Method and system for interactively developing a graphical control-flow structure and associated application software for use in a machine vision system and computer-readable storage medium having a program for executing the method

A system for interactively developing a graphical control-flow structure and associated application software for use in a machine vision system, the structure including a control sequence having at least one node, the system comprises:

• a first set of control programs representing possible machine vision tasks, the first set of control programs defining a first set of standard controls;
• hardware operating parameters corresponding to possible hardware, the hardware operating parameters defining a second set of standard controls;
• means for displaying graphical representations of possible hardware and possible machine vision tasks;
• means for receiving commands from a user to select desired hardware operating parameters corresponding to desired hardware and a machine vision graphical representation and an associated first control program corresponding to a desired machine vision task;
• means for displaying the structure wherein the selected machine vision graphical representation is a node of the structure, the first control program being linked into the structure;
• a plurality of separate application processing engines including a results engine interlinked together for seamlessly communicating results obtained by execution of the selected first control program;
• and
• means for linking the selected first control program with the desired hardware operating parameters to form the application software in response to the commands without the user writing any of the application software.

A computer-readable storage medium having stored therein a program which executes the steps of:

• providing a first set of control programs representing possible machine vision tasks, the first set of control programs defining a first set of standard controls;
• providing hardware operating parameters corresponding to possible hardware, the hardware operating parameters defining a second set of standard controls;
• displaying graphical representations of possible hardware and possible machine vision tasks;
• receiving commands from a user to select desired hardware operating parameters corresponding to desired hardware and a machine vision graphical representation and an associated first control program corresponding to a desired machine vision task;
• displaying a graphical control-flow structure wherein the selected machine vision graphical representation is a node of the structure, the first control program being linked into the structure;
• providing a plurality of separate application processing engines including a results engine interlinked together for seamlessly communicating results obtained by execution of the selected first control program;
• and linking the selected first control program with the desired hardware operating parameters to form application software in response to the commands without the user writing any of the application software.