From: newberry@aquarius.as.arizona.edu (Mike Newberry)
Newsgroups: sci.image.processing
Subject: Re: Display of 16 bit images
Keywords: display,images,software
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:19:18 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

In article <1992Nov23.085417@IASTATE.EDU> dickw@IASTATE.EDU (Richard Wallingford) writes:
>In article <1992Nov22.205215.5677@news.columbia.edu>,
>qiang@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Qiang Zheng) writes:
>> In article <fred.722416637@dip3> fred@dip3.ee.uct.ac.za (Fred Hoare) writes:
>>>I (and the other people in my lab) have a requirement to be able
>>>to display 16 bit greyscale images on a Sun workstation. We have
>>>several pieces of software that display images, but they all convert
>>>the images to 8 bit first. What we require is a display routine that
>>>would allow a person to choose what intensity range in the image was
>>>displayed on the screen, at any time. I presume this would be done by 
>>>changing the way the lookup table gets mapped to the data.
>>>
>>>Does anyone know of software under X11 that is capable of doing this?
> 
>Not offhand.  I know exactly what you want though.  I currently
>use PV-Wave to do most of my image processing and display.  It 
>allows easy display of a desired data window but you have to
>re-enter each new max and min value when you want to look
>at a new range.   Ideally, one would have a track-ball user interface
>in which one axis controls the location of the sliding window
>and the other controls the width.
>
>> Me too.  Except I'd like to such software running on a PC.  I do
>> some programming, please let me know any hints about programming
>> LUTs to display >8 bits images in addition to available software.
>
>I don't believe normal PC's are capable of even 8-bit gray-scale
>display because the RGB D/A converters are 6 bits for VGA cards.
>Photometrics LTD. has some software that allows the data to be 
>easily windowed for display with a fairly decent user interface.
>The only catch is that you need to have a certain type of VGA
>card (ET4000 chipset I believe) and the image file format is
>nonstandard (although they give you the specs - it's basically
>16 bits/pixel with a header).   The software is meant to work with 
>their camera hardware, but it should function ok without it.  You might
>give them a call to see if they offer it without the hardware.
>Their phone number is: 602-889-9933 and the name of the software
>is IMAGE200.  
> 
>--
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
>|Dick Wallingford      | Internet: dickw@iastate.edu                  |
>|Center for NDE        | Packet  : wd0anb@n0an.ia.usa.na              |
>|Iowa State University | I'm not a musician, but I play one in a band | 
>+---------------------------------------------------------------------+

You ought to check into MIRA, from Axiom Research, Inc., Tucson, AZ.
602-791-2864.

MIRA processes and displays 8 and 16 bit integer images and 32 bit float 
images and allows real time contrast/brightness control with a mouse.
True, SVGA only allows 64 shades of gray, but it does allow up to 256
different colors on the screen.  Dropping to 64 grays is not a big loss.
386 and 486 systems are VERY capable at image processing if they have decent
software.  A 486/50 can give a Sparc II a run for it's money.