New In Version 4 (OS2xx)

Changes visible in the main window:

Camera activation
If a single camera is connected to the system, it will automatically open and start grabbing when PixelScope starts.

PixelScope now supports simultaneous connection to multiple cameras,. (although of course only one image can be displayed at once.)

Tipped selection option
PixelScope now supports tipped selection areas.   This permits sub-pixel sampling, which is helpful when features are only a few pixels wide.

Minimum window size
The main window can now be made as small as 300 pixels wide. This is helpful on systems with low resolution monitors, or in any situations when you want to conserve desktop space.

If the window is made smaller than 500 pixels wide, the tool buttons disappear, but all functionality remains available through the menus.

 
Changes visible in the File menu:

Save selection ...
Saves a subset of the image as a BMP file. If the selection area (the blue rectangle) is null then this option is not available.

 

Open saved configuration...

Save system configuration...

You may save the configuration of the system for later use. Anyone can re-open a previously saved configuration, but only a supervisor can save (or re-save) the configuration.

 

Config files are now saved in a user accessible file in plain text format.  This makes it easy to save a permanent record of all the setup details used for a particular series of tests

 

Changes visible in the Edit menu

Copy selection as array to clipboard ...
Copies the selection area (the blue rectangle) to the clipboard as a series of numbers. Once copied, data can be directly pasted into Excel.

 

Copy selection as image to clipboard ...

This feature is self-explanatory.

 

Changes visible in the Tools menu:

 

Normal selection / Tipped selection
The tipped selection option is helpful when features are only a few pixels wide.

[Hide Toolbar]

This item has been removed. The functionality is now automatic: the toolbar disappears if the window size is dragged below 500 pixels.

 

Additions to the Wizards menu:

 

 

2D MTF Wizard

A powerful new tool which measures MTF and EFL in both X and Y at the same time.  
 

 

Linewidth Tool

A new tool for measuring line width.

 

 

Changes to Feature Finder Tool:

Show angle

Measures the angle of the selected feature in milli-radians.  This is done by measuring the location of short sections at each end of the line individually.  Two yellow marks are added to the display to indicate the regions used.  

 

 
Presearch Within Wide Area

This option is now faster and more robust.

 

Changes to MTF Wizard:

MTF Wizard:

The MTF Wizard has been completely restructured to provide more measurement and reporting options.

 

The 2D MTF Wizard

The 2D MTF Wizard is a new tool that allows measuring EFL and MTF in both X and Y directions with a single mouse drag.

 

 

Changes to EFL Wizard:

The EFL wizard prefinder algorithm is now faster and more robust. The small green and cyan rectangles show the areas actually used for the separation calculation.
 

 

 

The green and cyan vertical lines correspond to the blue and cyan rectangles.

 

 

 

When the Display Separation box is checked, the EFL wizard simply reports the measured separation, without performing any further calculations.

 

 

Changes to the optics dialog:
 

Units tab

This is a new tab.

 

When System Units is selected, PixelScope determines the correct measurement units based on the settings on the other tabs.

 

When Camera Pixels is selected, PixelScope simply reports measurements in units of camera pixels.

 

When User-defined Units is selected, you may specify that measurements be made n arbitrary units which you define.  Of course you must define how many of your units correspond to 1 pixel. However, after

that PixelScope takes care of scaling all measurements to your units.

 

 

Detector tab
 

 

The Camera Pixels option has been removed from this tab. The same functionality

is now available on the Units tab.

 

A Pixel Size option has been added. You may now specify pixel size explicitly.

 

 

Lens Tab
 

There are now two ways to specify the magnifier configuration.

You may now specify which of two planes you consider the image in your system. This feature was added in response to customer requests.

Note the position of the red image graphic. The term image is shorthand for The plane at which I want to analyze the performance of the system.  The latter is more correct, but it wouldn't fit!   For lack of a better term et's call the other conjugate the "object" plane.  

 

The two screenshots above both describe the same system. If drawn to scale, the system might look like this:

 

 

The difference is not the system, but how you, the user, prefer to think of the system.

 

Are you interested in the MTF at the short conjugate?  Then set up the system as shown in the first screenshot. The "image" is at the left, and is smaller than the "object" at right.  Magnification is 0.25X.  Measurements will be reported as if they were made at the "image" plane at the left

 

Are you interested in the MTF at the long conjugate?  Then set up the system as shown in the second screenshot. The "image" is at the right, and is larger than the "object" at right.  Magnification is 4X  Measurements will be reported as if they were made at the "image" plane at the right

 

Notes:

? Magnification is always defined as [image size] / [object size].

? F number is the working F number, calculated on the image side of the lens. In general this is not the same as the F number of the lens at infinity.
 

Source tab has a new configuration option

This capability was added at the request of a customer. It makes it possible to model the system shown below:

 

Testing GRIN lenses

 

Close-up
 

Magnification is always defined as:   [image size] / [reticle size]
 
[The "notes" field has been removed]

Removing this field allowed us to make the window smaller.  Why did we do this?   In V3 there was no consistency in the size of dialog boxes.   In V4 sizes have been regularized so that you can lay out your screen area more easily.  The screen below is an extreme example, but it illustrates the issue:

 

Changes to the Optical layout window:
 
The Optical Layout window now has two tabs:

 

 

The change allowed us to make the window smaller and less cluttered, while at the same time providing you more information.

 

Changes to the Camera dialog:

Camera tab
Version 4 supports multiple cameras.  

Startup tab
This new tab allows explicit support for different camera types.    It is also possible to assign an user-friendly name to each camera for display instead of serial number.

 

 
 

Frame rate tab
It is now possible to set a much wider range of frame rates.  Previously the only choices were 30, 15, 7.5 and 3.75 frames per second.  

 

The range between minimum exposure (1/25 ms) and an exposure of 4 seconds represents a dynamic range of 100,000:1.    Another factor of 4:1 is available by increasing amplifier gain from 1X to 4X.

 

Older cameras made by ThorLabs do not arbitrary frame rates.   These cameras only operate at 30, 15, 7.5 or 3.75 frames per second.