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Aray Limited |
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ARAY Limited uses LEADTOOLS
In Development of Software for Microbiology Laboratories
| ARAY Limited recently
used LEADTOOLS to develop software for a system used
in microbiology laboratories. This required the capture
and analysis of petri dish images.
Hardware Innovations
Instead of using the traditional expensive
hardware of a video camera, with frame grabber, lighting
and specially designed hardware, our hardware design
partners designed a system using a standard off the
shelf PC and scanner. Although the scanner required
special hardware (such as a case, as drawer and petri
dish inserts) the hardware costs are less than one
fifth of the costs of traditional hardware. |
 |
Tight Time Scales
ARAY developed the software through close
cooperation with our customer and our hardware design partners.
Within three months a system was developed that proved the
principle would work. Within six months the system was ready
for laboratory trials. Within one year the product was ready
for launch. This was only possible through the use of LEADTOOLS,
which provided the image display, manipulation and processing
functions required.
Why we chose LEADTOOLS?
We wanted to quickly prototype the product
to prove several innovative new principles. We evaluated
several imaging packages and approaches. We chose LEADTOOLS
Express version 9 (later upgraded to version 10) because
of its rich feature set. Primary features considered included
scanning, display, image processing, image file formats,
OCR support, annotations and regions of interest.
Was LEADTOOLS Useful?
You bet! It was invaluable. It probably saved
us six months. LEADTOOLS functionality used includes:
| Display: |
Auto size /
repaint, repaint on demand, scroll bars, zoom, Contrast,
Gamma, Sharpen, Intensity adjustment |
| User Interface: |
Mouse operations
(Lead control events), conversion of screen and mouse
coordinates to image coordinates |
| Processing Manipulation: |
Histogram operations,
Intensity adjustments, Despeckle. Sizing and resizing,
trimming, filling, Reverse; detection and conversions
of image dimensions, colour and resolution; accessing
individuals pixels of images; combining / masking out
parts of images; quick copying and storage of images
in memory; ability to pass images to subroutines |
| File Operations: |
Load and save |
| Drawing: |
Text, lines
and geometric shapes; generating template images |
LEADTOOLS enabled us to quickly evaluate
ideas.
With LEADTOOLS we were able to quickly evaluate
many new algorithms and ideas. Especially those that involved
image manipulation, analysis and display. The core of many
of these ideas were implemented using LEADTOOLS functions.
Indeed some LEADTOOLS functions generated new ideas and
possibilities. As each function has programming examples
they can be tried quickly.
LEADTOOLS and ARAY Provides Effective
Solutions to Problems
Some of the main problems solved by LEADTOOLS
and ARAY during the software development include:
| Problem: |
Image
manipulation, analysis and display. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS |
|
| Problem: |
Need
to visualize zone-sizing data. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS
to extract data. Send data to Excel spreadsheet,
which plots it and prototype calculations. |
|
| Problem: |
Accurate
measuring of zone sizes. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS
functions to develop innovative algorithms that
cater for the wide image variations. |
|
| Problem: |
User
needs to set zone sizes under extreme conditions. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS
functions to handle mouse clicks and display shapes
so user can click and drag zone to required size. |
|
| Problem: |
Commercial
Optical Character Recognition package not good
enough to recognize small (5 points) characters. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS
functions to Implement OCR algorithm using Neural
Net. |
|
| Problem: |
Need
to ensure images not mixed up. |
| Solution: |
Use LEADTOOLS
functions to develop algorithm to find and read
bar code on images. |
|
Software Features
This project used the latest hardware and
software technologies. The software was developed using
Windows 98, Visual Basic 6, Access 97, and Excel 97.The
main features of the software include:
- Automated image capture Control scanner
settings and scanning from within program.
- Image display Including Zoom and user
control of lighting
- Image analysis Performing calculations
on parts of the image; Barcode reading Excel spreadsheets
calculations prototyping, plots of image data
- Database Scanner settings; Images; Algorithm
coefficients; Results; Interface with Access database
of another program
- User Interface Easy to learn and use,
with tool tips; various reports; Automated backup; Help
screens
ARAY succeeds in technically challenging
projects
ARAY specializes in developing software for
instrumentation. These are usually technically challenging
projects on the leading edge of technology, requiring new
algorithms, complex calculations as well as the routine
databases and user interface features.
Where required we work with our hardware
design partners, who have over 30 years experience in designing
and producing products involving mechanics, optics, fluidics
and electronics. Projects we have collaborated on include
urine screening instrument, clinical chemistry analyzer
and machine tool control. Together we succeed in providing
effective automated solutions. With LEADTOOLS we have expanded
our repertoire to include imaging solutions.
-Karl Miller, Aray Limited
k.miller@btinternet.com
www.arayltd.btinternet.co.uk
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