SPOT 4.1 Basic and Advanced Software Manual for SPOT Insight ...

Ch. 5 – Preparing to Take a PictureBinning (B/W, 3-Shot)Binning is a pre-exposure option that tells the camera to combine adjacent pixels on the CCD chip. Thecamera treats each set of combined pixels as one large pixel. The large pixels accumulate electrons fasterand are therefore more sensitive to light. Binning has three effects on image processing:• Light sensitivity is increased.• Download time is decreased.• Resolution is decreased.Binning is particularly helpful when you want to drastically reduce exposure and download times for dimimages and you don’t mind a decreased resolution. This gives you higher frame rates and less noisy images.The SPOT camera offers four binning options, as illustrated below.Binning OptionsCombined Pixels on the CCD ChipNone2 x 2(4 pixels = 1)3 x 3(9 pixels = 1)4 x4(16 pixels =1)Figure 5- 1: Binning OptionsColor Order (3-Shot; 24 and 36 bit RGB)In addition to allowing you to specify specific exposure colors, the SPOT camera allows you to specify theorder in which the colors are exposed. This feature is particularly useful for triple stained fluorescencesamples, where one color dye might fade before the others. For example, if a green dye fades first, you canset green to be the first exposure, thereby catching the green parts of the sample before they fade. To setthe Color Order for an image capture, follow these steps:1. Select the color or colors that you want to expose for the picture.2. Click on the Color Order scroll bar.3. Select the Color Order that you want to use.Note: The default Color Order setting for a full color image is RGB.94 User Guide to the SPOT Insight Camera