Test runs of the standard machine vision software Halcon Embedded on the mobile phone Nokia N900 have shown an outstanding performance. The tests also have proven that applications based on Halcon can successfully be built for the Nokia N900. First, the application can be developed with Halcon on a PC. After this, the exported code is compiled for the Nokia N900 to run the application on this mobile platform.

Thus, all image processing applications are possible which are interesting for mobile platforms as there are character recognition (OCR), reading of documents, bar code and data code reading, pattern matching, and the counting of objects. Moreover, Halcon provides image enhancement and an automatic calibration for camera lens distortions.

The benefit of a mobile phone is obvious: By the integrated camera, data can be acquired at any place. As an example, the figure shows how an electric meter can be automatically read-out by the Nokia N900 and Halcon. After the processing, data can be transmitted worldwide fast.

With this step, Halcon Embedded for the first time runs on hardware beyond the classical machine vision platforms. This enables users in new application fields to also take advantage of powerful machine vision.