In the automation industry, vision-based measurement of objects and object features has been used for many years to improve the reliability and throughput of quality control manufacturing processes. Today, you would be hard-pressed to find a machine vision software package that didn’t include some sort of 1D or 2D measuring tools. So it is not surprising that the new MERLIC software includes tools for measuring. The unique feature that sets MERLIC apart from other software packages however, is how easily the user can extract both basic and complex measurements using the easyTouch feature and MERLIC’s built-in intelligence.
MERLIC’s measuring tools can be found in the Tools Library under Processing. 
Each tool is named after the task it is designed to execute to help make tool selection intuitive. The standard tools available in HALCON include Measure Circle, Measure Longest Edge Segment, Measure Opposite Edges, Measure Parallel Edges, Measure Row Spacing, and more. As the example to the right shows, the radii of circular features can be measured using the measure circle tool even if the edge of the circular shape is not continuous. easyTouch automatically includes edges that lie along the best fit circle calculated from the edge to which the user’s mouse is.
Another example of easyTouch and MERLIC’s measurement tools is shown using the Measure Row Spacing tool on the right. Extracting the width of each 
lead, the width of the space between the leads, and the distance between the centre points of each lead requires only one step – clicking on the edge of the first lead. MERLIC intuitively determines the appropriate ROI and orientation, locates the appropriate edges, and performs the calculations.
MERLIC goes beyond basic measurement capabilities by enabling users to combine measurement results to automatically calculate more complex data. For example, to inspect the concentricity of two circular shapes, the user can use the “Measure Point to Point” tool found under Combined Measuring. The distance and orientation between the center points of each selected circle are automatically calculated and displayed (circles are selected in the previous step using measure circle tool).
Other Combined Measuring tools allow you to calculate angles between edge segments, determine the closest distance from the center of a circle to an edge segment or the intersection of segments (as shown in the image to the right), and much more. With Combined Measuring extracting complex measurement data is quick and easy.
For more information and examples on MERLIC’s measurement capabilities download MERLIC for free and try it out on your own application.