Software > PictureSnapApp
Image Locator Feature
Probeman:
Last week Anette von der Handt and I were chatting about a feature in Probe for EPMA where one can acquire images of each standard and if they are placed in the StandardPOSData folder, and named with the first 4 digits containing the standard number in the standard database (e.g., 0012_MgO.jpg for the MgO standard number 12). In this case PFE will automatically load that numbered image(s) when that standard number is clicked on in the Digitize window. It was at that point that we both realized that the Image Locator feature in PictureSnapApp, though originally intended for unknown samples, could provide much better documentation of our standard mounts.
So yesterday I decided to take advantage of some of these new Image Locator features in PictureSnapApp (which I have running on the Cameca OEM computer), and document one of our standard mounts that gets used a lot by students. The idea being to make it easier for them to be sure they are on the correct standard.
So to begin with a took a camera image of the standard mount and calibrated it as seen here:
Note that the calibration reports an orthogonality of 2.45% which isn't too bad considering that I only utilized the tops of three of the small standard holes, but a funny thing when I first calibrated it, the reported orthogonality was 27% or so, and I thought: no way I could be off that much, but sure enough the software was right and I was wrong! I had thought I was on one standard hole, but actually I was on the one next door to it! That will cause a calibration problem obviously.
Then also note that because I didn't mount the standard mount in sample holder exactly oriented, the calculated rotation is -5.5 degrees. Which is evident in the screenshot below where I started imaging each of the standards in BSE using the lowest mag on our Cameca SX100 starting in the upper left of the mount:
The "blotchy" pattern is from places where the previous carbon coat did not get completely polished off from the last polishing... I guess we need to re-polish and re-coat this standard mount! Then just for fun I acquired some higher resolution images on some standard where they had inclusions such as a natural HgS (cinnabar):
And here is the same image, but zoomed and panned using the mouse:
Some of the holes in this standard mount contain more than one standard so here is how one can document areas to avoid (or utilize) on the standard images by simply annotating the BSE image using any paint app:
Of then one can check the "Display All Image FOV Locations" as seen here to see all the standard images:
or just the FOV outlines as seen here:
OK, I must say this is pretty cool. 8)
Gseward:
Good example of the flexibility that this software offers. Nice work John and Anette!
Probeman:
--- Quote from: Gseward on August 22, 2018, 10:21:31 AM ---Good example of the flexibility that this software offers. Nice work John and Anette!
--- End quote ---
Thanks Gareth,
It's pretty amazing what PictureSnapApp can do. I'm really surprised it's not getting more attention. It truly is a "visual" lab note book that allows one to easily document samples on one instrument, and then if desired, transfer them to another instrument for sample navigation to the previously documented areas of interest. The students here at UofO really love it because they like to hop from one instrument to another all the time...
And it should be mentioned again that all these Image Locator features work just fine in the *non* hardware enabled mode which is free!
In the non hardware enabled mode, one does need to enter the stage calibration coordinates via keyboard, rather than simply clicking the Read Stage button to calibrate the image to the instrument stage. And the FOV (field of view) needs to be adjusted using the up/down cursor keys (shift-up/down for fine adjustment), rather then being read by the software automatically as it is adjusted on the instrument. But you can't beat the price! :D
And for $500 for the fully hardware enabled mode, no ones lab budget is going to suffer too much!
neko:
I was wondering if it would be possible to put a toggle in the software so you could display the Images from Image Locator without the FOV annotations around them?
In my case, I've been importing sequences of images to tile them over larger features, but the bounding boxes and image names get in the way of one another when doing so, and it would be nice to be able to export without the FOV overlays (regular overlays would still be welcome, and also can already be toggled separately).
PeakSigh doesn't appropriately tile images due to reported FOV mismatches with the real-world stage dimensions when making mosaic maps, but PictureSnapApp tiles things correctly once I figured out the true stage dimensions correlated with the Cameca-reported BSE FOV. Then I wrote command line scripts to jump the appropriate distances, for efficiency - a reported FOV of 2500um is 2100um from edge to edge, at least when tiling in PictureSnapApp, and the edges match without gaps. Good show!
I'm going to check with our engineer to see if there's any way to re-calibrate the BSE fov so I can just acquire good maps in PeakSigh but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.
John Donovan:
Hi Nick,
You should just be able to uncheck these menus:
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