We recently purchased Dell Lattitude 10 tablets for use on our shop floor. We have checklists that operators must fill out every hour or so. It forces them to walk the production line and observe key processes and report their condition. We wrote the checklist app as an ignition project. It turned out really awesome because the tablet (being on the wifi network) knows the “operating mode” of all the equipment and we can vary spec limits for these process variables by mode and on the fly. The fact that it is a windows 8 tablet and are not bound by the mobile module is very nice.
We are considering automating some of the data collection by using a barcode or QR code on equipment and associated paperwork. The thought is to use the tablet’s integrated webcam.
I need a little help getting my module ready for deployment into ignition. I have read through the documentation and am still a little confused where to start.
I have developed an application in Eclipse in Java using the Java JDK, ZXing 2.1 and JavaCV (a java port of OpenCV). The application aquires images from webcam on the tablet and hunts for the QR code, Datamatrix, or 1D barcodes. The application opens a JFrame and shows the camera preview. It continuously hunts for a barcode and when it finds one, returns the value and closes the form.
Ok, so far that is all developed and working fine as a standalone app (I would still like to figure out how to turn on the camera flash, but i’ll work on that later). Now I need a little insight on where to go next.
I would like to press a button in ignition and have this thing popup, aquire an image, decode, and close, passing the decoded data back to a textbox or tag.