New software naming convention?

I don’t think anyone would argue that Cognex’s PatMax tool is both powerful and capable. When you need to locate a part in an image and your regular fixturing isn’t reliable or becomes too complex PatMax will probably do it.

But, (there’s always a “but” in this blog,) it is computationally intense. Matching contours takes a lot of digital horsepower, which results in extended processing time, especially when running PatMax on a high-res InSight smart camera. So I sat up and paid attention when I spotted a recent Cognex press release.

“New Cognex Feature Location Technology Offers Unmatched Performance and Speed” (May 5^th, 2015) announces “PatMax RedLine™, a feature-location technology that reinvents the industry-leading PatMax® pattern-matching tool by maximizing speed and performance.” What this does, or so Cognex claim, is speed up the way PatMax runs on a 5Mp InSight.

I’m sure that’s a good thing, and I suspect, although it’s not mentioned in the release, that Cognex charge a premium for its use. However, it does beg two questions:

1. Why didn’t my local Cognex sales rep let me know this was coming?
2. ‘Redline’ sounds like a subway system, (Boston? San Francisco?) in which case I wonder if we should brace ourselves for ‘District’, “Piccadilly’, and ‘Bakerloo’?

Well if Google can use weird naming conventions for Android releases, what’s stopping Cognex from doing the same?