All ActivVisionTools 2.2 licenses must be replaced or upgraded. Please contact your local distributor.

ActivVisionTools 3.0 is not compatible with ActivVisionTools 2.2., i.e., you cannot start executables that were created with ActivVisionTools 2.2. Whether projects created with ActivVisionTools 2.2 can be started directly depends on the used programming language:

• Visual Basic 6.0 projects can be opened with further action.
• .NET projects can be opened after modifying them as follows:
  • Open the project file (.vbproj or .csproj) with Notepad.
  • Modify the references to ActivVTools and AxActivVTools so that they look as follows:

    <Reference
        Name = "ActivVTools"
        Guid = "{8554E7E3-CFBA-11D6-A18D-00E029346121}"
        VersionMajor = "2"
        VersionMinor = "0"
        Lcid = "0"
        WrapperTool = "tlbimp"
    />
    <Reference
        Name = "AxActivVTools"
        Guid = "{8554E7E3-CFBA-11D6-A18D-00E029346121}"
        VersionMajor = "2"
        VersionMinor = "0"
        Lcid = "0"
        WrapperTool = "aximp"
    />

  • Now, you can open the project.
  • If you used the external menus or toolbars, which have been removed from the distribution, you must remove the corresponding code and replace it with the new one for modeless dialogs (see the Advanced User's Guide for details).
• C++ projects can be opened directly. If you used the external menus or toolbars, which have been removed from the distribution, we recommend to create the project anew following the instructions in the Advanced User's Guide and then copy the relevant code from the old project.

Independent of the used programming language, you will be informed via a message box that 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:

• Display colors for overlays
• Properties that could formerly be changed at run time must now be modified at design time and vice versa. As a result, some settings are lost, e.g., the caption and alignment of ActivGUIComponents or the values of BackColor, DisplayFont, and UseIconMode. More problematic is that the configuration for ActivGenericInterface is lost: If you connected other tools to them, their ROIs will be lost as well. For such projects, we therefore recommend to create a backup of the DSC file, then open the project and reconfigure ActivGenericInterface as described in the Advanced User's Guide. Save and close the project, then replace the DSC file with the backup version and open the project again.
• Renaming of FGSignal to FGCameraType
• Renaming of FGInput to FGPort
• Updated list of calibration plates
• Extended list of zooming factors

Furthermore, run-time errors may occur because of the following changes in the programming interface:

• Renaming of ImagePointTo3DUnit to ImagePointToWorldUnit
• Changed signature of ShowDialog
• Changed signature of ImageGrabbed

Note that ActivVisionTools 3.0 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 3.0, 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 3.0 in the menu Project->Components, and immediately save the project. Then, open the project again and create a new executable.

ActivVisionTools 3.0 is based on (a modified version of) HALCON 7.0.1, whereas version 2.2 is based on HALCON 6.1.1; still older versions are all based on HALCON 6.1, 6.0 or 6.0.1.

• If you have HALCON 6.1 (or older) installed on your computer, you must upgrade to the modified version of HALCON 7.0.1 or remove the older version of HALCON. You can run ActivVisionTools 3.0 only together with the modified version of HALCON 7.0.1.
• If you have HALCON 7.0 or 7.0.1 already installed on your computer, ActivVisionTools 3.0 will start the HALCON installation, which lets you replace the already installed components with those of the modified version of HALCON 7.0.1.
• If there is a need to have HALCON 6.1 (or older) remaining on the computer, please ask your local distributor for assistance.

• In order to achieve a consistent way of working with ActivVisionTools in different development environments, most of the process of configuring ActivVisionTools has been moved from design to run time. Now, the recommended way to develop ActivVisionTools applications is to position the desired tools on the Form, run the application, and then configure it.
• The dialog handling under .NET and C++ has been further improved. Now, modeless dialogs can be opened using the native popup menus of the tools. This eliminates the need for the external menus or toolbars, which have thus been removed from the distribution.
• To avoid persistence problems in non-VB6 environments, all properties should now be configured at run time (using AVTViewProperties if the property is not part of the normal GUI of a tool). Most property pages have been removed for this reason. Some properties which lend themselves naturally for configuration at design time are no longer stored in the DSC file, but use the standard persistence mechanism for ActiveX controls (which only works at design time).

• Now, the entries in a textbox are stored even if the dialog is closed before pressing the return key in the textbox or clicking on an other element in the box.

• When visualizing text overlays programmatically or by ActivBarcode, the output started to flicker when other visualizations were also involved. This bug has been fixed.
• Some memory and resources leaks occured when a Form containing ActivVisionTools was opened and closed multiple times. This bug has been fixed.
• A memory leak occured when using circular arc ROIs or ActivAlignment's visualization of the angle range. This bug has been fixed.
• It is no longer possible to insert a new pick point into a locked ROI.
• Polygonal ROIs were incorrectly clipped if the ROI was wider (higher) than the image and partially ouside the left (top) border. This bug has been fixed.
• The read-only property AVTCalibClass.GeomCalibValid always returned False. This bug has been fixed.
• It was possible that AVTView appeared disabled in Visual Basic 6 design mode after saving the Form while the designer was closed. This bug has been fixed.
• Some properties were imported as methods get_X() / put_X() in .NET because the parameter was accidentally passed by reference. This problem has been fixed.
• The character combination "\n" was not persisted correctly to the DSC file for string properties (in particular, directory names). This bug has been fixed.
• If the absolute pathname of the DSC file of an ActivVisionTools application or project exceeded 128 characters, the behavior could become instable, especially if the DSC file was read-only. This has been fixed.

• AVTCalibClass has a new method WorldPointToImageUnit, which converts world coordinates - expressed in the current unit - to image pixels. This is useful, e.g., for creating ROIs based on absolute world positions. The method for the reverse direction has been renamed from ImagePointTo3DUnit to ImagePointToWorldUnit. Please note that if you used this method in an application you must rename it accordingly.
• The signature of the method IAVToolClass.ShowDialog has changed. It is no longer possible to specify an explicit owner. Please note that if you used this method in an application you must adapt the signature accordingly!
• ROIs that are created programmatically are no longer activated automatically. This prevents interrupting the drag process if an ROI modification leads to the creation of new ROIs. Furthermore, AVTView has a new property AllowPartialExecution. Setting this to False enforces that all ROI or parameter changes cause a full reexecution, which eliminates some inconsistencies when creating ROIs by code during the execution cycle.
• The most common event of each tool has been tagged using a "default" attribute flag, so that development environments may automatically suggest the most appropriate event when creating an event handler in the designer (e.g., by double-clicking on the tool in Visual Basic 6).
• AVTPropertyManagementClass now raises the event Changed if any of its managed properties changes.

• The manual Getting Started with ActivVisionTools is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0. Besides, the section 'Family of Tools' now contains links into the manuals where the tools are described.
• The Advanced User's Guide for ActivVisionTools is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example projects for both manuals have been adapted to version 3.0.

• It is now possible to use multiple instances of ActivView. This allows you to conveniently acquire images from multiple cameras, and to apply different tasks to them by connecting the desired vision tools to the appropriate instance of ActivView.
• The new support tool AVTViewConnections displays the connect hierarchy and further information for all tools in the application. It can also be used to reconnect tools using drag-and-drop.
• The new support tool AVTViewProperties is a property window similar to the property window in Visual Basic, but it can be used to configure ActivVisionTools properties at run time. This is especially useful with Visual C++ 6.0 and Visual Studio .NET, because the design time persistence does not work properly.
• The license information dialog is now also available at run time via the popup menu of AVTView. In addition to showing which licenses are available, it also shows which licenses have actually been used by the current process. This is useful to determine which licenses need to be purchased after developing with an evaluation license.

• ActivView now offers the events Click, DblClick, MouseDown, MouseMove and MouseUp. These may be used to track mouse events over the image (coordinates are returned as image coordinates).
• The selection of display colors for overlays in the AVTView window has been extendend by six additional colors. Furthermore, two additional "3 color" sets for alternating color display have been added. Please note that old projects which have been set to use the "3 color" or "6 color" display options will lose this setting during upgrade!
• The most recent messages displayed in AVTViewStatus can now be displayed by double-clicking the text in the status bar. This information is also available via the property AVTView.StatusHistory; the length of the history can be controlled using AVTView.StatusHistoryLength.
• When grabbing images from a sequence file, the name of the current image is now displayed in AVTViewStatus (if the tool is on the form).
• The display font can now be selected interactively at run-time via AVTViewDisplayModes.
• The file type selection in the dialog to load/save images now offers the Portable Network Graphics format (*.png). Furthermore, the method SaveImage has an optional parameter to specify the compression level for JPG and PNG files.
• The method LoadImage no longer uses the frame grabber interface 'File' to load images. This is helpful when you need to load images while keeping a frame grabber connection open.
• Enabling the checkbox "Connect" no longer causes an immediate grab. On the other hand, grabbing an image via the buttons "Single" or "Run" still causes an automatic connection if required.
• The property FGSignal has been renamed to FGCameraType, which is more appropriate and matches the HALCON terminology. Settings for FGSignal are lost when upgrading existing applications developed with older versions.
• The property FGInput has been renamed to FGPort, which is more appropriate and matches the HALCON terminology. Settings for FGInput are lost when upgrading existing applications developed with older versions.

• The pixel height in AVTViewCalibration can now also be set if a line ROI is available, and before an image has been grabbed. Furthermore, the text boxes are now correctly grayed out when appropriate.
• If an ActivVisionTools application had been used to load images from many different paths, a crash would occur on grabbing when the total length of the last 50 paths exceeded 1024 bytes. This has been fixed. Furthermore, the history of the last used image directories has been reduced from 50 to 32 entries.
• ActivView crashed under some circumstances when changing frame grabber parameters in the image acquisition dialog (AVTViewFG), if this dialog had been closed and reopened. This bug has been fixed.
• Setting a bold display font for AVTView caused unreadable characters to be printed. This bug has been fixed.
• After opening the image acquisition dialog for a second time, the connection to the frame grabber was unnecessarily reopened even if no parameters were changed. This bug has been fixed.
• Enabling or disabling the scroll bars now leaves the size of the view window invariant and instead adjusts the size of the control.
• The default value of the property ImageDirectory now correctly contains a trailing backslahs character ("\").
• When zooming into the image, the displayed image part was one pixel too large in both directions (e.g., when using a scale factor of 2 on an 512x512 image, the displayed area was 257x257). This bug has been fixed.

• In the event ImageGrabbed, it was possible to replace the grabbed image by setting the property HalconImage. Now, you can also change the ByRef parameter of the event handler to achieve the same effect.
• The new method CreateROICopy allows to create a new ROI based on the data of an existing ROI. If the target ROI already exists, it is modified with a minimal overhead.
• The handling of external image data has been improved. ActivView now offers the new methods GetHalconImagePtr, GetHalconImageChannelPtr, SetHalconImagePtr, SetHalconImageRGB and SetHalconImageRGBPtr. Furthermore, calling ExecuteExternImage will now display the results in the same way as ExecuteAllToolsOnce does.
• The event ImageGrabbed now passes an error code if the grab failed. In case of an error, it is possible to manually initiate the next asynchronous grab by calling the new method GrabImageStart. Please note that if you created a handler for this event in an application you must adapt the signature accordingly!
• The methods SetFGParameterValue and GetFGParameterValue now work with all parameters supported by the HALCON frame grabber interface, not just those which are listed in the .par file for visibility in the GUI. Furthermore, GetFGParameterValue now also returns the current value if a parameter has changed at run time due to external events (like digital input).

• The User's Manual for ActivView is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0. For example, it now describes how to to adapt the display size to image size via the corresponding properties and lists methods provided by the programming interface to integrate and access external images.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• Scaling values of 25% and 50% have been added. The other values have been adapted to reflect the actual doubling of the zoom factor with each step. The values are now also correct when using the small version (128x128) by placing AVTZoom on the Form.

• Some minor inconsistencies between the pixel position displayed in ActivZoom and the actual mouse cursor position have been fixed.

• A button to delete all calibration images is now available.
• The chip type selection offered three chip sizes and a subsampling check box, which were no longer useful with today's variety of cameras. The GUI elements and the corresponding properties have been removed. In addition, the text boxes for the cell sizes have been changed to combo boxes providing a list of common values in um.
• The predefined list of calibration plates has been updated. Note that old projects may no longer have the correct file selected.

• Entering bad values into some of the text fields of ActivGeoCalibration could cause a crash. This bug has been fixed.
• The thickness of the calibration plate was not correctly applied to the 3D calibration after closing and restarting the application (i.e. when loading the 3D calibration from the DSC file). This bug has been fixed.

• In previous versions, the 3D calibration procedure could only be performed by user interaction. Now, it is also available via the programming interface. In addition to a full calibration, this also allows to calibrate only a subset of parameters. In particular, you can recalibrate the reference coordinate system at any time using a single calibration plate image as long as the internal camera parameters remain fixed.

• The User's Manual for ActivGeoCalib is now available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• A value of 0% is now allowed for the SpeedUp property.

• Setting a new reference position for ActivAlignment did not work properly, if a tool with an ROI was not a direct successor of AVTView (only possible when using ActivGenericInterface). This bug has been fixed.
• The ROI activation state was sometimes inconsistent at application start-up when using ActivAlignment. This sometimes caused an unintuitive behavior of ActivMeasure's property "ROI Width". This bug has been fixed.
• When selecting a multi-colored result display in AVTView, the results were displayed using a single color if the image display was aligned to an anchor. This has been fixed.

• The User's Manual for ActivAlignment is now available in a new edition. It has been updated to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• Boundariess specified for the amplitude features of edge pairs were treated incorrectly on calibration or unit changes. This bug has been fixed.

• The User's Manual for ActivMeasure is now available in a new edition. It has been updated to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• ActivBarcode now allows to use the 1-dimensional ROI types line and circular arc. In this case, no search is performed for the bar code area. Instead, an attempt is made to read the code along the ROI. Bar code parameters that relate to the search process have no effect on these ROIs.
  Furthermore, the behavior for oriented area ROIs has changed. When using a Rectangle2 or an Ellipse ROI, only bar codes which roughly have the correct orientation are extracted. This increases both the robustness and the processing speed. If this behavior is not desired, please use a Rectangle1, Polygon or Circle ROI instead.
  Finally, there is a new property MaxExtraElements (which is not available in the AVTBarcode1DParameters dialog). This attempts to read a bar code even if too many elements have been extracted.

• The value of distance factor now cleanly increases in steps of 0.1 via the scroll bar. In particular, the default value of 1 is preserved and no longer changed to 1.005.

• ActivBarcode now supports the ROI type eROIRegion. Note that this ROI type can neither be created nor visualized in the GUI. Its main use is to dynamically assign a region extracted by ActivBlobFinder or other means as the ROI.

• The User's Manual for ActivBarcode is now available in a new edition. It has been updated to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• In previous versions, the maximum blob size was restricted to 1.000.000 pixels. This limit has been changed to 1.000.001 pixels. More importantly, the exact value 1.000.001 is now used to specify that no size limit is imposed. This allows for arbitrary blob sizes on high-resolution images while retaining the slider control.
• The obsolete property AdaptValues has been removed.

• Now ActivBlobfinder handles regions without objects correctly.

• ActivBlobFinder now supports the ROI type eROIRegion. Note that this ROI type can neither be created nor visualized in the GUI. Its main use is to dynamically assign a region extracted by another ActivBlobFinder or other means as the ROI.

• The User's Manual for ActivBlobFinder is now available in a new edition. It has been updated to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• The User's Manual for ActivFeatureCalc is now available in a new edition. It has been updated to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• If the selection did not contain any objects, an invalid (old) value for the selection peak was displayed. Now, the value is set to 0.

• It was possible to open the property page for AVTDecisionResult at run time. This workaround was made obsolete by the new support tools AVTViewConnections and AVTViewProperties and thus has been removed.
• The property BackColor of AVTDecision has been removed. It had no permanent effect, because the background color is always set to "ColorGood" or "ColorBad".

• Sometimes, wrong boundaries were displayed. This problem has been fixed.

• The User's Manual for ActivDecision is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• In the dialog AVTOutputDataSelect, the sheet contained checkboxes that were bound to each other (multiple check boxes represented the same value). This has been changed by a new layout. Furthermore, the dialog now contains a checkbox to enable or disable output of ROI data for ActivAlignment.
• The directory of the result file is now persistent, i.e., it is saved in the DSC file. If the result file lies in a folder relative to the applications path, the application can be copied to any place as long as this folder also exists at the new place.
• The caption of the dialog to select a file for output has been changed.

• ActivFile logged an error message during each execution cycle when writing data to file. This bug has been fixed. Furthermore, writing arbitrary text by specifying it in the event WriteCustomizedText now works as expected.

• When the output switches to another file, now the event FileSwitched(sOldFileName As String, sNewFileName As String) is raised. With the Property RunsOutputted() you can determine how much runs have been written to the current file.

• In the dialog AVTOutputDataSelect, the sheet contained checkboxes that were bound to each other (multiple check boxes represented the same value). This has been changed by a new layout. Furthermore, the dialog now contains a checkbox to enable or disable output of ROI data for ActivAlignment.

• The User's Manual for ActivSerial is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• Right-clicking on AVTDIOBoardStatus now opens the DIO popup menu instead of setting the port status.
• The numbers of unassigned channels are now displayed in gray, whereas the numbers of assigned channels are displayed in black. Thus, you can see immediately which channels actually have an assignment.

• The User's Manual for ActivDigitalIO is available in a new edition. It has been updated and extended to reflect the changes in ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The example Visual Basic projects have been adapted to version 3.0.

• It was possible to open the property page for ActivGenericInterface at run time. This workaround was made obsolete by the new support tools AVTViewConnections and AVTViewProperties and thus has been removed.

• It was possible to open the property pages for ActivGUIComponents at run time. This workaround was made obsolete by the new support tools AVTViewConnections and AVTViewProperties and thus has been removed.
• AVTGUIComboBox now has a new property ValueIndex, which can be used to get or set the value as an enumeration index.

• The property Value of AVTGUIComboBox returned the index of the value instead of the value itself. This bug has been fixed.

• HALCON now also includes an interface to the BARRACUDA frame grabber boards from IDS Imaging GmbH.
• ActivVisionTools now also includes the interface BaumerFCAM for the IEEE 1394 cameras from Baumer Optronic.
• HALCON now also includes an interface to the DT3162 frame grabber boards from Data Translation.
• ActivVisionTools now also includes an interface to the Meteor-II frame grabber boards from Matrox.
• ActivVisionTools now also includes an interface to the uEye USB 2.0 cameras from IDS.

• The existing PicPort frame grabber interface has been renamed; the new Leutron interface supports the PicPort, PicPortPro, DigiPort, and PicProdigy boards. Note that the actual interface library is provided within the Leutron LV-SDS software and therefore is not included in ActivVisionTools 3.0. Please make sure that you use the new Leutron interface since the old PicPort interface is not fully compatible with ActivVisionTools 3.0.
• The existing PCEye frame grabber interface has been renamed and extended to support the current ELTEC p3i boards. Thus, the new p3i2 interface supports the p3i_ASYNC, p3i_MONO, p3i_QUADRO, and p3i_RGB boards; the new p3i4 interface supports the p3i_ALL, p3i_ALLM, p3i_ALLS, and p3i_CVBS boards.
• All HALCON frame grabber interfaces have been revised to allow a more generic integration into ActivVisionTools. Please refer to the corresponding documentation for information about additional changes, especially whether a new revision of the corresponding device driver is required.

• ActivVisionTools 3.0 now provide Native Language Support also for Chinese and Turkish.

• ActivViewer was not able to handle quotation marks for its command line parameter (the image to load on startup). In particular, this prevented opening an image from the Windows Explorer by selecting "Open With" from the popup menu. This bug has been fixed.
• The display of ActivViewer no longer flickers when resized.

• ActivVisionTools now uses version 9.5 of the FLEXlm license manager software. The underlying dongle drivers have also been updated to version 4.95 (HASP for USB dongles) and 5.41 (Sentinel for Parallel Port dongles) to ensure maximum compatibility with current Windows operating systems.