Getting PI to acquire VS1 and or VS2 in SXFive

[JohnF]

Is there something I need to do for SXFive to have the video channels "turned on" in PI? I can set VS1 and VS2 to SE and BSE Z (or viceversa) but when I go to PI Acquistiopn Scan Setup Windown and select Analog Inputs, I can click Analog and 2, but the VS channels are greyed out. Is this a Cameca SXFive (novice to PeakSight, weaned off Cameca a dozen years ago) software thing? Or am I missing something in PI settings elsewhere?

[John Donovan]

Is there something I need to do for SXFive to have the video channels "turned on" in PI? I can set VS1 and VS2 to SE and BSE Z (or viceversa) but when I go to PI Acquistiopn Scan Setup Windown and select Analog Inputs, I can click Analog and 2, but the VS channels are greyed out. Is this a Cameca SXFive (novice to PeakSight, weaned off Cameca a dozen years ago) software thing? Or am I missing something in PI settings elsewhere?

Hi John,
Huh. Good catch! 

They used to be enabled in the last version!

I'll get Brian to fix this and get an update ASAP.
john

[John Donovan]

Is there something I need to do for SXFive to have the video channels "turned on" in PI? I can set VS1 and VS2 to SE and BSE Z (or viceversa) but when I go to PI Acquistiopn Scan Setup Windown and select Analog Inputs, I can click Analog and 2, but the VS channels are greyed out. Is this a Cameca SXFive (novice to PeakSight, weaned off Cameca a dozen years ago) software thing? Or am I missing something in PI settings elsewhere?

Hi John,
OK, Brian and I uploaded a fix for the video channel selection.

Download from one of the ftp sites or the web update page here:

http://www.probesoftware.com/Update.html

Sorry about that and thanks for the heads up.
john

[JohnF]

John and Brian. Thanks. I downloaded version 1880.
Now I can acquire both VS1 and VS2. I assume they are greyed out on purpose.

A couple of observations.

1. the "Place a scale on the image" does not function properly on the small (128x128, 13.3x10.5 micron images).There are hatchured lines that presumably are meant to be a scale but the programming of them must be incorrect. Please try to put a scale on an image and see what I mean.

2. I know you will say "why in the world did he do this," but I did it and the software should be robust enough to take it. I forgot what the settings were (to write in my notes) so while the images were being acquired, I clicked on the Setup-> Acquisition button, and Probe Image then froze, meanwhile Cameca kept acquiring the maps and images (as viewed on the far right screen). I suggest either making this button off limits while an acquisition is in progress, or have some error trapping for it.

3. Something I really miss from MicroImage (remember that?) was the easy way to play with brightness and contrast, and to normalize the x-ray maps. Those options are all greyed out. What is that all about? And even the "linear stretch" which is listed as active, doesn't seem to do anything. Is there some right or left click with ctrl+ option to get it to do something? I couldn't find anything in the manual.

[John Donovan]

John and Brian. Thanks. I downloaded version 1880.
Now I can acquire both VS1 and VS2. I assume they are greyed out on purpose.

Yes, that is correct.  There is no point in making them individually selectable. Just use the check boxes.

1. the "Place a scale on the image" does not function properly on the small (128x128, 13.3x10.5 micron images).There are hatchured lines that presumably are meant to be a scale but the programming of them must be incorrect. Please try to put a scale on an image and see what I mean.

2. I know you will say "why in the world did he do this," but I did it and the software should be robust enough to take it. I forgot what the settings were (to write in my notes) so while the images were being acquired, I clicked on the Setup-> Acquisition button, and Probe Image then froze, meanwhile Cameca kept acquiring the maps and images (as viewed on the far right screen). I suggest either making this button off limits while an acquisition is in progress, or have some error trapping for it.

3. Something I really miss from MicroImage (remember that?) was the easy way to play with brightness and contrast, and to normalize the x-ray maps. Those options are all greyed out. What is that all about? And even the "linear stretch" which is listed as active, doesn't seem to do anything. Is there some right or left click with ctrl+ option to get it to do something? I couldn't find anything in the manual.

Except for #2 these are known issues. Essentially we have focused on the acquisition features and put off completing the image processing features due to bandwidth limitations. There are certainly many image processing programs available for off-line processing as you know.

As for #2, I will have Brian trap that ASAP. Thanks for the heads up.

[John Donovan]

1. the "Place a scale on the image" does not function properly on the small (128x128, 13.3x10.5 micron images).There are hatchured lines that presumably are meant to be a scale but the programming of them must be incorrect. Please try to put a scale on an image and see what I mean.

John,
Brian is still looking at this issue. I will let you know when he has a fix for this.

2. I know you will say "why in the world did he do this," but I did it and the software should be robust enough to take it. I forgot what the settings were (to write in my notes) so while the images were being acquired, I clicked on the Setup-> Acquisition button, and Probe Image then froze, meanwhile Cameca kept acquiring the maps and images (as viewed on the far right screen). I suggest either making this button off limits while an acquisition is in progress, or have some error trapping for it.

This issue is fixed in the latest version that you can download  now.

[JohnF]

Poking around in PI...
Under Conditions (for each image/map)

I am quite happy to see that it shows the starting and ending time of each map. Excellent!

And shows the gun current at start and stop! Though there is a problem, in that it does not show the stopping faraday current correctly (it just repeats the starting value, which I can see from the instrument reading, is not the same).

Suggestion: While it is great that it shows HFV and VFV in microns, could you also add either or both
 "each pixel size" (x, y) and/or "total pixel dimension" (x,y)

Quibble: It called the TOA (Take Off Angle) "Angle"... while we can easily figure out what it means, it would be better to just label it "TOA".

[John Donovan]

And shows the gun current at start and stop! Though there is a problem, in that it does not show the stopping faraday current correctly (it just repeats the starting value, which I can see from the instrument reading, is not the same).

Good catch!  It is just a display issue as the PrbImg file has the correct data which is used for the beam drift correction. I will let Brian know.

FYI: The PrbImg file format is ASCII, so you can just open it in a text viewer. The beam currents, acquisition times, etc. are near the bottom (after the 32 bit intensity data). The raw intensity data is in cps units (just like PFE) and is encoded as Base64.

Suggestion: While it is great that it shows HFV and VFV in microns, could you also add either or both
 "each pixel size" (x, y) and/or "total pixel dimension" (x,y)

Quibble: It called the TOA (Take Off Angle) "Angle"... while we can easily figure out what it means, it would be better to just label it "TOA".

Indeed these are quibbles. But I will pass them on to Brian.

[Ben Buse]

Hi John,

Regarding thresholding x-ray maps to see subtle variations we've found the easiest way to edit the 16-bit data rather than the 8 bit tiff is to load surfer. And in surfer select new image map (in grid or map menu can create contour maps, image maps etc). It prompts you for a grid file - load the element grid file. Then you can change colour table and adjust threshold.

Ben

[John Donovan]

Regarding thresholding x-ray maps to see subtle variations we've found the easiest way to edit the 16-bit data rather than the 8 bit tiff is to load surfer. And in surfer select new image map (in grid or map menu can create contour maps, image maps etc). It prompts you for a grid file - load the element grid file. Then you can change colour table and adjust threshold.

That works. In fact I use this method myself, but lately I've found the log wt% scaling useful for traces:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=107.msg402#msg402

[Ben Buse]

Good tip - Log wt. % - I like it

Ben