the respective dashed lines are highlighted in blue. In case one or multiple
connections will be lost, it is highlighted in orange. In addition, a dialog is
shown in which the user has to confirm that the selected tool shall still be
moved to the new position.
- The MERLIC Creator now provides the new menu entry "Help >
Open Log File Directory" to easily access the log files directly from the
MERLIC Creator.
- The usability of zooming in the Tool Flow panel has been
improved. The toolbar for the zooming has been resized to be less prominent and
the size of the minimap has been adjusted. In addition, it is now possible to
save an image of the Tool Flow via the new "Download" button in the zooming
toolbar.
- The MERLIC Creator now gives feedback to the user if an MVApp
cannot be executed because of a race condition or because one of the tools can
never be executed. In addition, the MERLIC Creator also gives immediate
feedback if any of the license restrictions are not met, e.g., if the allowed
number of image acquisition tools is exceeded.
- FixedProblems
- If the context menu of a tool was opened in the Tool Flow
panel and the user clicked outside of the context menu to close it again, the
selection mode was not closed correctly. This problem has been fixed.
- If the option "Visualize skipped tools" in the MERLIC
preferences was deactivated while a connection was selected in the Tool
Workspace, the color of the connection changed to black instead of dark blue.
This problem has been fixed.
- Fixed Problems
- If a panel in the MERLIC Creator (formerly MERLIC Backend) or
MERLIC Designer was docked at a position, the panel could not be collapsed
completely. Instead, an empty background was shown. This problem has been
fixed.
- Enhancements
- The MERLIC Server and MERLIC Frontend now support the use of
IPv6 addresses. The server is binding on IPv4 and IPv6 addresses when nothing
else is specified in the settings. The MERLIC Frontend accepts IPv6 addresses
in the "--tcp" option for the executable "merlic_frontend.exe" and in
the "Host" option in the "[Frontend]" section of the
MERLIC5.ini file.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by a new tool "Resize Image". It
enables the user to resize an image to a predefined width and height and to
select between different interpolation methods for the determination of the
gray values in the resulting image.
- Enhancements
- Due to the improved Image Source Manager (ISM), the desired
image sources are now referenced only by their name. Previously, an image
source was referenced by the name of its JSON configuration file. Therefore,
when selecting the image source at the parameter "Image Source Name" of the
tool "Image Source", the name of the JSON configuration file was shown
including the file ending. Now, only the name of the available image sources is
displayed in the tool. Note that this change affects the compatibility.
Read more.
- The tool "Merge Images" now supports pairs of input images in
which one of the images contains one channel and the other one three channels.
Thus, it is now possible to merge gray scale images with color images.
- The tools "Zoom Image" and "Rotate Image" have been improved.
The tool "Zoom Image" now also provides the interpolation method "bicubic" and
the tool "Rotate Image" has been extended by the interpolation methods
"bicubic", "constant", and "weighted". In addition, "constant" is now set as
new default value in the tool "Rotate Image".
- The training mode of tools that require training has been
improved. Previously, it was hard to recognize if the current processing image
has already been added to the training image. Now, a new label indicates if the
image is already inserted as a training image or if a training image is a
duplicate of another training image. This way it is easier to recognize if the
processing image is already used for the training. Furthermore, if a training
image is selected, it is now highlighted in blue to make it easier to recognize
which training image is selected and currently shown in the graphic window.
In addition to the improvements that apply to all training modes, some
further improvements at specific types of training modes have been
implemented:
- The training mode of tools that allow the use of multiple training
images now provides the new keyboard shortcut F3 which can be used to add
the current processing image to the training images in a quick and easy
way. In addition, an index is assigned to the training images to easily
identify the training images.
- The training mode of tools that require a manual execution of the
training via the "Apply training data" button now automatically returns to
the processing mode after the training. Thus, the effect of the training on
the processing image is immediately visible.
- Fixed Problems
- The tool "Read Text and Numbers" did not load additional OCR
files within the default folder "ocr" in the MERLIC installation directory.
Therefore, the respective fonts were not available for selection in the "Font"
parameter of the tool. This problem has been fixed.
- New Features
- MERLIC has been extended by the following new example MVApps
that show the use of the new "Deep Learning - AI" tools:
- classify_pills.mvapp
- classify_and_inspect_wood.mvapp
- detect_anomalies.mvapp
- Since it is now possible to add and configure image sources
via the new "Image Sources" tab in the MERLIC RTE Setup (formerly MERLIC
Process Integration Setup), the example configuration files that have been
provided for the Image Source Manager (ISM) in the previous MERLIC version have
been removed.
- Enhancements
- As part of the new naming concept, the start menu entries of
MERLIC have been improved. They have been adjusted to the new names of the
MERLIC Creator and the MERLIC RTE Setup and they now contain the version number
of MERLIC. In addition, the start menu entry for the process integration mode,
i.e., MERLIC RTE, has been adjusted. It now also automatically starts the
MERLIC Communicator and the name of the start menu entry has been adjusted to
make it clear which applications will be opened. The new start menu entries of
MERLIC applications are the following:
- MERLIC 5 Communicator
- MERLIC 5 Creator
- MERLIC 5 Frontend
- MERLIC 5 RTE Setup
- MERLIC 5 RTE with Frontend + Communicator
- The environment variable "MERLIC4EXAMPLES" for the location of
the installed MERLIC example files has been renamed to "MERLIC5EXAMPLES"
according to the version number of the new major version of MERLIC.
- New Features
- Starting with this MERLIC version, a new licensing model is
introduced for more flexibility. It allows customers to choose the package –
and price – that exactly fits the scope of their application. Depending on the
required number of image sources and features (“add-ons”) for the application,
the packages Small, Medium, Large and X-Large as
well as a free trial version is available. This new "package" concept replaces
the previous "editions" model.
- Fixed Problems
- If MERLIC was started while another MERLIC instance was
already running on the system under a different user account, a wrong error
message was shown that a HALCON license is missing. This problem has been
fixed.
- In the previous MERLIC version, some command line options
"--pi", "--command_port", and "--devices" for the
"merlic.exe" application have been deprecated. These options have now been
removed. The command line options "--command_port" and
"--devices" can now be used only for the application
"merlic_rte.exe" which replaces the command "merlic.exe --pi".
- Starting with this MERLIC version, the tools of the category
"Communication" are set as legacy. They are still available to provide backward
compatibility but they will no longer be maintained or updated in upcoming MERLIC
versions. In addition, the tools "Acquire Image from Camera" and "Acquire Image
from File" are deprecated starting with this MERLIC version. Therefore, they might
not be available anymore in upcoming MERLIC versions. Due to this and the extended
configuration options of the Image Source Manager, we recommend using the Image
Source Manager for the setup of the image acquisition to ensure upward
compatibility.
- To profit from the improvements of the new HALCON version, the
HALCON libraries used by MERLIC have been upgraded to the HALCON 21.05 Progress
version. Note that this change affects the compatibility. Read more.