Modbus TCP Factory Interface

Modbus TCP Data Blocks

The defined data blocks allow you to control where the vision system is reading and writing data to and from the PLC. For easier application setup, the various control and status bits required for command functionality are grouped into contiguous blocks, which can be processed together.

Block	Byte	Bit 7	Bit 6	Bit 5	Bit 4	Bit 3	Bit 2	Bit 1	Bit 0
Vision Control	0	Set Offline	Reserved	Execute Command	Inspection Results Ack	Buffer Results Enable	Trigger	Trigger Enable
1	Reserved
2	Reserved	Clear Exposure Complete	Clear Error	Initiate String Command	Set User Data
3	External Event 7	External Event 6	External Event 5	External Event 4	External Event 3	External Event 2	External Event 1	External Event 0

Vision Status	0	Online	Offline Reason	AcqError	Reserved	Trigger Ack	Trigger Ready
1	Error	Command Failed	Command Completed	Command Executing	Results Valid	Results Buffer Overrun	Inspection Completed	Reserved
2	Reserved	Job Pass	Exposure Complete	String Command Error	String Command Ack	Set User Data Ack
3	External Event Ack 7	External Event Ack 6	External Event Ack 5	External Event Ack 4	External Event Ack 3	External Event Ack 2	External Event Ack 1	External Event Ack 0

Block

Byte

Bit 7

Bit 6

Bit 5

Bit 4

Bit 3

Bit 2

Bit 1

Bit 0

Vision

Control

Set

Offline

Reserved

Execute

Command

Inspection

Results

Ack

Buffer

Results

Enable

Trigger

Enable

Reserved

Clear

Exposure

Complete

Clear

Error

Initiate

String

Command

Set

User

Data

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

External

Event

Vision

Status

Online

Offline Reason

AcqError

Reserved

Trigger

Ack

Trigger

Ready

Error

Command

Failed

Command

Completed

Command

Executing

Results

Valid

Results

Buffer

Overrun

Inspection

Completed

Reserved

Job

Pass

Exposure

Complete

String

Command

Error

String

Command

Ack

Set

User

Data

Ack

External

Event

Ack 7

External

Event

Ack 6

External

Event

Ack 5

External

Event

Ack 4

External

Event

Ack 3

External

Event

Ack 2

External

Event

Ack 1

External

Event

Ack 0

Block	Word	Name
Input	0	Command
Input	1 - 2000	User Data

Output	0	Current Job ID
	1	Error Code
	2	Acquisition ID
	3	Inspection ID
	4	Inspection Result Code
	5 - 2004	Inspection Results

String Command	0	String Command Length
String Command	1 - 960	String Command

String Command Result	0	Result Code
	1	String Command Result Length
	2 - 961	String Command Result

Vision Control Block

Byte 0

Bit	Name	Description
7	Set Offline	When this bit is set, the In-Sight vision system is taken Offline until the bit is cleared again.
6-5	Reserved	Unused.
4	Execute Command	When set, the vision system either loads the job ID specified in the Command field or executes the Job Load by Name command to load the job name given in the User Data buffer. The signal must be held high until the Command Completed signal is toggled. The falling edge of this signal (if prior to Command Complete) is interpreted as an abort request.
3	Inspection Results Ack	When the Buffer Results Enable bit is set, the Inspection Results Ack bit is set by the PLC to acknowledge that it has received the Inspection Count, Inspection Result Code and Inspection Results data. The next set of inspection results is then sent to the PLC. Clearing the Inspection Results Ack bit causes the vision system to set the Results Valid bit if the buffer is not empty.
2	Buffer Results Enable	When this bit is set, the Inspection Count, Inspection Result Code and Inspection Results fields are held constant until they are acknowledged by setting the Inspection Results Ack bit. Up to eight inspections are held in the buffer of the In-Sight vision system. The vision system responds to the acknowledgment by clearing the Results Valid bit. Once the Inspection Results Ack bit is cleared and there is a new set of results sent to the PLC, the Results Valid bit is no longer cleared. If the Inspection Results Ack bit is cleared and there are no more results in the buffer of the vision system that are to be sent to the PLC, the Results Valid bit remains cleared.
1	Trigger	Setting this bit triggers an acquisition when the following conditions are met: The In-Sight vision system is Online. The Trigger Enable bit is set. The Trigger parameter of the AcquireImage function is set to External, Network or Industrial Ethernet. Note: Make sure to use the Industrial Ethernet Trigger type when the trigger is coming from a PLC.
0	Trigger Enable	This field is set to enable triggering through the Trigger bit. Clear this bit to disable the network triggering mechanism.

Byte 1

Bit	Name	Description
7-1	Reserved	Unused.

Byte 2

Bit	Name	Description
7-4	Reserved	Unused.
3	Clear Exposure Complete	While this signal is High, the Exposure Complete status remains reset. Once this signal is set to Low, the Exposure Complete status is set to High on the next exposure completion.
2	Clear Error	When this bit is set, it clears the Error and Error Code signals. The Clear Error bit must be held high until the Error bit has been cleared. If an error has been queued, clearing this bit causes the Error and Error Code signals to be set to the next queued error code.
1	Initiate String Command	When this bit is set, it reads the data from the String Command field and execute the string command. Upon reading the command, the String Cmd Ack bit is set. This bit should be held High until the vision system sets the String Cmd Ack bit to ensure that the vision system has received the command.
0	Set User Data	This command is used by the PLC to indicate to the In-Sight vision system that it should transfer the User Data field into a holding buffer for consumption by the vision system.

Byte 3

Bit	Name	Description
7	External Event 7	Allows Spreadsheet external events to be triggered. Setting any of these bits causes the associated external event in Spreadsheet to be triggered.
6	External Event 6
5	External Event 5
4	External Event 4
3	External Event 3
2	External Event 2
1	External Event 1
0	External Event 0

Vision Status Block

Byte 0

Bit

Name

Description

Online

This bit is set when the In-Sight vision system is Online, and cleared when the vision system is Offline. When the vision system is Offline, examine the Offline Reason field to determine the reason.

6-4

Offline Reason

This field is a 3-bit field used to identify the cause of why an In-Sight vision system is Offline:

Offline Reason	Name	Description
0	Online	The vision system is Online.
1	Programming	The current job is being modified on the vision system.
2	Discrete Offline	A discrete signal is holding the vision system Offline.
3	Comm. Offline	A communications protocol is holding the vision system Offline.

Note: It is possible to have multiple devices holding the In-Sight vision system Offline. In this scenario, this field will return the channel with the lowest reason code.

Acq Error

Set when an In-Sight vision system misses an acquisition trigger, regardless how the acquisition was triggered. Cleared when an acquisition is successfully triggered.

Note: If the Trigger bit is set, but the vision system is offline, the Acq Error and Trigger Ack bits are both set.

Reserved

Unused.

Trigger Ack

Indicates when an In-Sight vision system has been triggered by the Trigger bit being set. This bit stays set until the Trigger bit is cleared. In addition, the Acquisition ID can be latched to the rising edge of this bit.

Note: If the Trigger bit is set, but the vision system is offline, the Acq Error and Trigger Ack bits are both set.

Trigger Ready

Indicates when an In-Sight vision system can accept a new trigger through the Trigger bit. This field is true when the vision system is Online, the Trigger Enable bit is set, the Trigger parameter of the AcquireImage function is set to Network, External or Industrial Ethernet, and the vision system is not currently acquiring an image.

The Industrial Ethernet Trigger type must be used when the trigger is coming from a PLC.

Byte 1

Bit	Name	Description
7	Error	This bit is set when an error has occurred, which is defined in the Error Code field.
6	Command Failed	This bit is set to 1 to indicate that Job Load has failed to run to completion. It is cleared when a new job is loaded by the PLC/HMI. If the job is changed through In-Sight Spreadsheet, this bit does not change. This bit is always set prior to setting the Command Completed bit.
5	Command Completed	When a Command completes, the Command Executing bit goes low, and if the Execute Command bit is still high, the Command Completed bit is set. If the Command did not successfully complete, the Command Failed bit is also set.
4	Command Executing	This bit is set to 1 when Job Load is started. The Command Completed and Command Failed bits will be set prior to the falling edge of this bit.
3	Results Valid	Set when the Inspection Count, Inspection Result Code, Inspection Results and/or Job Pass bits are set. The bit is cleared when the Inspection Results Ack bit is set. Note: If job processing is enabled to occur in overlapped mode, either the Buffer Results Enable bit must be enabled/set, or the Inspection Completed bit must be used to latch the inspection results.
2	Results Buffer Overrun	This field is set when the Buffer Results Enable bit is set and the In-Sight vision system has discarded a set of inspection results because the PLC has not acknowledged the results by setting the Inspection Results Ack bit. Up to eight inspections are held in the buffer of the vision system. Therefore, this bit is set when the ninth inspection is added to the buffer. The ninth inspection, and all subsequent inspections, are dropped until there is room in the buffer, when the results have been acknowledged out. The bit is not cleared until a valid inspection occurs and a previous inspection is not overwritten.
1	Inspection Completed	This bit is toggled upon the completion of an inspection. It is guaranteed to be toggled after the Inspection Count, Inspection Result Code, Inspection Results and/or Job Pass bits are sent to the PLC.
0	Reserved	Unused.

Byte 2

Bit

Name

Description

7-5

Reserved

Unused.

Job Pass

This bit is set if the most recent job passed as configured in the Job Pass/Fail Cell Setup dialog. This bit is cleared if the job did not pass.

The behavior of the Job Pass bit depends on whether or not results buffering is disabled or enabled:

Buffering Is Disabled	Buffering Is Enabled
Set when an inspection is completed and the Job Pass/Fail cell indicates pass. Otherwise, it remains cleared. The Job Pass bit is valid prior to toggling the Inspection Completed bit.	Set when new results are placed in the InspectionResults attribute and the Job Pass/Fail cell indicated pass for that result set. Otherwise, it remains cleared. The state does not change until the results are acknowledged by setting the InspectionResultsAck attribute to True, at which time the bit is cleared. The Job Pass bit is valid prior to the Results Valid bit being set.

Exposure Complete

This bit is set upon the completion of the In-Sight vision system exposure period, and is reset by the Clear Exposure Complete bit. This bit is held in a reset state if the Clear Exposure Complete signal is set to High.

String Command Error

This bit indicates whether or not the result of the previous string command returned a failure code.

String Command Ack

This bit is set when the vision system completes processing of a command and generates a response to the command. After the vision system has set this bit, the PLC can safely read the string command response data. The bit is reset after the PLC clears the Initiate String Command bit. The PLC must clear the Initiate String Command bit and wait for the String Command Ack bit to return to a Low state before initiating a new command.

Set User Data Ack

This bit is set to acknowledge completion of the Set User Data command.

Byte 3

Bit	Name	Description
7	External Event Ack 7	These bits are used to indicate that the External Event command was received.
6	External Event Ack 6
5	External Event Ack 5
4	External Event Ack 4
3	External Event Ack 3
2	External Event Ack 2
1	External Event Ack 1
0	External Event Ack 0

Output Block

Word 0

Name	Description
Current Job ID	A 16-bit integer that denotes the ID number of the currently running job on the vision system, or 65535 if the current job does not have an ID number. This field is updated when the job is changed on the vision system, regardless of method of job change.

Word 1

Name

Description

Error Code

A 16-bit numeric representation of the error that has occurred:

Code	Error	Description
0x0000	No Error	No error occurred.
0x0100	Trigger set while disabled	Occurs when the Trigger bit is set while the Trigger Enable bit is cleared and the Trigger parameter of the AcquireImage function is set to External, Network or Industrial Ethernet.
0x0101	Trigger set while Offline	Occurs when the Trigger bit is set while the vision system is Offline.
0x0400	Already Executing Error	Occurs when the Execute Command bit is set and the Executing bit is still High.
0x0401	Job load requested while Online	Occurs when a Job Load command is issued while the vision system is Online.
0x0402	Job load requested does not exist on the camera	Occurs when a JobID sent in the Command field does not exist as a prefix for any job in the file system. For example, if you send Command = 123 and no job on the camera contains 123xxxxx.job.

Word 2

Name	Description
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

Name

Description

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

Word 3

Name	Description
Acquisition ID	This ID increments at the beginning of an acquisition and when the Trigger Ack bit is set. This ID can be used to synchronize an acquisition with its Inspection Results.

Word 4

Name	Description
Inspection ID	The acquisition ID associated with this set of results.

Word 5

Name	Description
Inspection Result Code	The inspection result code is defined by the Result Code parameter of the WriteResultsBuffer function. For more information, see WriteResultsBuffer.

Word 6 - 2005

Name	Description
Inspection Results	Inspection result data written from the spreadsheet, using the WriteResultsBuffer function. For more information, see WriteResultsBuffer.

Input Block

Word 0

Name	Description
Command	This is a 16-bit integer used to either indicate the Job ID number (0-999) of the job to load, or to specify the Job Load by Name command (0x4000). The job load is executed when the Execute Command bit is set by the PLC. The Command field must be held constant between the rising edge of the Execute Command signal and the rising edge of the Command Completed signal, or the results will be indeterminate. If using the Job Load by Name command, the job name must be transferred to the User Data buffer before setting the Execute Command bit.

Name

Description

Command

This is a 16-bit integer used to either indicate the Job ID number (0-999) of the job to load, or to specify the Job Load by Name command (0x4000). The job load is executed when the Execute Command bit is set by the PLC. The Command field must be held constant between the rising edge of the Execute Command signal and the rising edge of the Command Completed signal, or the results will be indeterminate. If using the Job Load by Name command, the job name must be transferred to the User Data buffer before setting the Execute Command bit.

Word 1 - 2000

Name	Description
User Data	Data buffer which can be read into the spreadsheet using the ReadUserDataBuffer function. For more information, see ReadUserDataBuffer.

String Command Block

Word 0

Name	Description
String Command Length	The length of the Native Mode command. For more information, see Native Mode Commands.

Word 1 - 960

Name	Description
String Command	The Native Mode command to be processed by the vision system. For more information, see Native Mode Commands.

String Command Result Block

Word 0

Name	Description
Result Code	The response code for the Native Mode command, which can be used to determine if the command was successful, or failed. Note: Each Native Mode command returns a 1 for a successful execution, while each command has specific error codes for cases of failure. Review the individual Native Mode command topics for more information about the failure codes. For more information, see Native Mode Commands.

Name

Description

Result Code

The response code for the Native Mode command, which can be used to determine if the command was successful, or failed.

Note: Each Native Mode command returns a 1 for a successful execution, while each command has specific error codes for cases of failure. Review the individual Native Mode command topics for more information about the failure codes. For more information, see Native Mode Commands.

Word 1

Name	Description
String Command Result Length	The length of the Response Data for the Native Mode command, in bytes.

Word 2 - 961

Name	Description
String Command Result	The result string of the Native Mode command, an ASCII string representation of the data returned by the command.

Modbus TCP Address Map

Note:

The Vision Control Block, Vision Status Block, Output Block and String Command Result Block are mapped to two separate locations. The reason for this double-mapping is that some PLCs can only access the Holding Register portion of the address space (for example, they only support function codes 3 and 16). The double-mapping allows those PLCs that can only access Holding Registers to successfully access all signals and data. However, PLCs that support the full function code set can access these blocks in their optimal address map locations. Please note that you can access either the optimal block location or the Holding Register location, but not both.
Natively, the Modbus TCP protocol uses zero based offsets for addressing. The address map diagram below shows the block locations using zero based offset. If your PLC uses Schneider form addressing, simply add the zero based offsets shown in the address map to the base Schneider address. For example, to access the Input Block using Schneider form addressing, you must add the Input Block offset (2000) to the Schneider base address for Holding Registers (400000). Therefore, in Schneider form, the Input Block starts at 402000.

Modbus TCP supports four distinct address spaces. There are 2 bit address space and 2 word (16-bit) address spaces.

Coil: Bit type address space. Output from PLC, input to vision system
Discrete Input: Bit type address space. Input to PLC, output from vision system
Holding Register: Word type address space. Both Input & Output from vision system
Input Register: Word type address space. Input to PLC, output from vision system

Block Name	Address Space	Offset	Schneider Form Addressing	Quantity
Vision Control	Coil	0	000000 – 000031	1 – 32
Vision Control	Holding Register	0	400000 – 400001	1 – 2
Vision Status	Discrete Input	0	100000 – 100031	1 – 32
Vision Status	Holding Register	100	400100 – 400101	1 – 2
Input	Holding Register	2000	402000 – 404000	1 – 2001
Output	Holding Register	7000	407000 – 409005	1 – 2006
Output	Input Register	2000	302000 – 304005	1 – 2006
String Command	Holding Register	1000	401000 – 401999	1 – 1000
String Command Result	Input Register	1000	301000 – 301999	1 – 1000
String Command Result	Holding Register	6000	406000 – 406999	1 – 1000

Address (000000) Coil Read / Write (0x01 ,0x05, 0x0F)	Address (100000) Discrete Input Read (0x02)	Address (400000) Holding Read / Write (0x03 ,0x10)	Address (300000) Input Register Read (0x04)