The Image Average tool edit control provides a graphical user interface to the CogImageAverageTool tool, which you use to accumulate a number of acquired images of the same scene and generate an average image. Generating an average image can be helpful for reducing image noise or for generating a reliable image where lighting can be erratic. In addition to the average image, the tool can also calculate a standard deviation image, where lighter pixels indicate a higher degree of variation between images. The following figure shows the Image Average tool edit control:

The edit control offers the following features:

• A row of control buttons at the top left provide access to the most common operations.
• A set of function tabs allow you to choose whether to generate a standard deviation image, choose an input region, and determine what graphics the tool will use.
• An image display window displays acquired images and the output images the Image Average tool generates.

You can experiment with the edit control by using QuickBuild to create a CogImageAverage tool. A new CogImageAverage tool appears with the input terminals for the input image and the average image, as shown in the following figure:

The following table describes the function of each button:

Table 1. Control buttons

Button	Description	Function
	Run	Add the latest input image and generate the average image, and the standard deviation image if requested.
	Electric mode	Toggle electric mode, where the Image Average tool executes automatically when particular configuration parameters change. In electric mode, a lightning bolt appears next to every electric property.
	Local image display	Open or close the local image display window. A Image Average tool supports the following image buffers: The Current.InputImage buffer contains the next image the tool will analyze plus the graphic for the input region. The LastRun.AverageImage buffer contains the last average image the tool generated. The LastRun.StandardDeviationImage buffer contains the last standard deviation image the tool generated. The LastRun.InputImage buffer contains the last image processed by the Image Average tool along with any graphics you enable from the Graphics tab. The LastRun.TransformedRegionPixels contains the affine-transformed image, but only if you have specified Affine Transform for the Region Mode and you have supplied a CogRectangleAffine for the input region.
	Floating image display	Open a floating image window, which supports the same image buffers as the local image display window.
	Open	Open a VisionPro persistence (.vpp) file that contains a set of saved properties for this vision tool object type. VisionPro reports an error if you try to open a .vpp file for another object type.
	Save	Save the current properties of the vision tool to a VisionPro persistence (.vpp) file. The edit control allows you to choose between saving the vision tool with or without its image buffers and tool results.
	Save As	Save the current properties of the vision tool to a new VisionPro persistence (.vpp) file.
	Reset	Reset the vision tool to its default state. The tool gives you a choice between resetting to the default-constructed state, which is appropriate when you are using it in a Visual Studio.NET application, and its template-initialized state, which is appropriate for QuickBuild applications.
	Show ToolTips	Enable or disable the display of tooltips for individual items in the edit control.
	Help	Open this VisionPro online help file.

Use the Settings tab to determine whether the output image contains pixels from the input image or a constant grey value, and how the tool handles pixels outside the input region but within the borders of the region bounding box. The following figure shows the default Settings tab:

Use the Settings tab to configure the tool to generate a standard deviation image, view the number of images used to create the current average image, and reset the average image to a blank image.

The Settings tab offers the following controls:

Use the Region tab to select the shape of the input region. The following figure shows the Region tab:

Use the following options to configure the input region:

Use the Graphics tab to specify the graphics that the tool generates and displays. The following figure shows the Graphics tab:

Enable either of the following options:

Enable any of the following options: