MERLIC is an all-in-one software product for quickly building machine vision applications without programming. It is based on MVTec’s extensive machine vision expertise and combines reliable, fast performance with ease of use.
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What is Merlic? Watch this short Introduction Video
Visit the MVTec Video and Tutorial area and learn how to use Merlic and it’s tools
Tools & Features:
Anomaly Detection
Deep-learning-based anomaly detection significantly facilitates the automated surface inspection for, e.g., detection and segmentation of defects. The technology is able to unerringly and independently localize deviations, i.e., defects of any type, on subsequent images.
You only need a low number of high-quality images for training because defects of varying appearance can be detected without any previous knowledge or any preceding labeling efforts. Training a new network can mostly be done in a matter of seconds, allowing users to perform many iterations to fine-tune their application without sacrificing a lot of precious time. Furthermore, the inference is also very fast.
Classification
In image classification, objects are assigned to one or more categories based on previously defined properties. The objective is to get a decision about the category of the individual image. This technology is used, for example, for inspection tasks in quality control.
Deep-learning-based image classification with MVTec MERLIC allows to easily assign images to trained classes without the need of specially labeled data – a simple grouping of the images after data folders is sufficient. Thus, the labeling and developing effort is low, what enables particularly short set-up times. Moreover, applying the classifier to new data is especially fast. Additionally, the error rates compared to manually handled inspection tasks are significantly low.
Image-centered user interface
The very clear and reduced interface presents a large view on the processed image in the center of the program. The tool library on the left side provides many standard vision tools such as acquisition, calibration, alignment, measuring, counting, checking, reading, position determination, and defect detection. It can also be extended with customized tools. Each tool has its own graphical representation in the workspace, which allows you to see and review every step of your vision application. The image-centered design allows you to configure the application directly via the image without the need to write source code or to adjust lots of parameters.
easyTouch
An outstanding, innovative, and unique feature in MERLIC is the easyTouch concept. It helps to guide the user interactively towards the solution. For example, simply hover the mouse pointer over an image and easyTouch recognizes and marks objects to be identified.
You can choose relevant objects with just a single click. Thus, you don’t have to configure complex parameters. In addition, some tools support easyTouch+ where you can select multiple objects (by holding the ctrl-key) to configure parameters even better for your purpose. easyTouch saves you a lot of time during development.
Check out this video showing the use of easyTouch with MERLIC
Machine vision application without programming
While most common machine vision programs require extensive programming knowledge, MERLIC was created to build a machine vision application without programming a single line of code. So instead of coding line by line, you can simply step through your application and rely on the many standard machine vision tools. The vision tools in the MERLIC “MVApp” are connected automatically. Alternatively, you can simply reconnect them by drag & drop.
Watch this video to find out just how easy it is to create an application with MERLIC.
Integrated tool library
MERLIC’s integrated tool library contains a wide range of tools for the most common vision processing tasks – all based on the latest state-of-the-art vision technologies, such as matching or deep learning. The tool library can also be expanded by adding customized tools. To facilitate the ease of use, all included tools are named after the task they are meant to execute. Several ‘Evaluation’ tools support you with a variety of evaluation processes. For example, they perform calculations or evaluate a feature of a specific region. Having set up the application, MERLIC offers ‘Communication’ tools, which enable you to send and receive data, or alternatively read and write to files. Last but not least, the existing tool library can be extended flexibly with customized, user-defined tools to suit any additional needs. These tools can be developed in MVTec HALCON’s integrated development environment HDevelop
MERLIC Designer
MERLIC’s Designer lets you create a customized operator interface in just a few steps. Interactively design a frontend for your application: choose between various widgets and simply place them by drag-and-drop. MERLIC’s Designer links the widgets to parameters of MERLIC tools. The parameter values can then be used for visualization. Properties of widgets can be adjusted easily with just a few clicks. You may even customize the frontend, for example, by integrating any company logo.
Take a look at this video of MERLIC’s Designer. It shows how to build a customised frontend to check fuses based on a simple MERLIC application.
PLC Communication
MERLIC goes beyond mere imaging and facilitates access to all elements of the machine vision peripherals as well as a seamless PLC connection. The software supports the entire process of developing an application, from acquiring and processing images to the programmable control (PLC) of the machine. As a stand-alone software package, MERLIC therefore offers full integration, including digital I/O and the OPC UA standard.
Apps Protection
MERLIC secures your know-how: you can protect the content of MERLIC applications (MVApps) with a password. The password protection can be enabled for each MVApp in the MERLIC Backend (note: it is not enabled by default). Thus, when loading the MVApp in the MERLIC Backend the password must be entered in order to change the MVApp.
Using the password protection can be useful if you want to pass on a MERLIC MVApp to customers who should not be able to change the application. Furthermore, this is important to protect your MVApps against non-authorised access from third parties to secure your intellectual property of the application.
