With a continued eye on expansion, we have established a presence on the west coast with the hiring of Tony Aiello in Portland, OR.  Tony has over 14 years of machine vision industry experience, ranging from applications development with on-site integrations to core software development and management for Cognex’s In-Sight® line of embedded vision systems.  Our goal is to provide customers with local support.
 
With Growth Comes New Buildings

The entire project life cycle is now performed in-house! MVC has opened a 2,000 square foot build facility to accommodate increased project and product construction and test load.  Our build facility, named “Building 2,” is just a short walk from our offices through the center of Westborough.  Here both MVC engineering and fabrication teams work together to ensure our systems are in 100% working order prior to shipment.  In addition to Building 2, MVC acquired the use of a machine shop for fabrication and construction of systems.  With these two “shops” MVC is now able to fully support our customers from initial project conception, fabrication, construction, test and delivery.

MVC Forges New Customer Relationships

MVC has broadened its strength in the food and packaging industry by forging new customer partnerships with Knouse Foods and Allens Canning.  For Knouse, we are installing a CircumSpect® system that provides assurance that the correct label is on all Knouse applesauce jars.  For Allens Canning, we are installing CodeSure® systems on ten lines that verify the correct product code is printed and legible on all can lids.  Our CircumSpect and CodeSure products are the perfect choice for your food and packaging inspection needs.

Machine vision solutions are inherently complex due to the number of variables being addressed in the problem solution (e.g., system speed, image size, number of defects, lighting, complexity of software analysis, etc.). MVC understands that the user interface required to run these highly technical applications needs to be simple, logical and intuitive so that all levels of users can competently run the system to accomplish their job, without having to be trained as an engineer. The fundamental principles of “consistency”, “feedback”, “dual coding” and basic “navigation” of information help create a more intuitive interface especially in the manufacturing environment where machine vision applications are most frequently implemented:

• Consistency – this crosses a number of dimensions from the use of consistent terminology across applications (labeling, reference information), to consistent system behavior in user interactions (e.g., windows and buttons), to the consistent location of functions and displays
• Feedback – all user interactions provide feedback to the user to acknowledge, as a minimum, that an action has taken place (e.g., change in display, color, status, confirmation message).
• Dual Coding – Colored indicators are key to providing critical information on the status of the system. However, color coding is one dimensional – it does not account for changing light conditions, color blindness or other challenges that may be encountered in different environments. For this reason, all statuses are dual coded and key information is also provided with dual information coding. For example, dual coding is the use of color in conjunction with another visual indicator such as a flashing element, a symbol or an icon, a text change such as an underline, or another type of indicator such as sound.
• Navigation – knowing how to navigate an application, is critical to the success of its use. This involves clearly providing information how a user arrived at the current display, what options are available, and how they can return. This information can be provided by using breadcrumbs, adding “selected” states on menu items or tabs, and highlighting a selected option.

These basic principles help a user quickly feel confident on how to navigate the application, find key information, make changes and know that the actions have been successfully completed. These are some of the basic usability principles that MVC incorporates into our all products with the goal of creating a more transparent application interface so that every user (from the line worker to the supervisor) can focus on the task at hand and feel confident in their ability to accomplish it.

MVC understands that not all users are alike and not all applications are alike. Our user experience review includes identifying the each user group (e.g., Admin, Supervisor, Line workers.) and their tasks. We review all the tasks within likely user scenarios breaking them into “core” tasks for the running of the application, and “support” or “maintenance” tasks that may impact the reconfiguration of the system. These tasks are prioritized within their group (user role and type of task – core or support), based on frequency and criticality of the required action.

Knowing the priority of user tasks, common user interface design principles are applied in laying out the information display for task management. The display is laid out based on the value of the real estate. For our culture, users scan information, from top to bottom and left to right. Hence, the most valuable real estate is in the top left corner, then across the top, then down the page, with the least valuable space (or lowest priority) being in the bottom right corner.  The value of display real estate is used in two ways:

1. For the overall display of information: Depending on the product and the required tasks, the content layout usually provides key identifying information in the top left of the display, critical indicators across the top, with core information in the center and reference or supporting information below or on the right side.
2. For the logical flow of user tasks: such that a particular sequence of tasks will start with the key information and initial action occurring in the top left of the screen, and the final commit action on the lower right.

User roles, task scenarios, and the layout of information are three considerations integrated into the design of our products to insure that user tasks are logically sequenced and the information needed to make critical decisions is highly visible. In part 2 of this series, we’ll look at how MVC incorporates key usability principles to simplify the user interface of complex machine vision systems.

The patent, #7,599,516, is titled “Machine Vision Counting System Apparatus and Method”. The patent covers an implementation of machine vision technology useful for counting small objects. We developed the technology for counting pills on a pharmacy scale.

The patented technology is described on the MVC website. It can be found in the Pharmaceutical Industry section, under Pill Counting. The technology was used on the Eyecon™ precision pharmacy scale.

This is very exciting news that has been a long time in the making. The provisional application on this technology was filed in August of 2005.

One convenient way MVC streamlines the analysis and reporting process is to store data in formatted Excel (xls) files using a process call Automation. Automation allows applications written in languages such as C# or VB.NET to control other applications. Using Automation, virtually all the actions you can perform manually through Excel’s user interface can also be performed programmatically. One downside of Excel Automation is it requires Excel to be installed on the deployment PC.

For Machine Vision applications, Excel provides powerful data analysis and presentation functionality. In addition to storing raw measurement data, Excel can create charts, such as histogram bar charts, pie charts, or scatter plots. One interesting feature of Automation is that once Excel has calculated, for instance, a 3D surface chart, an image of the chart can be returned to the original .NET application for display on its user interface.

Excel spreadsheets can hold image data as well. MVC has used this feature to store thumbnail images associated with measurement data for traceability. Associated bar codes or Data Matrix codes can be added to the Excel report. In fact, any Windows graphics object can be stored in an Excel spreadsheet.

Excel Automation provides many capabilities for formatting spreadsheets into attractive reports. After a spreadsheet is formatted, it is a simple matter to save the spreadsheet to file on the PC in Excel format. The resulting file can be viewed in Excel, or in any one of many free Excel viewers.

Consistent Image Analysis Despite Random Container Orientation

As examples, MVC’s CircumSpect™ solution allows the user to 1) verify the correct pre-printed container is presented, 2) verify and inspect a label that has been applied, or 3) read 2D codes that provide E-Pedigree tracking of pharmaceutical bottles. A fifth camera on top may verify and inspect a lid, such as with ice cream containers, or to provide some other inspection task.

New capabilities have just been introduced to image round containers that may not be round all the way up and down the sides of the container, such as when pinch grips are molded into a bottle.

Additional information on the CircumSpect™ product and its technology is available on the MVC web site, www.machinevc.com.