# SLMP Protocol Scanner Operations

Signals sent by the In-Sight vision system through SLMP are combined into data blocks when transferred between the camera and the Mitsubishi PLC/MC. In-Sight Vision Suite and the In-Sight adapter support four types of such data blocks:

- Control block, used to send control commands (including triggers) to the vision system.
- Status block, used to indicate the status of the vision system.
- Input block, used to input application data to the PLC/MC (including parameters for inspection).
- Output block, used to output application data to the PLC/MC (including inspection results).

Data blocks contain either bit-type or word-type data (see the SLMP – Device Addressing topic of the In-Sight Vision Suite Help for more information on using these data types). Bit-type data is stored in bit registers in the PLC/MC, while word-type data is stored in word registers in the PLC/MC. Due to this differentiation, bit data is never combined with word data in a data block to ensure that these data items are addressed separately in the PLC/MC. The various data blocks also fulfill different functions where it makes sense to avoid communicating large data items that may not be needed by certain applications.

To make vision applications easier to setup, In-Sight Vision Suite groups the various control and status bits required for the command functionality into contiguous blocks, so that they can be processed together. Therefore, configure the starting address and the device type for each data block when setting up the connection between the vision system and the Mitsubishi PLC/MC.

Refer to the SLMP Configuration topic of the In-Sight Vision Suite Help for more information on how to configure the SLMP configuration and the supported data blocks for the In-Sight IDE. See the specific data block-related settings described in the following tables when configuring the SLMP connection for a specific job.