Industrial Communications Signals

The In-Sight device utilizes a fixed set of pre-named signals which can be used to transfer data and results to and/or from a PLC and the In-Sight device.

To control triggering from the PLC with the trigger control and status signals, the Trigger Mode property must be set to Industrial Ethernet, and the In-Sight ViDi PC or vision system must be online and the $System.OnlineEnabled tag must be True.

Note: The signals are shared between both EtherNet/IP and PROFINET, however, they are mapped into the systems differently. For the specifics of the signal mapping for each protocol, see the EtherNet/IP I/O Assembly Data Format Assemblies and In-Sight ViDi PC - PROFINET IO Module Reference Table topics.
Input Assembly Signal Description
Acquisition Error

This bit is set when an In-Sight device fails to acquire an image for one of the following reasons:

  • The Trigger Mode property is not set to Industrial Ethernet.
  • The In-Sight device is not online.
  • The $System.OnlineEnabled tag is False.
  • The In-Sight device is currently acquiring an image.
  • The In-Sight device is out of image buffers.

This bit is cleared when a successful acquisition is triggered, or the Trigger Enable bit is toggled.

Note: If the Trigger bit is set while the Trigger Enable bit is Low, this will result in an acquisition error, because the Trigger bit is ignored.
Acquisition ID This ID increments on the completion of every acquisition, regardless of the trigger source, and can be used to synchronize an acquisition with its Inspection Result. The Acquisition ID is changed on the start of an acquisition. If the PLC is the trigger source, the Acquisition ID is set prior to setting the Trigger Acknowledge bit.
Command Completed This bit is set when the command execution is completed, and cleared when the Execute Command bit has been cleared.
Command Executing This bit is set while a command execution is in progress.
Command Failed This bit is set on the completion of a command, if the command has failed to execute successfully, or if an unknown Command ID was set.
Command Result Code

This field is used to indicate the reason a command failed to execute successfully (the code is specific to the command executed):

  • 0x0000 = Command succeeded / unknown failure
  • 0x0002 = Bad command
  • 0x208D = Request is incompatible with system state
Error This bit is set when an error has occurred, which is defined in the Error ID field.
Error ID The bit holds a user-defined error code.
Exposure Complete This bit is set when the vision system/camera's image sensor is no longer exposed to light. It is used to indicate that the part being inspected can be moved from under the vision system/camera's field of view.
External Event Acknowledge The External Event Acknowledge will be generated after the associated script finishes its execution.
Inspection Completed This bit is toggled upon the completion of an inspection.
Inspection Image ID These bytes are used to provide the acquisition IDs for each of the images associated with this set of results.
Inspection ID The acquisition ID associated with this set of results.
Inspection Passed This bit indicates the pass and/or fail state of the inspection.
Inspection Result Code These bytes are used to pass the user-defined result code. The inspection result code is defined by the Result Code parameter of the WriteResultsBuffer function.
Inspection Results

These bytes of the inspection tool results can be written to the currently enabled factory communication protocol via the WriteResultsBuffer function.

Online This bit indicates that the In-Sight device is online and the $System.OnlineEnabled tag is True.
Paused This bit indicates the state of the $System.OnlineEnabledComm.
Results Buffer Overrun This bit is set when the Enable Results Buffer bit is set, and there are more results than the result queue can hold.
Results Valid This bit is set when the Inspected Image ID, Inspection Result Code and Inspection Results fields are valid. The bit is cleared when the Inspection Results Acknowledge bit is set.
Set User Data Acknowledge This bit is set to acknowledge completion of the Set User Data command.
System Ready This bit indicates when an In-Sight device has fully started and is ready to accept and process triggers.
Trigger Acknowledge This bit indicates when an In-Sight device has been successfully triggered via the Trigger bit. The Trigger Acknowledge bit will stay set until the Trigger bit is cleared.
Trigger Ready This bit indicates when an In-Sight device can accept a new trigger via the Trigger bit. This field is true when the Trigger Enable bit is set, and the vision system/camera is not currently acquiring an image.
Output Assembly Signal Description
Buffer Results Enable When this bit is set, the Inspection ID, Inspection Result and Inspection Results fields are held constant until the Inspection Results Acknowledge field has acknowledged them and been set. Up to 16 sets of results are held in the buffer. Each result must be explicitly acknowledged using the Inspection Results Acknowledge signal.
Clear Error When this bit is set, it will clear the Error and Error ID signals; the Clear Error bit should be held high until the Error bit has been cleared. If an error has been queued, clearing this bit will cause the Error and Error ID signals to be set to the next queued error code.
Clear Exposure Complete When this signal is held high, the Exposure Complete status will remain reset. Once this signal is set to low, the Exposure Complete status will be set to high on the next exposure completion.
Execute Command When the Execute Command bit is set to high, the Command ID signal is read by the vision system and the associated command is executed. The signal must be held high until the Command Completed bit is set. Once the Command Completed bit is set, clearing the Execute Command bit will also clear the Command Completed bit.
External Event Setting the External Event allows the PLC to trigger an associated event in the Spreadsheet.
Set Paused When this bit is set, the In-Sight vision system is paused and the state of the $System.OnlineEnabledComm is false.
Trigger Enable This field is set to enable triggering via the Trigger bit. Clear this bit to disable the network triggering mechanism.
Command ID

This field indicates the command that will be executed on the rising edge of the Execute Command bit. This signal should not be changed until the Command Completed bit has been set.

  • 0-0x0fff = Reserved
  • 0x1000-0x1fff = Reserved
  • 0x2000 = Set the $System.ProcessinEnabled tag to False
  • 0x2001 = Set the $System.ProcessinEnabled tag to True
  • 0x2002-0xFFFF = Reserved
Inspection Results Acknowledge When the Buffer Results Enable bit is set, the Inspection Results Acknowledge bit acknowledges that the PLC has received the Inspected Image ID, Inspection Result Code and Inspection Results data.
Set User Data This bit is used to signal that new User Data is available to be read in the vision system. After latching the entire User Data area into a holding buffer, the vision system will indicate to the PLC that it has read the data, and it can start loading new data into the buffer, if required, by issuing the Set User Data Acknowledge signal.
Trigger Setting the Trigger bit will trigger an acquisition on the vision system or specified camera. The Trigger Enable bit must also be set.
User Data Data buffer which can be read into the spreadsheet using the ReadUserDataBuffer function. The buffer is written exactly as it appears in the PLC, with the bits appearing in the same order as they are defined in RSLogix 5000.