How to set up Halcon for use with Swing Catalyst.

The release of Swing Catalyst 6.0 brings support for three of the most common machine vision standards.

USB3 Vision GigE Vision GENiCAM

Before You Start

This article predominantly covers the installation of Halcon, installation of the license and a rudimentary setup of a Ximea USB3 camera. We cannot guarantee compatibility with newer versions and Swing Catalyst does not support newer versions of Halcon than Halcon 12.

For more information on how to find out if you camera supports Halcon please see: How to find what standards your cameras support for use with Halcon.

WARNING

Swing Catalyst does not support newer versions of HALCON above version 12.

Halcon 12 supports: GenAPI v2.4.1.

USB License dongle driver is incompatible with Windows 10 & 11!

When you install Halcon it's very important to uncheck "Install Driver for USB Dongles" when installing, otherwise your computer will crash on startup.

For details on how to install the new USB driver please see our support article:

Computer Bluescreens when connecting Halcon USB license dongle

Please see the articles specific to your camera for configuring it in Swing Catalyst after installing Halcon for vendor specific configurations.

Hardware requirements:

Universal Camera Support dongle or license locked to network card.
Camera(s) compliant with USB3 Vision, GigE Vision or GenICam standards.
Spare USB port for the licensing dongle.

Please make sure your hardware is compatible with the manufacturers recommendations.

Note: Manufacturer specific camera configuration can be found towards the bottom of this article.

More information

Ximea USB3 Vision information: http://www.ximea.com/en/usb3-vision-camera/usb3zone
Point Grey USB3 Vision information: http://www.ptgrey.com/usb3-vision-cameras

Basler USB3 Vision Information: http://www.baslerweb.com/en/support/knowledge-base/frequently-asked-questions
GenICam (Generic Interface for Cameras): http://www.emva.org/standards-technology/genicam/

Software requirements

Halcon license file. You should have received this via email.
Please make sure you are running the latest Halcon version installed, if you get a warning in Swing Catalyst, please contact support for assistance.

Installing Halcon

The Halcon runtime can be found on our Downloads page, or can be downloaded directly from here.
Once downloaded, right click on the file and click "Extract All".
Open the extracted folder and run the installer.

Open the installer and follow the on-screen instructions along with the step by step instructions below.
Select "Install x64 version".
From "Choose Components", you can deselect all components except "Runtime x64".
In the "Additional Drivers" section please make sure to uncheck "Install driver for USB dongles", this is important.
If you have a GigE camera make sure to check "Install MVTec GigE Vision Streaming Filter".
Installing the license file, select "I have a license file that should be installed" and point it to the license file you should have received from your sales or support agent.
Proceed with the on-screen instructions.