I have a few more questions about PfE (if this is right post to ask about it). While I looked over all those screenshots and this last one, I get impression that all options and setups are put into same windows as acquisition. I guess PfE is not using the same convention as cameca: setup->acquisition->interpretation/results. Putting all the setup options at the same window as the acquisition list looks a bit overcomplicated (Particularly that lots of our customers concentrates not on analytical difficulties, but on what to analyse, leaving complexity to operator, which we solve in the setup phase). Is my impression right?
Since you asked...
you have a point about GUI complexity. I agree there is a delicate balance between too little information presented (forcing the user to drill down), and too much information (preventing the user from seeing a specific item they are looking for). This is a topic of ongoing discussion, but our efforts try to find the balance based on our own experience and user feedback. That is why our slogan is "software designed by users for users!
In our Probe for EPMA software we divide up the operations into a log window for the "stream of output", and 4 main windows for (manual) Acquire, Analyze, Automate and Plot. Each window is an attempt to balance between too little and too much, with "drill down" for more information. This topic has some powerpoint presentations by some of our users that are very out of date but might be informative:
http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=592.msg3361#msg3361Our main design effort is to present the "sample" as the focus of study, as opposed to the "instrument". Both the JEOL and Cameca software (to my eye at least) have a very "instrument centric" perspective. As an analyst, my focus is on the *sample*, not the instrument so much.
That said, our efforts are on making the user experience as easy as possible. Our guiding principle has always been "make it easy to do the right thing, because if it's easy to do the right thing, maybe people will do the right thing"! One example being scanning for backgrounds. In our software if you are analyzing for 18 elements, and need to check the backgrounds, you simply start a new wavescan sample and click the start wavscan acquisition and the software automatically goes to all 18 element ROIs and acquires scans around the peaks for setting the background positions by simply clicking on the plotted wavescans. Of course if you want to only perform scans on selected element ROIs, you can do that as well...
One more point, since you care about lab efficiency, you'll want to get users off your instrument and onto another computer for data reprocessing as soon as possible to make room for the next user, and our software license allows for *unlimited* copying of the software to as many computers as you like. Every user of your lab gets a complete copy of the software for re-processing. In addition, the software has an extremely realistic "simulation" mode for both EDS and WDS "demo" operation (based on Penepma Monte Carlo) that many labs use to train their students using the software on their laptops. I've had many labs report to us (and I've seen this myself) that once the students are trained in the classroom on the software, when they are placed in front of the instrument, and the beam turned on, they don't need any further help from the lab manager! More info on this here:
http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=837.0What about mapping? If you use same cameca firmware for map acquisitions does not PfE suffer from the same limitation: in particular the video card memory size (I guess 64MB) which makes it not possible to run High definition mappings (e.g. 2048*2048 pixels) when selecting 5 WDS spectrometers, two analog signals (e.g. BSE, CL). Does PfE suffer from this?
As far as Probe Image is concerned yes, we are limited to the same firmware limits (as is the case for most instruments) as PeakSight. But we try to make things easy with regards to quantitative mapping because quant is what we are focused on. That is why we made the acquisition of background maps is so easy for just one example. Our CalcImage app also makes map quantification really easy:
http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?board=4.0Be aware also that although the PI acquisition setup window looks complicated, normally one just messes with the items at the top of that GUI, as all the element specific parameters are read in with one button click (the "ELM All" button or the "Inst All" button).
This is only little connected with above, Cameca's PeakSigh also hold limit for WDS scans which is 2048 points (I guess it is impossed by binary format where wdsDat covers partly with imgDat), does PfE have such hard limitation for WDS scan?
There is no limit to WDS scans in PFE if using the step/count method. Well a single run is limited to 99,999 points, but that could be increased if necessary. I've done runs with many thousands of points over a weekend and they are quite impressive when plotted up.
As for the lab closest to you I'm not exactly sure whom that might be, but take a look at our customer list here and let me know if you need their contact info:
http://www.probesoftware.com/Customer.htmlI hope that wasn't too much of a sales pitch!
