Tuesday, November 19, 2013

VisionPro versus Halcon – a summary


This is one of the hoary old chestnuts of the machine vision world – which is better? As with most things in life, there’s no simple answer, but let me start with a very brief introduction.

VisionPro is the highly capable PC-based vision software product from Cognex. It does more than their smart cameras can do. Halcon is another highly capable PC-based vision software product, this time from German vision software company MVTec. MVTec however do not make smart cameras or even smart camera software (so far as I know, anyway.)

If you’re in the market for vision software, and aren’t currently wedded to any particular provider, both deserve consideration. However, it is very difficult to make a side-by-side comparison. Don’t worry though because that’s already been done. No, not by me but by New Hampshire-based vision reseller, JMAK Automation.

There’s a page on their website that provides pros-and-cons for the two packages. (Halcon versus VisionPro.)

You should be aware that JMAK is a Halcon reseller, so they are not impartial. But, I found the comparison stacked up pretty well against my knowledge of the two. In other words, I think it’s pretty accurate.

Does it tell you which is better? No. As any good machine vision professional will tell you, consider what your application needs and then decide. Put another way, the answer to the question is – it depends.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can run Halcon on embedded devices, I think they had even version for Nokia Linux phone few years ago. Now they are offering versions for embedded Windows cameras: http://mvtec.de/halcon/embedded/documentation/

Unknown said...

Halcon embedded is a software used in smart cameras!

http://www.mvtec.com/halcon/embedded/