Introduction to the Vision System

Mech-Eye Viewer allows users to adjust the parameters of the Mech-Eye industrial 3D camera according to the characteristics of the target object, and obtain high-quality 2D images, depth maps, and point clouds.

Mech-Vision is a state-of-the-art machine vision software. With its fully graphical interface, advanced machine vision applications such as piece picking, high-precision positioning, assembly, industrial inspection/measurement, and automatic path planning can be completed without writing codes.

Based on the image data captured on site, this software performs a series of vision processing and outputs the vision results (such as the position and orientation of the target object). In addition, based on the vision results, this software can perform collision-free path planning for the robot, and output the planned path.

Mech-Viz is a robot path planning software. It uses the information provided by Mech-Vision, including the point clouds and workpiece positions, to intelligently plan the robot path for picking, carrying, and palletizing and other complex application scenarios.

This software allows users to build a workflow for the robot in a visualized manner and provides a 3D simulation function for validation before using the real robot. It has already been adapted to many major robot brands around the world.

Mech-Center is the communication hub and control center. It provides standard interface protocols and can help customers customize communication services, thus implementing communication with external devices and jointly completing smart manufacturing tasks with vision-guided robots.

Within the Software Suite, Mech-Center is responsible for internal communication between the software. For example, it sends the vision result output from Mech-Vision to Mech-Viz for planning the robot’s collision-free path. When Mech-Center communicates with external devices, it sends the vision result from Mech-Vision or the planned collision-free path output from Mech-Vision or Mech-Viz to the robot, PLC, or host computer. More information about the communication between the {company} Software Suite and external devices will be discussed in the following section.

In this mode, the vision side has control over the robot, i.e., the vision side acts as the master device, while the robot slave device. The vision side controls the robot to perform tasks based on the planned path, such as workpiece loading or depalletizing/palletizing.

When this mode is used, the robot can be controlled by loading a master-control program to the robot or by using the robot’s SDK (Software Development Kit). This mode does not support communication with the PLC or host computer.

In this mode, the vision side does not need to take control of the robot. Typically, the robot side acts as the master device, while the vision side is the slave device. The robot side and the vision side use the same standard communication protocol to communicate (such TCP socket). The robot side sends requests while the vision side processes them and sends responses back. Depending on the request, the vision side returns either the vision result or the planned picking path. The robot makes further decisions or performs the appropriate tasks according to the responses returned from the vision side.

When this mode is used, you should load the Mech-Mind robot interface program (for communicating with the vision side and for receiving the data returned from the vision side) to the robot controller. The robot controller should be configured to use the Mech-Mind robot interface program. Furthermore, it is necessary to write a robot program (routine) for controlling the robot to perform tasks, using the data from the vision side. This mode supports communication with the robot, the PLC, and the host computer.