May 31, 2012 
Cognex® Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX), the world's leading supplier of machine vision systems, today announced the release of SensorView® 2, a new smart display for Checker® machine vision sensors. With SensorView 2, production engineers can fully configure, test and monitor Checker 4G vision sensors, without a PC being required at any stage.
The SensorView display has a large 8.9" touch screen, making it easy to use and view on the factory floor. With built-in Ethernet-based communication, SensorView 2 can be installed anywhere Checkers are connected to a network. The SensorView software has the same familiar user interface as the standard Checker PC software, so no additional training is required to use it.
“Our research showed that production engineers find it very difficult to set up vision sensors with displays that typically are smaller than the screen on their cell phone,” says Joerg Kuechen, Business Unit Manager for Cognex Vision Sensors. “As a result, with SensorView 2, we selected a much larger touch screen display for setting up and controlling Checker.”
The new SensorView 2 display is just one of a number of new developments of the Checker product family that are designed to increase the range of applications where Checker can be used and to make deployment easier than ever before.
The first of these developments is the new Checker 4G7S, which can solve simple presence/absence applications at a lower entry-level price. The Checker 4G7S has the same 752x480 resolution and optional colored lighting and filters as the higher end models in the Checker 4G product family.
The second important development is the new Checker SDK (Software Developers’ Toolkit). The SDK allows OEMs to integrate Checker into their custom HMI (Human Machine Interface) and to select the parameters needed for run-time control. OEMs can display inspection statistics, view images from multiple Checkers, create image databases and perform job changeovers. The SDK makes it easy for OEMs to fully integrate Checker into the machines they build.
Kuechen concludes, “With Ethernet-based PLC communication, a wide range of easy-to-understand vision tools and the new large touch screen display, we believe that Checker is the ideal vision sensor to meet the needs of today’s busy production engineers.”
SensorView 2, Checker 4G7S and the Checker SDK are all available now. For more information, visit www.cognex.com/Checker.
Cognex Corporation designs, develops, manufactures and markets a range of products that incorporate sophisticated machine vision technology that gives them the ability to “see.” Cognex products include bar code readers, machine vision sensors and machine vision systems that are used in factories, warehouses and distribution centers around the world to guide, gauge, inspect, identify and assure the quality of items during the manufacturing and distribution process. Cognex is the world's leader in the machine vision industry, having shipped more than 750,000 vision-based products, representing over $3 billion in cumulative revenue, since the company's founding in 1981. Headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, USA, Cognex has regional offices and distributors located throughout North America, Japan, Europe, Asia and Latin America. For details, visit Cognex on-line at http://www.cognex.com.
