All ActivVisionTools 2.1 license keys must be replaced or upgraded. Please contact your local distributor.

ActivVisionTools 2.2 is binary compatible with ActivVisionTools 2.1, thus you can directly start projects and executables that were created with ActivVisionTools 2.1. As you will be informed via a message box, however, some parameter settings may have changed because the description file (DSC file) was created by an older version. Please check the following sources of parameter changes:

• ActivVisionTools 2.2 supports additional bar codes. A possible side-effect is that a wrong bar code type is used in projects or executables created with previous versions of ActivVisionTools.
• The optimized algorithm for decoding bar codes changed the behavior of ActivBarcode's parameter for the projection width. Please look here for more details.

Note that ActivVisionTools 2.2 is not compatible with ActivVisionTools 2.0 or earlier versions, with the following implications:

• When you open a Visual Basic project which was created using ActivVisionTools 2.0, you will be informed that this version cannot be found. You can "upgrade" the project with the following method: Proceed with the loading, before any other action open the menu Project->Components and select ActivVisionTools 2.2, and save the project immediately. Then, open the project again.
• Likewise, any executable created using ActivVisionTools 2.0 will not work anymore. Proceed similarly to above: Open the corresponding Visual Basic project, select ActivVisionTools 2.2 in the menu Project->Components, and immediately save the project. Then, open the project again and create a new executable.

ActivVisionTools 2.2 is based on HALCON 6.1.1, whereas version 2.1 is based on HALCON 6.1; still older versions are all based on HALCON 6.0 (or HALCON 6.0.1).

• If you have HALCON 6.0 (or older) installed on your computer, you must upgrade to HALCON 6.1.1 or remove the older version of HALCON. You can run ActivVisionTools 2.2 only together with HALCON 6.1.1.
• If you have HALCON 6.1.0 already installed on your computer, ActivVisionTools 2.2 will start the HALCON installation, which lets you replace the already installed components with those of HALCON 6.1.1.
• If you have HALCON 6.1.1 already installed on your computer, ActivVisionTools 2.2 will make use of this HALCON installation. Note that ActivVisionTools 2.2 use a slightly extended version of HALCON 6.1.1, which includes new frame grabber interfaces and updated versions of some interfaces. If you already installed HALCON 6.1.1 but want the updated version you can of course uninstall HALCON and then install it again from the ActivVisionTools CD (see the manual Getting Starting Started with ActivVisionTools for more information). Alternatively, you can download the frame grabber interfaces from MVTec's WWW server; in this case, please also refer to the User's Manual for ActivView for further information.
• If there is a need to have HALCON 6.0 (or older) remaining on the computer, please ask your local distributor for assistance.

• During execution of the active tool, the AVTImageMessageClass now contains a reference to the active ROI, even if the active tool is not a direct successor of AVTView. This is only of interest when working with AVTGenericInterface. In particular, it is now possible to correctly set the ROI width of a line ROI if AVTMeasure is connected to an AVTGenericInterface with image output.
• It was only possible to query the execution time of the entire cycle. Now, it is also possible to programmatically query the execution time of individual tools.

• There was problem with using the BitFlow interface on French, Spanish, Korean or Japanese systems. This has been fixed.
• When calling the method WriteToDSC, the settings of GUI components were cleared from the DSC file. If EnableWriteToDSCFile was set to True, then the settings were correctly stored again when the application terminated. Otherwise, the settings were lost. Now, WriteToDSC stores the settings of GUI components as expected.
• The default feature boundaries, used, e.g., by ActivFeatureHistogram and ActivDecision, were sometimes incorrect when a 3D calibration was used. This has been fixed.

• The Advanced User's Guide for ActivVisionTools is available in a new edition. It now describes how to use ActivVisionTools within Visual C++ and Visual Studio .NET.
• The manual Getting Started with ActivVisionTools is available in a new edition. It has been adapted to use of ActivVisionTools within Visual C++ and Visual Studio .NET.
• The example Visual Basic projects for the manuals Getting Starting Started with ActivVisionTools and Advanced User's Guide for ActivVisionTools have been adapted to version 2.2.

• At the beginning of the installation, the MVTec license agreement is shown and the user is asked to accept it. The corresponding file 'eula.txt' is located in the root directory on the ActivVisionTools CD and will be installed in the folder you choose for the installation.

• Interactively grabbing images in rapid succession by clicking the single button was limited by the double click interval. This behaviour has been changed.
• Complex applications sometimes require to disable the execution of a particular tool. Now, AVTView has a new property DisplayDisabledTools which allows to suppress visualization for tools which have been disabled. Also, the evaluation object "Application" no longer considers the evaluation for disabled tools.
• AVTView offers a new property AllowRefresh, which can be used to delay updates of the graphics window without clearing it. Note that text output currently always causes a repaint.
• The state of the checkbox "Auto Apply" in AVTViewFGParameters is now made persistent via the property FGAutoApply of AVTView (default is True).
• AVTViewExecuteSimple can now be configured to act as a single step button.
• It is now possible to lock individual ROIs via AVTViewROI. The property Locked of ActivAlignment still exists, it is bound to the ROI locking via the following rule: ActivAlignment is locked if, and only if, all ROIs of ActivAlignment are locked.
• It is now possible to prevent activation of another ROI by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking into the view window. This is useful if the desired pickpoint is very close to another ROI.
• The number of ROIs for the active tool is now displayed in AVTViewROI.
• It is now possible to abort the creation of a new ROI by clicking again on the corresponding button in AVTViewROI.
• Some minor changes have been applied to the behavior of the ActivVisionTools user interface, which hopefully reduce the initial confusion of a new user:
  • If a new ROI was created by clicking instead of dragging, the result was a one pixel ROI. Now, the ROI is automatically dragged in this case until the user clicks again.
  • If the user left clicked into the AVTView window but no ROIs were available, this had no effect. Now, one of the following actions is taken (if UsePopup and AllowEditROI are True):
    • If no image is available, the dialog AVTViewFG is opened.
    • If no vision tools are available, the user is prompted to add some.
    • Otherwise, the user is prompted to create some ROIs and the AVTViewROI dialog is opened (only in Visual Basic 6.0).

• It was possible to create an incompatible ROI by selecting the ROI type first and changing the active tool afterwards. This has been fixed. Also, if an ROI type is selected for creation, closing the AVTViewROI dialog no longer causes an existing ROI to be activated. This allows to create ROIs for more than one tool even if the ROI dialog is opened modally (e.g. under C++).
• Contrary to the documentation, setting the property HalconImage of AVTView caused an immediate repaint, which was noticable by inconsistent temporary overlay data. This is no longer the case.
• It was not possible to remove overlays which had been added using the AddOverlay methods of AVTView. Now, the methods RemoveOverlays and RemoveAllOverlays behave as expected.
• Setting the ForeColor of AVTViewExecuteSimple had no effect. This has been fixed.
• After disconnecting, the trigger checkbox became available for some frame grabbers which do not support an external trigger. This has been fixed.
• Setting the property ActiveROIName did not change the active ROI. This has been fixed.
• When using the MultiCam interface, a harmless error message was displayed when a new instance of ActivView was created. This has been fixed.
• ActivView crashed when the control was assigned a very large size (width or height > 2000 pixels). This could occur when selecting "Full Image Size" from the menu while working with very large images. The crash has been fixed, although the size restriction remains.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• The selected position in ActivLineProfile is now visualized in ActivView using an orthogonal line instead of a circle. Also, a visualization problem with circular arc profiles when using ActivAlignment has been fixed.

• If no ROI is available for ActivHistogram, the histogram for the entire image will be displayed.

• The parameter vGrayValues in the event Finish of ActivHistogram was always empty. Now the histogram data is passed correctly.

• After performing a 3D calibration, the default unit is now set to "Millimeter". If another metric unit was previously selected, the value remains unchanged.
• Grabbing an image using ActivGeoCalib will now initialize the frame grabber if required.

• Due to a problem in version 2.1, it was not possible to select custom calibration plate description files for ActivGeoCalib. This has been fixed.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• It is now possible to create a new ROI for ActivAlignment even if ActivAlignment is locked. In this case, a warning message appears when the ROI type is selected in AVTViewROI. If you create the ROI anyway, ActivAlignment becomes unlocked.
• ActivAlignment now also returns a score feature which describes the similiarity between trained and matched anchor.

• After unlocking the alignment anchor and changing the value for the contrast, it was not possible to retrain the anchor using the new value because the button "Apply Training" was grayed out. An ROI modification was necessary to reenable the button. This has been fixed. Now, the button also becomes reenabled if contrast or angle range are changed in Alignment Teach.
• The persistence of ROIs after training has been improved. The names of the ROIs used to alternate between successive executions of the application. Also, problems could arise if another tool used ROIs of the same type. This problem has been fixed.
• The slightly incorrect visualization of ActivAlignment's search region has been fixed (counter-clockwise rotation was exaggerated).
• A problem which prevented reliably setting the contrast via the text box in AVTAlignmentTeach has been fixed.
• After saving the anchor of ActivAlignment the text 'Wait for Saving' is now cleared in AVTViewStatus.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• It is now possible to calculate angle features when measuring along circular arcs. Due to the nature of the measure algorithm, the calculated angles depend on the arc center point and are therefore not well suited for high precision measurements.
• ActivMeasure now uses a faster algorithm for projecting the gray values on the line of measurement. The speedup depends on the ROI width, e.g., a factor of 3 is achieved when the ROI Width is 40.

• The graph window of ActivMeasure now displays the name of the corresponding ROI as tool tip text.

• A problem with incorrect pair center coordinates when measuring along circular arcs was fixed.
• It was possible that edges were extracted outside the arc specified by a circular arc ROI. This has been fixed.
• Changing the ROI width is now disabled if the active ROI does not belong to (the correct instance of) ActivMeasure.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• ActivBarcode now uses a more robust algorithm for decoding the bar code. The impact of local dirt or damage is reduced by attempting to read along multiple parallel scan lines (instead of just the bar code center). The number of scan lines can be set using a new parameter with a default value of 9. The default value for the width of the projection has been reduced from 25 to 5. If you have old projects, in which this value was explicitely changed, you should reduce it (or set the number of scan lines to 1, which yields the old behavior).

• It is now possible to trigger the bar code auto detection mechanism programmatically. If desired, only a subset of types is tested. Furthermore, there is a new property BarcodeName, which returns the string value corresponding to the index BarcodeType.
• If the user clicks the auto detect button in ActivBarcode, the following additional actions are performed:
  • If no ROI is available for bar code, the user is prompted if he wishes to create an ROI covering the entire image.
  • Test mode is disabled to allow extraction of bar codes.
• Now the extracted code is only displayed if both checkboxes 'Code', of 'Result Options' and of 'Display Results', are checked.

• The bar code parameter "Element Contrast" had no effect. This has been fixed.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• It is now possible to combine all extracted blobs into a single region. This allows to calculate features for the union of all blobs, e.g., the total area. The new behavior can be activated via a checkbox in the blob processing dialog.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• Some gray features did not work properly when using the French version. This has been fixed.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• It happened that DataView displayed empty rows. This bug has been fixed.

• Entering a value in the text boxes of ActivFeatureHistogram only worked if a period (".") was used as decimal separator. Now, the character specified by the regional settings is used.

• AVTDecisionResult now allows you to open its property pages at run-time. This is intended for the environments C++ and .NET, where the ActivVisionTools do not have design-time persistence.

• Pressing the key "Delete" inside a sheet cell no longer deletes the data, when the data isn't selected.
• Selected features of AVTDecisionResult were stored in a language dependent manner. This has been fixed.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• The layout of AVTOutputDataSelect has slightly changed. Instead of grayed checkboxes a line of empty cells is drawn.

• The layout of AVTOutputDataSelect has slightly changed. Instead of grayed checkboxes a line of empty cells is drawn.

• Now AVTSerial's property BaudRate corresponds to the parameter displayed in AVTSerial's configuration dialog. The list entry for 1800 Baud was deleted. If you used this parameter in a project created with ActivVisionTools 2.1, please check its value.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• Now only the number of ports set by NumberOfInputPortsToView (or OutputPorts) are displayed, even if the form is reloaded.

• Assignments to the last channel can now be removed.

• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 2.2.

• ActivGenericInterface now allows you to open its property pages at run-time. This is intended for the environments C++ and .NET, where the ActivVisionTools do not have design-time persistence.

• In rare cases, it was not possible to use a new feature added to ActivGenericInterface because it was considered to be disabled. This has been fixed.
• In rare cases, the event InitializeFeatures was not raised. This would cause a follow-up problem if features were calculated in the event Execute. This problem has been fixed.

• The ActivGUIComponents now allow you to open their property pages at run-time. This is intended for the environments C++ and .NET, where the ActivVisionTools do not have design-time persistence.

• ActivVisionTools now also includes an interface to the BCAM 1394 driver from Basler.

• The following frame grabber interfaces have been revised: BitFlow, DirectShow, Ginga++, PicPort, DFG-LC, IDS, MatrixVision, MultiCam, Opteon, and File. Please refer to the corresponding documentation for more information, especially whether a new revision of the corresponding device driver is required.

• It is now possible to view license information within ActivViewer. The functionality is available from the menu About.
• It is now possible to pass a command line argument to ActivViewer, which is expected to be the name of an image file to load. In particular, you could create a shortcut to ActivViewer in your SendTo folder, which would allow you to open an image in ActivViewer by right-clicking it in the explorer and sending it to ActivViewer.