A system for interactively generating a computer program for machine vision analysis insures that the program is correct by permitting the operator to make only syntactically correct modifications to the program. The system includes an element for storing the computer program being generated. A further element displays the program to the operator. A positioning element demarks a location of interest within the program. A menu element displays permissible programming modifications for the location of interest. The menu element incorporates in its display of permissible programming modifications statements for machine vision analysis of an object image, e.g., calls to machine vision subroutines and functions. To facilitate specification of input parameters to those subroutines and functions, the imaging element can generate a candidate image of the object upon which the machine vision analysis is to be run. A graphical input element displays over that candidate image a graphical icon that the operator can manipulate to specify the parameters. A textual input element can display an icon, e.g., a dialog box, prompting the operator to designate textually input parameters for the machine vision tool. An update element responds to the operator selection by appropriately modifying the stored program.

A compiler for a digital signal processor allows the designer to specify separately function, accuracy and throughput. The compiler employs a word structure having the signal attributes of bits, digits and subwords which all have a direct relationship to the size of the processor and throughput. From a budget of working bits and clock cycles implicit in the specification of accuracy and throughput the compiler is able to choose the optimal word structure for the application. The compiler can also propagate throughout an icon network, used for the specification of function, various estimation attributes such as word growth and quantisation noise, which allow the designer to observe the effect of design changes without recourse to simulation. A specific example of design employing a specified architecture and a specified computational grain is explained.

Connection relationships among prepared program modules are stored so that the modules and the relationships form a network structure that is directed from an initial state through an end state, and a program is generated by determining a path on the network structure and by combining modules along the path. In one aspect of the present invention, the determination of the path is performed in an interactive manner. In another aspect of the present invention, the determination of the path is performed by an inference device that issues user-friendly interrogations to a user and sequentially fixes the path in the network structure according to answers to the interrogations and to conditions effected by selected modules. The network is preferably pruned by taking necessity of modules and/or interaction relationships between modules into account before the path is inferred.

A program generator including: a character/figure separating device for separating characters and line graphics from an input flowchart image. A character recognizing device performs character recognition on the separated character portion and a figure recognizing device extracts symbols from the line graphics. A program code generating device generates instructions corresponding to the symbols and generates a program code by combining the generated instructions with the results of the character recognition that corresponds to the positions in which the symbols have been extracted. In the program generator, an image signifying the procedure of program processing which is composed of characters and line graphics, represented in a format easy for users to understand, is separated into an image in the character region and an image in the line graphics region and those images are subjected to individual recognition, with the results of recognition being combined to generate a coded program that is compatible with automatic machine processing. Hence, a desired computer program can be prepared by simple steps in a rapid and accurate way.

A programmable controller (PC) for controlling equipments in accordance with a sequence program. A program memory is provided with an equipment code storage region for storing global equipment codes for indicating the equipments each of which is allotted an individual I/O address. When an equipment code is input, an equipment code interpreter determines the local I/O address which corresponds to the equipment code. The equipment code is composed of a PC number code, an equipment type code, an equipment number code and the like. The equipment code is displayed together with the sequence program.