VIDEO VI
Video Capture, Display and Analysis VIs for LabVlEW

The Video VI package supports video data acquisition and image manipulation
in the LabVlEW environment for the Macintosh. LabVlEW is the graphic and
object-oriented instrumentation software from National Instruments. The
Video VI package is a cost effective alternative for building systems that
require image acquisition, analysis and documentation in process control
environments. The integration of visual image data into complex
interactive control of equipment is becoming increasingly important in the
biomedical and physical sciences.

There are currently over 20 VIs included in the Video VI package. The
following is a brief functional description of some of these VIs. Several
ready to use demo VIs are included and fully documented in the manual.
Additional ready to use demo VIs are continually being added to the
package with accompanying documentation on disk.

The Camera VI captures a video frame from the Data Translation's DT2255,
QuickCapture card. Each captured frame has a resolution of 640x480 pixels
and has an 8 bit depth (256 levels). External triggering is supported.

The Scion Camera VI captures a video frame from the LG3 video digitizer
card from Scion Corporation. Each captured frame has a resolution of
640x480 pixels and has an 8 bit depth (256 levels). The LG3 video memory
buffer and external triggering is supported.

The Write and Read TIFF VIs allow you to save or open a video image in the
standard tagged image file format (TIFF) for use with the Video VI package
or in any of the numerous applications that support the TIFF file format.

The Window VI allows you to display a 2-dimensional array of data as an
image. It also allows you to perform some basic analysis of the image. The
results of the analysis functions are returned to LabVIEW so that they can
be displayed, further analyzed or used programmatically for process
control within LabVlEW.

The LOAD CLUT VI provides the ability to load a standard "color look up
table" containing 256 values. This gives you the ability to map the
captured video frame to custom cluts such as 256 gray levels or several
color bands. Several example cluts are supplied with the software.

The Threshold Clut VI fills the color look-up table with a single color
between defined lower and upper boundaries. The Threshold Clut VI is used
to highlight portions of an image that fall within a range of intensity
values.

The Simple Camera Demo VI combines some of the Video VIs in order to
demonstrate opening an image window, image capture from a video camera
using either the Scion LG-3 or the DT-2255 boards, saving and loading of
TIFF images from a disk.

The Move & Scale Demo VI illustrates how to programmatically move the
image, or enlarge or reduce it within an image window.

The Analysis Demo VI provides a comprehensive demonstration of some of the
potential uses of the Video VI package. It offers the ability to perform
the capture, load, and save image data functions. It illustrates how to
programmatically execute various window functions such as Show Window,
Hide Window, Set Title, Load Colors. This VI also demonstrates some of the
various image analysis functions such as Complete Histogram, Partial
Histogram, Cross Section, Calibrate, Measure Length, Measure Area, and Set
Threshold.

The Control Demo VI illustrates how to automatically make cross-section
measurements to detect two edges in an image. This VI also demonstrates
how to align one edge to another. In this demonstration the edges are
created by software generated images. In a real world application the
edges could be objects moved in space under LabVIEW control (e.g. by a
stepper motor).

Video VI library tools for 

-image acquisition and display
-image file storage
-image processing
-extraction of information from images

* Capture live images from supported digitizer boards, multiple
  video channels and external triggering are supported.
* Display images with custom color look up tables.
* Measure the area of a polygonal region.
* Display images in separate windows.
* Enlarge or shrink the image display window either by
  programmatic control or user control.
* Define or move the image window location and size either 
  by Programmatic control or user control.
* Move the image within the display window.
* Magnify or reduce a displayed image.
* Display the image resolution.
* Load and save images to disk in 8-bit TIFF format.
* Detect and manage user interactions in an image window
  including selection of a point, a line, a rectangle or polygon.
* Provides the ability to programmatically select any defined
  point, line or rectangular region for data extraction, image
  processing, display or archiving
* Calibrate the image pixel dimensions in real spatial units 
  (e.g 11, mm, inches, feet etc.).
* Measurements and graphic displays indicate calibrated
  dimensions.
* Measure the distance between two points in an image 
  (i.e. object dimensions or distance between
* Calculate and display a intensity histogram of a selected 
  image region.
* Extracted data are returned as standard LabVIEW 
  1 or 2 dimensional arrays.
* Access to the LabVIEW Advanced Analysis Library for further
  processing of image data.

New Features available with the release of version 1.04 provided at no
additional cost.

* Overlay test on an image.
* Overlay draw style graphics on an image.
* Drawing of calibrated single or multiple rulers or reticles 
  in the image window.
* Histogram equalization for contrast enhancement.
* Print images with test or drawn graphic overlays.
* Print outs initiated by user or program control.

Minimum System Requirements

* Macintosh II or Quadra systems
* 5 MB of RAM minimum
* Hard disk
* LabVIEW 2 software program

GTFS Inc, 2455 Bennett Valley Rd, #100C, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
(707) 579-1733;   fax: (707) 578-3195

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