# Developing a Cognex Designer Project

This section covers how to use the development environment of Cognex Designer to create a machine vision application, and the topics provide information about the functional areas of Designer.

For more information about the Cognex Designer development environment, see the Cognex Designer Integrated Development Environment topics.

Cognex Designer is used to solve complex machine vision applications by breaking down the development of the application into functional areas. Developing a project in Designer involves the following:

1. Add the Cameras and Communications Devices that will provide the data for your application.

   - From the Project Explorer, add and connect the Devices for your project.

2. Tasks are added to process the data, and are configured in a Task. This is the area of the application where you will define the vision processing capabilities, and the inputs and outputs to the system:

   - Task Blocks execute from left to right, and provide results for other blocks. Connect all of the functional blocks by connecting their input and output pins.
   - Layout the blocks, using Groups and Parallel Regions to structure the execution order.

3. Define the flow of data:

   - Utilize the Tag Manager to exchange information and data throughout the application. Tags will automatically route the data from Tasks to a Page, a Database and/or I/O, for example.
   - Using the Scripting tools, create custom scripts to interact with the data and tools in the project.
   - Use Recipes to save and utilize tags for different settings and configurations of your application.
   - Create Databases for storing data from the project.
   - Configure Users and their access to the project.
   - Add Alarms to notify you when there is a problem with the project.
   - Use Components to monitor the project.

4. Create the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for operator interaction with the application during runtime. This is done using Pages, which are used to convey the produced data for operator interaction.

   - Design the HMI interface using Page User Inputs, Page Graphics, Page Data Display and Page Vision Controls and Displays elements.
5. Put your project in Test Mode to ensure that everything is functioning properly.
6. Deploy the Designer project to your application. See the Deploying a Cognex Designer Project for more information.

## Project Templates

You can jump-start your project development by creating a project using a Project Template. Project Templates prepopulate your project with predefined elements, such as camera devices, VisionPro tool blocks, script blocks, and GUIs and HMIs\, saving you the time you would normally expend if creating these components from scratch.

For complete details on using project Templates, and a comprehensive example see the section Accelerating Development With Predefined Project Types