PictureSnapApp version 1.8.8

[Probeman]

Yeah, memory can be an issue for very large images. Here are some posts on that issue:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=368.msg7310#msg7310

Basically the memory for an image must be "contiguous" memory, that is unfragmented memory. On computers with limited memory sometimes that can be improved by re-starting the computer, as memory tends to become fragmented over time.  On my Win 7 system I can load very large images (10K by 10K pixels and even larger).

[neko]

It's definitely a Windows Xp issue and not PSnapApp, my two video cards have a gig of memory each but due to XP, it only addresses (i think) the first 250mb of each card, so if the image takes up too much memory, it bluescreens (only on two out of four monitors which I why I suspect it's a video card and not main memory issue). Just wanted to make a note since it's easier to prepare than be lucky - of course if you're running in text mode you can just run it on your laptop etc. and keep your images as giant as you like!

[Probeman]

It's definitely a Windows Xp issue and not PSnapApp, my two video cards have a gig of memory each but due to XP, it only addresses (i think) the first 250mb of each card, so if the image takes up too much memory, it bluescreens (only on two out of four monitors which I why I suspect it's a video card and not main memory issue). Just wanted to make a note since it's easier to prepare than be lucky - of course if you're running in text mode you can just run it on your laptop etc. and keep your images as giant as you like!

Hi Neko,
The expert we spoke to said some time ago regarding this issue told us that the image size limitation definitely comes from the main computer RAM, not the video memory.  That why I mentioned the memory fragmentation issue.  That's as much as I know about this!
john

[John Donovan]

...Just wanted to make a note since it's easier to prepare than be lucky - of course if you're running in text mode you can just run it on your laptop etc. and keep your images as giant as you like!

Hi Nick,
Absolutely.  In fact one could even go so far as to purchase a PictureSnapApp license for one's personal laptop and then one could go from one instrument to another interfacing to Cameca, FEI and JEOL instruments "on the fly" as they say!    The ultimate "microanalysis road warrior"!
john

[John Donovan]

The latest version of PictureSnapApp now automatically reads the current stage limits on FEI instruments when the application is started.  Here is what an FEI Quanta instrument shows for a 50 mm stage:



PictureSnapApp now also checks for "locked" stage axes before attempting to move the stage.  If the locked axis is the Z stage axis and the "Disable Z Stage Control" checkbox is *not* checked, the app will now warn you that the axis is locked.



If the locked axis the X and/or Y axes, the app will not allow stage motion until the locked axis is cleared.

Thanks to Gareth Seward for the suggestions!

[John Donovan]

We released a minor update of PictureSnapApp (v. 1.7.7) over the weekend.  No changes to the code, but we did add an appendix to the installation instructions for those interfacing to a JEOL 8230/8530 EPMA when there is no existing "external control" of the instrument. 

Basically one needs to turn on the "external control" in the JEOL PC-EPMA software.

See attached document and thanks to Jeff Chen for pointing this out.

[John Donovan]

In the latest v 1.7.9 of PictureSnapApp we've added a new "Current Stage Position" menu to the "Window" menu as shown here:



This new menu works in all instrument modes including text input modes, to allow the user to type in a specific stage position to move to.  In text input mode, it simply moves the displayed current position cursor.

[John Donovan]

OK, so this is related to the above post on the Current Stage Position window in PictureSnapApp.

Basically, this window displays the current stage position when it is first loaded from the Window | Current Stage Position menu. Then one can enter a specific stage position into the text controls and click the Move To button to move the stage to that specific position.



The thing is that the "Current Stage Position" only displays the actual current stage position when the window is first loaded from the menu.  So if you move the stage to a new position either using the instrument, or by double-clicking on the calibrated image in PictureSnapApp, the "current stage position" displayed in this window is not automatically updated (unless one closes the window and re-loads it from the Window menu).

So we made a change to PictureSnapApp v. 1.8.0 where the displayed stage position in this window is automatically updated if the instrument stage is moved in any way.

However (and this is where it gets interesting), if you want to enter a different stage position into these text controls in order to use the Move To button, they would immediately be overwritten as the fields are constantly being updated.  So we now detect if you are entering a new stage position in these text controls and do not update the displayed position until you are done entering the new stage position.  Got it?

I think it's pretty cool. So please update to v. 1.8.0 of PictureSnap App from the Help menu, or feel free to download the installer from the web page here and try it out and let us know what you think:

https://probesoftware.com/PictureSnapApp.html

[John Donovan]

Hi John,

Small "wish" for PSA - would it be possible to make the stage motor velocities editable? Our students absolutely adore PSA, but it does drive the stage at maximum speed, which is a bit rough on the motors. In PFE we can change the stage motor velocities in the motors.dat file, would it be possible to add something similar for PSA, either its own motors.dat file or something in picturesnapapp.ini?

Thanks!
Owen

Hi Owen,
Yes, this would be possible to do.  Give me a little time.
john

[John Donovan]

Hi John,

Small "wish" for PSA - would it be possible to make the stage motor velocities editable? Our students absolutely adore PSA, but it does drive the stage at maximum speed, which is a bit rough on the motors. In PFE we can change the stage motor velocities in the motors.dat file, would it be possible to add something similar for PSA, either its own motors.dat file or something in picturesnapapp.ini?

Thanks!
Owen

Hi Owen,
OK I implemented these new keywords for the Cameca (SX100/SXFive) here showing the defaults:

                      XMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      YMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      ZMotorSpeedCameca=10     

Note that the valid values for X and Y are 500 to 15000. For the Z stage axis it's between 10 and 200 for the SX100 and between 1 and 10 for the SXFive.

[neko]

PictureSnapApp Version Changes:

03/24/2021    Add INI keywords for modifying Cameca (SX100 and SXFive) stage motor speeds (Neill).  See new entries for:
v. 1.8.2          XMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      YMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      ZMotorSpeedCameca=10                       

Thanks for reading my mind and serving me the solution I was coming here to ask for. My stage has started having trouble with high speed operations and this is exactly what I needed.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This remains one of the best pieces of software our lab has!

cheers,
Nick

[John Donovan]

Small tweak in the stage config dialog to display "typical" horizontal FOVs for FEI, JEOL and Cameca instruments:



Update using the Help | Update PictureSnapApp menu to get the latest version.

[John Donovan]

We made a number of small changes to PictureSnapApp after the MAS free microanalysis software tutorial earlier this week. See the first post in this topic for compete details.

The main change is that we now display the current magnification of the instrument in the upper left corner of the main display window as seen here:



This really only is useful for demo and text input modes since when connected to an instrument one can always see the instrument mag in the OEM application.  But maybe it will be useful anyway.

The other change is to allow the user to specify a starting or initial magnification in the PictureSnapApp.ini file. This is really only useful for instruments that have a fixed magnification.

Also, we added support for the right and left cursor keys to increment or decrement the mag by 2% as a extra fine adjustment.  And the cursor keys now work in both the main image window and the full size image window.

Update using the Help menu as usual.

[John Donovan]

Hi John,

Small "wish" for PSA - would it be possible to make the stage motor velocities editable? Our students absolutely adore PSA, but it does drive the stage at maximum speed, which is a bit rough on the motors. In PFE we can change the stage motor velocities in the motors.dat file, would it be possible to add something similar for PSA, either its own motors.dat file or something in picturesnapapp.ini?

Thanks!
Owen

Hi Owen,
OK I implemented these new keywords for the Cameca (SX100/SXFive) here showing the defaults:

                      XMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      YMotorSpeedCameca=10000
                      ZMotorSpeedCameca=10     

Note that the valid values for X and Y are 500 to 15000. For the Z stage axis it's between 10 and 200 for the SX100 and between 1 and 10 for the SXFive.

I just wanted to make a quick note here on these Cameca stage speed parameters.

The valid ranges I had noted many years ago for the Cameca stage for the X and Y axes are from 500 to 15000, and as seen above we decided to set the default speed to 10000 because most people want to *slow down* their Cameca stages.

However, when I finally got around to updating the PictureSnapApp on our Sx100 instrument last weekend I was surprised to see PictureSnapApp complaining about the stage speed being out of range on start up (PictureSnapApp forces an initial stage move to the current position on startup, in order to force the displayed image to be centered on the current stage position).  This is in spite of the fact that several firmware updates ago, these ranges were perfectly valid.

So I tested the various Cameca stage speeds and found that our stage is now limited to stage speeds of 7000, that is X/Y stage speeds of 8000 or above will throw this stage speed out of range error on start up.

If you haven't have your Cameca firmware updated, these higher stage speeds may work just fine, but just FYI we've had our SX100 X/Y stage speeds set to 5000 for many years so we had not noticed this change in the maximum allowed stage speeds, which we can only assume Cameca may have introduced in a firmware update at some point.

[John Donovan]

Here's a poster we did for PictureSnapApp a few years ago that is worth taking a look at if you are interested in fast and easy sample navigation on an EPMA or SEM instrument and/or from one instrument stage to another (e.g., from optical to SIMS to SEM, etc.).

See attached (remember to login to see attachments).