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

Ch. 17 – Using Other Mac Imaging Application in Basic Mode• Blue - Preview/capture a monochrome preview of your specimen using the blue state of the LCD filter.• Clear – Preview/capture a monochrome preview of your specimen using the clear state of the LCDfilter.Display Images in Grayscale (Insight 3-Shot)To counter the difficulty of viewing, focusing, and adjusting monochrome images in live mode, theDisplay Images in Grayscale option enables you to view a monochrome image in grayscale, as opposed towith the red, green, or blue filter. This option applies only when the Filter Color (see above) is set to Red,Green, or Blue.Binning (Insight 3-Shot)Binning combines adjacent pixels on the CCD chip, thereby reducing the number of pixels used in theimage capture. Binning is useful when you have dim images and want to increase sensitivity and reducedownload time. This gives you higher frame rates and less noisy images. But, as binning level increases,image resolution decreases. All of these factors should be considered when you select a binning option.There are four binning options:• None 1 pixel = 1 pixel• 2 x 2 4 pixels = 1 pixel• 3 x 3 9 pixels = 1 pixel• 4 x 4 16 pixels = 1 pixelNoise FilterThe Noise Filter corrects for the effects of electrical or thermal noise. When capturing dim images withlengthy exposure times, the noise filter acts as a “virtual cooler” for the Insight camera, eliminating “hotpixels.”The Noise Filter checks each pixel on the CCD chip as described below:1. The program compares the value of each red pixel with the values of the eight neighboring red pixels.2. If none of the eight neighboring red pixels has a value within ±15 % (i.e., the threshold value that theSPOT program uses) of the value for the red pixel being checked, the value for the red pixel beingchecked is replaced with the average value of the eight neighboring red pixels.3. The program repeats this procedure for the values of the green and blue pixels being checked.To activate the Noise Filter, check the Noise Filter box. The program runs the noise filter each time animage is captured using the Preview or Acquire options.Taking a PictureFrom the SPOT 3rd Party Interface, you can capture images in different ways:• Preview - You can capture a Preview image. Preview images remain available in the 3rd Partywindow for basic editing and serve as the basis for the final image capture. When you click on thePreview button, the Get Image dialog displays the capture status as it is captured, and the capturedimage then replaces in the Live Image in the window. Note that the status bar indicated that you areviewing a Preview image.• Transfer - If you like the Preview image, you can Transfer it image directly to the third partyapplication that you are using. The Transfer button is active only for Preview image captures.• Acquire - Capture an image and have it automatically transfer to (open in) the third party imagingapplication.312 User Guide to the SPOT Insight Camera