MVTec and the Hilscher start a technical partnership to facilitate easier integration of image processing and process automation. By combining MVTec software products and Hilscher PC cards, powerful machine vision applications can be easily and seamlessly integrated into any process control system. Thus, for example, the image processing software MVTec Merlic can communicate with all commonly used, programmable logic controllers (PLC). Through the partnership, customers benefit from the perfect bundling of two market-leading and mutually compatible technologies.

The optimized process integration on the part of MVTec relies heavily on the application interface (API) of the Hilscher cifX PC card family. This API provides a common interface for all PC cards offered by the manufacturer in all common form factors. Users of MVTec Merlic and MVTec Halcon can choose between all common fieldbus and real-time Ethernet industry protocols such as Profinet, Ethercat and many other standards.

Thanks to the stringent Hilscher platform strategy, all cifX PC cards always use the same drivers and tools in addition to the standard API - regardless of protocol and card format. By integrating the multi-protocol netX processor, all real-time Ethernet protocols can be implemented with one hardware - a protocol change takes place by purely reloading the firmware.