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Aphelion User Guide

1. A Frequently Used Operators Maintain or use a list of frequently used operators ImgFreeAll Run the ImgFreeAll operator Aphelion displays a message box asking you to confirm that you want to delete all open images Click Yes to free all open images Operator Help Access online Help for the currently selected operator Select Operator alphabetical Display a dialog box for selecting an 52 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 operator from an alphabetical list Select Operator Display a series of menus with Operator categories and subcategories for selecting an operator MMX If you use a PC with an MMX chip from Intel some Aphelion operators will execute on the MMX Use of the Intel MMX coprocessor will dramatically improve the speed of these operators If an operator can run on the MMX a flag icon appears in the right corner of the Operator dialog box The user may select either to run the operator in the MMX or in the general purpose processor of the PC To use MMX acceleration an optional extension has to be installed from the Aphelion Setup menu Please see the Release Notes for more information on the MMX installation Stop Operator Click this button if it is red to stop any on going process Advanced Parameters Display advanced parameters for the selected operator This button is grayed if there are no advanced parameters for the selected operator Add to History Add the operat
2. 40 Aphelion User Guide le 42a eee selected Graph List List the graphs and charts that reside in all of the virtual screens and charts that were opened but now are closed Click the chart of interest If the chart was closed it will reopen into the virtual screen selected If the chart is open it will be selected ObjectSet List List all ObjectSets that have been created as a result of segmentation routines Camera Definition Displays a list of camera parameters Virtual Screen Filer Opens a Virtual Screen Filer dialog box with a diagram of the contents of all virtual screens Message Passing Open the Message Passing dialog box to set up message passing between image windows Currently supported messages are zoom and scroll Macros List macros from the Macros Examples or default macro directory Modify the Macro Library Attach Macro Open a dialog box that lets you attach up to four macros and up to two applications to the toolbar M1 M4 Shortcut button for running a macro You first must attach a macro to one of the four buttons using the Attach Macro to Toolbar dialog box A1 A2 Shortcut button for accessing an application You first must attach an application to one of the two buttons using the Attach Macro to Toolbar dialog box Show Demos Play multi media demos and tutorials that provide an introduction to Aphelion interfaces concepts and algorithms The files can be played dir
3. Macro Example To view an example of analyzing ROIs in an image run the RoiProcess apm macro that comes with Aphelion 1 lL Click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar 2 Choose Macros gt RoiProcess apm 3 gt In the macro window click the Run Macro button BasicScript and C Using BasicScript you can use commands like AphImgAddRoi and AphImgRemoveRoi to define and remove ROIs In BasicScript you can define only rectangular ROIs You can define and access ROIs in BasicScript using the following commands e AphImgEnableROI e AphImgRoiCount e AphImgRoi e AphImgAddRoi e AphImgRemoveRoi Aphelion User Guide 91 92 Aphelion User Guide e AphImgResetRoi e AphImgMoveRoi e AphImgResizeRoi Using C ROIs are implemented as a list of instances of classes derived from the abstract AphRegion class AphROI is a synonym of AphRegionSet For more information see the Aphelion Developer Guide Note Every image has an ROI numbered 0 that covers the entire image In the interface this ROI is not displayed and cannot be enabled disabled or deleted When you draw an ROI in an image window the original ROI is automatically disabled When you remove or disable all drawn ROIs the original ROI is enabled again If you are writing a macro using BasicScript commands you must disable the original ROI in order to process ROIs that you have created See AphImgAddRoi for further information and examples ROI F
4. Macros A work session can be recorded in a macro file using BasicScript language which is fully compatible with Visual Basic In addition Aphelion operators have been added to the language library A macro file can be edited debugged and played providing a convenient way to automate your work Macros are created using BasicScript code and the Aphelion operator commands You can construct a macro using the record capability or by typing code directly A macro file has the extension apm LENGI ojx Sub main a 10 b 12 MsgBox a b End Sub For information about the macros that are distributed with Aphelion and an annotated example of the macro Ceramic apm see Getting Started Aphelion Macros BasicScript Commands Most of the BasicScript commands may be used to construct macros However some commands provided in BasicScript for forms control may not be useful in creating macros Nested control structures are supported and variables are declared in the same manner The macro text is color coded in the following manner Commands and comments Purple Code Blue Breakpoints Red The following partial list of BasicScript commands can be used to provide mathematical capability program control user messages and documentation Sub End Sub Function End Function DIM If Then If Then Else DO LOOP For Loop For Next Next All Math Functions MsgBox ultiBeep Exit a For user comment
5. Uses chart functions to display an object histogram Demonstrates printing functions from Basic Demonstrates a simple dialog that stays open while buttons are pressed to perform operations Application Macros ZM The application macros are stored in the directory Aphelion Macros To load an application macro click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar then choose Macros Select the macro you want from the drop down list Features highlighted in the macro 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 27 28 Aphelion User Guide BasicExamples apm A variety of useful techniques using Basic Road apm Computes boundary chains demonstrates edgels chains and lines RoiProcess apm Demonstrates conversion of ISR regions to ROIs Sequencelnterface apm Uses a dialog for acquiring a sequence of images WCCO apm Watersheds used to segment a multi phase image Annotated Macro Ceramic apm This macro example is an annotated version of the macro Ceramic apm Ceramic apm is one of the standard macros distributed with Aphelion In this macro the goal is to e Extract all the fibers dark circular objects e Measure the surface elongation and compactness of each fiber e Provide the position of the fibers in pixel coordinates The image Ceramic tif was obtained with a scanning electronic microscope The pixel values range from to 255 In this macro the fibers are segmented from the background using a threshold Morphological operators
6. After you create a dialog box you can edit it and make any necessary changes Additional online Help is available in the Macro Dialog Editor Guide To create a dialog box 1 Right click in the macro window to display the pop up menu 2 Select Dialog Editor gt New to open the Dialog Editor window 3 Create the dialog box adding any necessary buttons text check boxes etc 4 When you have finished adding components to the dialog box choose File gt Exit and Return from the menu bar The code is automatically inserted in the macro To edit a dialog box 1 Inthe macro window highlight the dialog box code 2 Right click to display the pop up menu 3 Choose Dialog Editor gt Edit to open the Dialog Editor window containing the code for the selected dialog box Intermediate Symbolic Representation ISR 04 05 99 Intermediate Level Data Intermediate Level Data is defined as the representation of an event or set of events in an Image This representation is more abstract than the pixel values that comprise the Image For example events can be lines regions points or chains ObjectSets An Object is a data structure defined by Aphelion to store both the spatial description and attributes of an event Typically a method of feature extraction is initially executed using a pixel data Image low data level to extract the Objects where different algorithms are used to produce different sets of Objects A set of Objects from the
7. Operator Dialog Box The Operator dialog box is used to choose algorithms to apply to your images supply parameters and execute the code Info History Messages Window The IHM window contains three tabs that provide convenient access to extensive information about the current environment Virtual Screens Aphelion supports virtual screens That is multiple displays can occupy the same screen space You choose between virtual screens using the virtual screen tabs at the bottom of the screen When you first start Aphelion there is only one virtual screen and virtual screen tab labeled Screen 1 You can create additional virtual screens Using Help You can access online Help at anytime while you are using Aphelion e The Aphelion User Guide provides reference and procedural information for using Aphelion e The Aphelion Reference Guide provides comprehensive information for each Aphelion operator e The Aphelion Developer Guide provides information about using Aphelion Developer This guide includes examples for using Aphelion operator DLLs from a custom C C program and for extending the Aphelion operator library For advanced users the Macro Language Reference Guide and Macro Dialog Editor Guide are also available online Tip To print selected portions of the Help files use the Contents tab in the Help Topics window On the Contents tab select the book you want to print and then click the Print button All Help topi
8. You can also use message passing between two image windows e Object A region point rectangle line edgel or chain and its associated measurements One row in a grid spreadsheet represents an object e ObjectSet A set of Objects from the same original data using the same algorithm A data structure that stores both the spatial description and attributes of an event Typically a method of feature extraction is initially executed using a pixel data Image low data level to extract the Objects where different algorithms are used to produce different sets of Objects 12 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 e Operator An image processing or image understanding algorithm implemented as a separate routine Each routine is called an operator and is available through the interface or as a DLL e Project A file that stores images image settings and other information such as virtual screen names You can use an Aphelion project file to save information and settings specific to a particular task Project files have the extension ap e Virtual screen Multiple displays that occupy the same screen space Each display can contain various documents such as images grids and text To display a virtual screen click its associated tab at the bottom of the Aphelion interface e Virtual screen filer A dialog box that shows each virtual screen and all elements such as images and grids associated with that virtual screen You ca
9. currently selected operator ImgLowPass3x3 is displayed To close the Help window click the close button in the upper right corner of the Help screen Specify the operator parameters including the input and output images In the Operator dialog box click the input image icon and select the image you want from the drop down list in this case there is probably only one image listed Ceramic tif For the output image use the default New image which is already selected There are no other parameters for ImgLowPass3x3 gt Run the operator On the toolbar at the bottom of the Operator dialog box click the Run Operator button While the operator is running the stop sign button turns red You can stop Aphelion User Guide 15 16 Aphelion User Guide the operator by clicking on the red stop sign button When the stop sign button turns white the operator has completed running View the results in Image 0 7 in Select a macro from the list of macros distributed with Aphelion On the Objects toolbar click the Macros button Choose Macros then select Ceramic apm to open a macro window containing Ceramic apm 8 A Run the macro On the Macro toolbar click the Run button As the macro runs Aphelion displays dialog boxes that allow you to select certain features 9 E View the results in an Aphelion grid document On the Objects toolbar click the ObjectSet List button Select a grid from the drop down list a 10 a Fre
10. e End Points 8 c e End Points 4 c e Multiple Points 8 c e Multiple Points 4 c Aphelion User Guide 59 60 e Aphelion User Guide Single Points 8 c Single Points 4 c Boundary 8 c Boundary 4 c Centroid 8 c Centroid 4 c Pruning 8 c Pruning 4 c Pruning 8 c Homotopic Pruning 4 c Homotopic L Skeleton 8C L Skeleton 4C SKIZ 8 c Skeleton by Zone of Inference SKIZ 4 c Selecting a Neighborhood LUT 1 2 Select an operator that uses a Neighborhood LUT such as ImgThin or ImgThicken In the Operator dialog box select the input image The input image must be a binary or gray scale image In the Type field click the drop down arrow and select a Neighborhood LUT from the list Make sure you have first selected an input image Creating a Neighborhood LUT 1 Select an operator that uses a Neighborhood LUT e ImgThin e ImgThicken e ImgHitOrMiss e ImgConstrainedThin e ImgConstrainedThicken e ImgThinSkeleton e ImgThickenSkeleton In the Operator dialog box select the input image The input image must be a binary or gray scale image Click the rA button to open the Neighborhood LUT Editor dialog box In the Neighborhood LUT Editor dialog box enter a name for the Neighborhood LUT in the Name field In the upper left side of the dialog box enter the values for the structuring element Click to toggle between 0 1 or X 04 05 99 6 When you have finished entering the values for the SE click
11. select the objects you want to include in the region of interest e Click to select one object e To select multiple objects hold down the CTRL key and click individual objects Or drag the mouse over the objects you want to select Right click to display the Image pop up menu At the bottom of the pop up menu select the name of the ObjectSet and then select Convert to ROI Refresh the image by closing and then reopening it X To reopen the image click the Image List button on the Objects toolbar and select the image name After you have converted the ObjectSet to an ROI you can remove or disable one or more of the objects from the region of interest Converting Graphic Overlay Objects to ROIs You can convert graphic overlay objects that you have drawn including rectangles ellipses or polygons to regions of interest 1 2 3 Draw the graphic objects in the image Graphic objects are outlined in blue Select the graphic objects you want to convert to regions of interest Right click to display the Image pop up menu Choose Graphic gt Convert to ROI Aphelion User Guide 95 Charts 96 Aphelion User Guide 4 Select the graphic objects outlined in blue and move them or click the Cut button The ROIs outlined in green will be visible in the image After you have converted the graphic objects to ROIs you can remove or disable one or more of the objects from the region of interest ObjectSets An
12. the function creates the Print Page Design with the specified identifier and displays it in the main window of the application To open a Print Page Design use AphPrintPage To insert an image a chart and text use e AphPrintPageInsertImage e AphPrintPageInsertChart e AphPrintPageInsertText The above functions return an objectld that is used in the other macro Print Page Design commands To modify the size and the position of objects that are inserted in the page use e AphPrintPageCenterObject e AphPrintPageDeleteObject e AphPrintPageMoveObject e AphPrintPageResizeObject To print and close the page use e AphPrintPagePrint e AphPrintPageClose Exporting Data from Aphelion When you produce images charts and grids in Aphelion you may want to use these elements in a presentation or report You can export data from Aphelion into other applications such Aphelion User Guide 123 124 e Aphelion User Guide as PowerPoint or MS Word The following procedures apply primarily to exporting Aphelion data to PowerPoint and Word and can be modified as needed for other applications Using an image in a presentation In Aphelion you can save the following overlays in a tif file e Rectangular ROIs e Graphic overlay objects such as rectangles lines and freehand drawings ObjectSet overlays are not saved with an image Profile lines and histogram rectangles are also not saved with an image To create files tha
13. 2 Select the type of document you want to open e Grid e Macro This option is especially useful for recording a new macro or for loading an existing macro and thereby changing the default macro directory e Text e OLE This option is currently unavailable 3 Click OK The corresponding window opens At this point the window is empty e For macros and text files you can load an existing file or create a new one 04 05 99 e For Grid files you can load an existing file To load an existing file click the right mouse button and choose Load You can also use the following keyboard shortcuts to open an existing document in a new window Document Type Shortcut Image CTRL O Macro CTRL M Text CTRL T Aphelion File Extensions ap apb apc apm 0c2 0c3 tls txt Project History Chart model Macro 2 dimensional chart 3 dimensional chart Rule Set ObjectSet Text files Customizing Aphelion There are several ways you can customize Aphelion so that your Aphelion sessions will be as 04 05 99 efficient and productive as possible Customizing Your Workspace Customize the list of operators that you use frequently See List of Frequently Used Operators Create custom macro and application buttons See Attaching a Macro or Application Button to the Toolbar Create Chart models for displaying histograms profiles surface maps and scatter plots See Creating a Chart Model Turn off the Tip
14. 26 Extracting Objects from Images 21 Finding Your Way Around 11 Global Measurements 21 Graphical User Interface 13 Grid 23 Loading and Saving Images 16 Object Measurements 22 Opening and Saving Images 16 Other Image Formats 17 Other object processing operators 24 Processing Images 20 Quick Tutorial 15 Reporting Results 24 Running an Operator 19 Scripting 25 Segmentation 22 Starting and Exiting Aphelion 11 Terminology 12 Using Help 14 Viewing Images 18 global analysis operators 51 global measurements 21 Global setting 77 Graph List button 40 graphic overlay objects copying and pasting 88 deleting 89 drawing 85 fill color 88 freehand drawing 89 handle size 87 layered 84 line color 87 line width 87 moving 86 overview 83 points 86 resizing 86 text 89 graphical user interface Aphelion 35 grid documents 80 Grid pop up menu 44 grids displaying 80 loading 80 opening 80 H Help Aphelion Reference Guide 52 button User Guide 39 Index 133 menu 38 Quick 10 using 9 14 Histogram command Grid pop up menu 44 80 Histogram command Image pop up menu 97 99 histograms command 99 drawing 97 dynamic coloring 99 image 96 ISR 80 102 message passing 80 modifying 98 History page 63 IHM 61 image class 75 image file formats 68 Image List button 39 40 Image pop up menu 43 image profiles 99 drawing 100 modifying 101 Image Properties dialog box 75 Image setting 77 Image toolbar 40 Image Understanding
15. Choose Graphic gt Line Width to display the Overlay Graphic Properties dialog box e To change the width of the line in pixels type a number in the Width field The default is 1 e To change the handle size in pixels type a number in the Handle Size field The default is 1 Click OK to apply the changes to the currently selected graphic overlay only Aphelion User Guide 87 88 e Aphelion User Guide Changing Fill Color The Fill feature is available only for rectangular graphic overlay objects You can change the fill color for only one selected object at a time 1 A Bw oN a ya Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Select the object you want to modify Right click to display the Image pop up menu Choose Graphic gt Properties to display the Overlay Graphic Properties dialog box Click the Fill check box then click OK Click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu then select Graphic gt Fill Color The Color dialog box appears Select the color you want and click OK The fill color of the selected object changes to the color you selected Note You can select the Fill color first then check the Fill check box in the Overlay Graphic Properties dialog box Copying and Pasting a Graphic Overlay Object You
16. Color command to change the color of a range 3 If you need to clear one or more ranges click the right mouse button and choose Selection e Delete selection This command deletes only the selection where the mouse is positioned e Delete all selections This command deletes all selections Use this command when you want to clear the ranges and start over 4 You can change the color used in dynamic coloring Place the mouse over the range you want to change then right click to display the pop up menu Choose Selection gt Color Choose a color from the Color dialog box and click OK The color is changed in both the Histogram and Image windows Note The Statusbar displays the gray level x and frequency y of the point where the cursor is positioned on the histogram Image Profiles You can create multiple windows that show intensity profiles of selected lines in an image You can use message passing to specify points on the profile and automatically mark those points in the image Aphelion User Guide 99 100 o Aphelion User Guide E Profile Blood 76 30 178 138 v gt a l gt 2 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 Line Point The values on the X axis of the graph correspond to the distance between the two end points selected for the profile You can select one point on the chart and display the exact values in the Statusbar at the bottom of the Aphelion screen The output has the following for
17. ESS 96 Drawing a Histogram esessseeseereseseeereseerrsrestssrrrrsreeresrerrsreetsserrrssreresrerreseet 97 Modifying a Histogram eee ce cee ceseceseeeeceseceseeecesecesecescesecesesneseeensees 98 Using the Histogram Command Image pop up menu 0 0 eee eee 99 Image Profile Sne oren ech desc ctenes svee e e e RETE fesoessestvede netic hentia SREST 99 Drawing an Image Profile seseeeeseeeseeesesesesereresreersserrrsserrenresreereseerresee 100 Modifying an Image Profile eeeseeeeseeessseeesssrerrerrsresrssresreseeresserrenrerreeres 101 Using Aphiime Profiles seiis sesia rari e 101 Image Surkace Maps iecs sinense Na e E R N S 102 Object Histograms i302 sai esha are Ee Rac eee anes SRG Ned Ea eS 102 Scatter Plots icc na we Re hs Rees BE a aire he ae 103 Setting Chart Options svisccssecsscusbsesscesces lees sbeessessdics ssosctestesssosbevessbesshnesovt canvass sadsasesnss 103 SAVIN G4 CHAT ees oeenn eee r ped ebleosdetenes aE e Sr Se EERE S TAa ERE Hi 104 Loading a Charte ti38 cccscies eas erino r e EEE E E EA EE EEEE ERTER 104 Changing the Size or Location of a Chart Window sssessseeesseeeeeesrsreesesreereserersseee 104 Creating a Chart Model sci cirese treneris enri riis EEEE E E EE 105 Message Passin pe scisscccsaseeceeisesticgicn a e E A E E a S ENE 106 Message passing between an image and a chart eseseessseeesseeesseerereeresreseresserees 106 Message passing between an image and a grid sssese
18. Ee 70 Saving an Magenn ns a E a e a toads E E E i SE NS 70 Importing Images snene e eeen E E EE a Ea E e 71 Acquisition Bo tdsi rnern e ea E A a S 72 Acquiring Live TM age iiss eaaa EEE A EEEa ERE 72 Closingand Pr eing Ima ges c jscces50 se feces cetacsas cugetechcetectenee Mestnestecsepsusevece ae 73 Closins a Images 35 reee ae E E e cached eta need eh a eoh 73 Freeing an Image n e E i ides E EIERNE gente reas 73 TMA SE VIC WS r E A EN EEE E EA Seen sneeh ERRA 74 RESIZING am Imap enesenn aE E a ee reet oR thas Meneame T ENA 74 ZOOMING m ge iite cg sesleedevsecvich sede sous deesueescwbsbedeeeecebeacebensve 75 Image Properties onip n Relies RR ies SA A 75 Image Properties cecisclsscisssecistsadhss sats sesigtsseesscesaeasceb acted godesasotsvessscovssseetess 75 Calibrating an IMa geie esccsessenadgeuceselscctah ds conysteeteesdpedveerabelecesepsueeccebnaeeaes 76 Adjusting the Contrast Brightness sesseseeeseeesesreessseeersresrrerrsresresrerrssesees 77 Selecting the Display Context 00 eceeeseeceeeceseceecesecaecaecsaeeaeeeneeees 77 Selecting a Lookup Table sitire esn ssi Es asii kse 79 Betis a New LUT inae e A She E A E ES 79 Grd DOCUMents osise oeo rse Eo teks e Eo A teks e Eeo eS A S ESSEE E e EEEE aT EES 80 Displaying an Object Grid Document ssesseesseeeessreesssrerrereereserrrsreerssreresserersrerrsse 80 ISR PIStO Rtas fs sseesccsasceissivesedesssevsd cack gosh seb roeie scene oaa a TEE Si
19. Environment 127 images acquiring 72 BMP files 69 brightness 77 calibrating 76 closing 73 contrast brightness 77 data types 57 displaying 49 74 file formats 16 17 68 71 filtering 20 freeing 73 global measurements 21 histograms 96 input 56 JPEG files 69 KBV files 69 kurtosis 43 live 72 loading 16 70 lookup table 79 multi band 69 names 57 opening 16 70 output 56 57 58 overlays 86 134 e Index panning 74 parameters 71 profiles 99 properties 75 resizing 74 saving 16 70 size 57 skewness 43 statistics 43 surface maps 102 TIFF files 68 view 74 viewing 18 zooming 75 ImgProfile 101 individual analysis 80 119 See object measurements Info page 62 Info History Messages IHM window 61 Info History Messages window button 39 input images 56 inserting virtual screens 65 Intermediate Symbolic Representation ISR 119 ISR Intermediate Symbolic Representation 119 ISR Histogram button 41 ISR histograms 80 102 IUE 127 J JPEG files 16 69 70 K Kanji translation 37 KBV files 16 69 70 KBVision 127 Keep Rows command Grid pop up menu 44 Kernel Editor dialog box 58 kernels editor 58 kurtosis images 43 L languages 37 library macro 115 line color graphic overlay objects 87 linking information 106 live images 72 Load Chart command 45 Load command Grid pop up menu 44 loading charts 104 04 05 99 grids 80 images 16 70 macros 25 111 112 project files 67 text files 82 local
20. Inc HiJaak Quarterdeck Corp Image Alchemy Handmade Software Inc LView Pro Leonardo H Loureiro PaintShopPro JASC Inc Acquiring Images Aphelion has built in support for several digitizer boards If you have one of the boards listed below you can capture live video at full motion rate e Imaging Technology Inc ITI IC PCI module AM VS AM DIG AM FA AM CLR STD COMP STD RGB 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 17 18 Aphelion User Guide MutTech Inc MV 1000 monochrome MV 1300 color V 450 Data Translation Inc DT 3155 monochrome Matrox Meteor Matrox Meteor II Matrox Meteor RGB Matrox Meteor PPB Matrox Pulsar and Corona for non standard acquisition Integral Technologies FlashPoint 128 monochrome and color Note Aphelion also supports Twain drivers Additional hardware support is planned for future Aphelion releases To acquire a live image Tip l 2 On the Objects toolbar click the Camera button Select the logical camera you want to use Fe In the Operator dialog box click the Select Operator button Choose Image Acquisition gt Grab Snap gt ImgSnap In the Operator dialog box click the Acq board drop down list to select the acquisition board you want to use gt I Run the operator The image appears in an image window If the Operator dialog box is not visible click T on the Objects toolbar Viewing Images When you load an image it is displayed in an ima
21. Use the Macros button on the Objects toolbar as a shortcut to load a macro When you click the Macros button the macro menu is displayed Aphelion User Guide 111 112 Aphelion User Guide bml m_macros bmp From the menu you can list the Macros directory or the Examples directory Select a macro from the list A macro window opens with the macro loaded A list of all macros in the current macro directory is displayed at the bottom of the macro menu To change the current macro directory use the Load command in the macro window and select a macro from another directory The new directory becomes the default For more information see Changing the Default Macro Directory Loading a Macro from the Macro Window 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens re OK Macro Document Cancel Text Document Ole Document Help 2 Choose Macro Document and click OK to open a macro window 3 Inthe macro window click the right mouse button to display the Macro pop up menu 4 Choose Load to display the Open dialog box Highlight the macro you want to load Macro files have the extension apm 6 Click Open The macro is loaded into the macro window Shortcut To bring up the Open dialog box for macros press CTRL M Changing the Default Macro Directory When you first start Aphelion the default macro directory is the Aphelion directory The default macro directory controls e what macros files are liste
22. a multi byte pixel type 2 and 4 byte ints are common or a color image For a color image you will need to run AphImgImport once for each color band increasing the File Header Size to skip over one or more bands on each subsequent run e Ifyou have no information about the size and or type of the image file you can determine the information through trial and error You do this by repeatedly running the AphImgImport operator with different argument values and viewing the resulting image on the screen By varying the X and Y dimensions and pixel type of the output image you can obtain a recognizable image on the screen You then determine the File Header Size by closely examining the first pixels in the image and removing any that do not look like pixel data To use a conversion program 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 71 72 Aphelion User Guide Several image conversion applications are widely available To use one of these applications first load the image and then save it as a TIFF or BMP image Image Conversion Application Company Graphics Workshop Alchemy Mindworks Inc HiJaak Quarterdeck Corp Image Alchemy Handmade Software Inc LView Pro Leonardo H Loureiro Paint Shop Pro JASC Inc Acquisition Boards Aphelion has built in support for several digitizer boards If you have one of the boards listed below you can capture live video at full motion rate e Imaging Technology Inc ITI IC PCI module AM VS AM DIG
23. a second project you can save your work for a presentation The name of the current project file is displayed in the Aphelion title bar A project file always has the extension ap e When you start Aphelion it opens with an empty project by default e Ifyou want to automatically reload the last project each time you start Aphelion use the Options gt Preferences command to select the option Automatically load the last project in the Preferences dialog box e When you exit Aphelion a message box appears asking if you want to save the current project in a file Click Yes to save the project No to exit without saving changes to the project or Cancel to return to Aphelion without saving the project 04 05 99 04 05 99 Creating a Project File Each time you use Aphelion to start a new project you should start a new project file That way you can easily switch between projects and maintain the information you need for each project Note When you first start Aphelion it opens with an empty project unless you have selected Automatically load the last project from the Options gt Preferences command To start a new project file from an empty project 1 From the File menu choose Save Project As The Open dialog box is displayed 2 Type a name for the project file in the File name field Project files have the extension ap 3 Click Save The name of the project along with the name of the window that is currently active in Aph
24. analysis 80 119 See object measurements lookup table LUT defining 79 selecting 79 LUT defining 79 selecting 79 M1 M4 buttons 40 117 macro directory default 112 macro library changing 115 creating 115 overview 115 Macro pop up menu 45 Macro toolbar 42 macro windows opening 111 macros Aphelion 26 application 27 BasicScript commands 110 comments 111 debugging 116 default directory 112 editing 114 example 26 28 loading 25 111 112 OLE object linking and embedding 81 82 opening 25 111 112 overview 110 Print Page Design 123 recording 113 regions of interest ROD 91 running 113 saving 114 startup 48 toolbar buttons 117 watch variables 116 windows 111 Macros button 40 Main toolbar 39 maximizing Aphelion 48 menu bar 36 menus Edit 37 File 36 Help 38 Aphelion Online User Guide Options 38 View 37 Windows 38 message passing 80 between an image and a chart 106 between an image and a grid 107 between images 108 overviews 106 tutorial 108 Messages page 64 Messages eng file 58 MMX 55 MMX operators 53 55 models charts 105 modifying contrast brightness 77 default image view 49 default name of output image 58 histograms 98 macro library 115 neighborhood LUTs 61 output images 57 profiles 101 modules Aphelion 9 core 8 Visualization 8 Move chart button 42 movies demo 10 moving graphic overlay objects 86 ROIs 94 multi band images 69 N name output images 57 naming virtual screens 66 Nei
25. and basic Windows features such as clicking double clicking and drag and drop editing If you have not used Windows 95 98 or NT before we recommend that you attend a training session or refer to books such as Introducing Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT 4 0 Workstation Step by Step for more information Tip The pop up menu a Windows 95 98 NT feature is used extensively throughout Aphelion In many windows and areas of the Aphelion interface you can click the right mouse button to display a pop up menu of commands related to the particular window or area For example click the right mouse button in an Image window to display the Image pop up menu Starting and Exiting Aphelion After installing Aphelion start the application by clicking the Aphelion icon on the Start Programs menu of Windows 95 98 or Windows NT e The Aphelion splash screen appears displaying copyright information and the Aphelion release number Aphelion User Guide 11 APHELION Version 3 0 Copyrigit 1996 1998 ADCIS S A and Amerisex Applied Imaging inc This program is protected by US and International laws as described bs Help About e The splash screen disappears after a few seconds and the graphical user interface opens covering most of the area of the monitor The Tip of the Day window opens automatically If you do not want to see the Tip of the Day each time you start Aphelion clear the Show Tips on Startup check box in the Tip of
26. and the size of the handles To change properties click the right mouse button and select Graphic to display the graphics menu Fill Color Line Color Properties Move To Front Move To Back Move Back Move Front Convert To AOI Pen Eraser gt Note Except for line color property changes apply only to selected objects If you change the line color any other graphic overlay objects you draw in that image will be drawn in the new color Layered Objects If you have drawn layered objects use the following commands to adjust the way the objects are displayed 84 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 e Move to Front e Move to Back e Move Back e Move Forward The Move to Front and Move to Back commands move a selected object in front of or behind other objects The Move Back and Move Forward commands move a selected object back or forward one level within a group of overlapping objects Drawing a Graphic Overlay Object To draw a graphic overlay object be sure that the image you want to work with is active Tip If you have several images open and want to focus on one of those images click amp on the Objects toolbar Select the image you want to use l yal Make sure you are in Overlay mode To enable Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic 2 Click one of the toolbar buttons to select the type of object you want to draw point E ine By rectan
27. apply the display context to the current window to the image or to all image windows displayed in Aphelion To select the display context 1 With the cursor positioned in the image window right click to display the pop up menu Choose Properties gt Select DC to open the Display Context Selection dialog box Use the Window Display Context Image Display Context and Global Display Context tabs to indicate which parameters are affected e The Windows settings apply to the active window e The Image settings apply to the Image and will be saved with the image e The Global settings apply to all images in the current Aphelion session Select the LUT e Use Default The display context will use the default LUT associated with the image e Linear LUT A ramp from a low value to a high value e Absolute value In case of negative images all negative values are turned into their positive values For positive images this LUT has no effect e Logarithmic LUT The output LUT is a logarithm This is especially used in the case of FFT computation e Label LUT This is the binary LUT and it is used after labeling of a binary image After selecting a LUT you can specify the input range of the LUT entries Output LUT range is always be adapted to the screen and will usually be between 0 and 128 You can use the default settings and configuration or specify the range manually To specify the range manually click in the Override d
28. are used to clean the image Local analysis is performed to get measurements on each fiber From the measurement data the fibers are filtered This macro also demonstrates how to use BasicScript a Visual Basic compatible macro language to create dialog boxes The dialog boxes used in this macro are e YesNoDialog to specify if the images are deleted at the end of the macro e BreakTimeDialog to specify the time lag between two Aphelion operators e FilterBox to select which filter to apply Annotated Macro Ceramic apm Note In this example the macro code appears in boxes with the annotations in regular text For more information about a specific Visual Basic command refer to the Macro Language Reference Guide available from the Help menu in Aphelion 04 05 99 04 05 99 In Visual Basic all comments made in a macro must start with a quote An alternative is to use the rem command Originator GG Date of creation 27 01 96 Date of last modifications 26 09 96 Each subroutine must have a name In Aphelion the name by default is main but any other name can be given to a subroutine A subroutine can call another one if the other subroutine is placed in the same file Sub main The following declarations define two integer variables named breaktime and bt1000 Dim breaktime As Integer Dim bt1000 As Integer The following dialog box is defined using the Dialog Editor This dialog box lets you delete
29. areas of the chart as used in the Olectra Chart Control Properties dialog box 1 Display the chart you want to modify 2 Right click to display the Image pop up menu 3 Choose Properties The Olectra Chart Control Properties dialog box opens 4 To change the colors of the chart choose the following combination of tabs To enang the colorofthe Usethiewe Plot charts ChartStyle gt LineStyle ChartStyle gt Symbol Style Area and bar charts ChartStyle gt FillStyle 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 103 104 Aphelion User Guide After you modify the chart you can save the properties and characteristics as a model You can use the model when you create other charts of the same type Saving a Chart You can save a chart file which saves both the chart data and the chart properties such as the style of the border colors titles and other properties Chart files have the extension oc2 or 0c3 1 Create a chart such as a histogram or profile 2 From the chart window click the right mouse button to display the Chart pop up menu 3 Choose Save Chart 4 In the Save As dialog box type a name for the chart file in the Save As dialog box Click Save Loading a Chart If you have saved a chart such as a histogram or profile you can load the chart in a chart window From a chart window click the right mouse button to display the Chart pop up menu Choose Load then select the chart you want to load Changing
30. best results Refer to the documentation for the program you are using 1 Create a bitmap file using PaintShopPro or another paint or screen capture program 2 Insert the bitmap file into your presentation Using a chart in a presentation In Aphelion you can create the following kinds of charts e Histogram e Profile 04 05 99 04 05 99 Surface Map Scatter Plot After you create the chart you can export it to another application or to a bitmap file 1 Create the chart you want to use in the presentation For example draw a histogram or profile Focus on the chart you want to export Click the right mouse button to display the Chart pop up menu There are several options for exporting a chart window Print If you choose Print you can select which option you want Best Fit etc Clipboard If you place the file on the Clipboard you can then paste the file into PowerPoint or Word This is an efficient method if you do not want to save the bitmap as a file Save As Bitmap Save the bitmap file then import it to a Word document Note Bitmap files saved using this command can not be exported to PowerPoint Using a grid in a presentation There are several ways you can use data from an Aphelion grid in another application Export the grid to Excel then to PowerPoint or Word Create an ASCII file Exporting a Histogram to Excel From the Aphelion interface you can export histogram data directly into
31. copy information from an image macro or text window To copy information in any tab in the Info History Messages window use the contextual pop up menus uw Paste Paste an object from the Clipboard into an image text or macro window Currently you can paste overlay objects from an image window or text from a macro or text window To paste information in any tab in the Info History Messages window use the contextual pop up menus i Help Display Aphelion online Help Context Help Display context sensitive Help for menus buttons and other interface elements Click this button then click the object for which you want Help Aphelion displays a pop up window with a brief description of the object To close the pop up window simply continue with your work aa Objects Toolbar The Objects toolbar is displayed when you open Aphelion If you want to hide the Objects toolbar choose View Objects bar OP Operator Dialog Box Display or hide the Operator dialog box THM Info History Messages Window Display or hide the Info History Messages window a Print Page Design Layout images text and other objects on a page for printing R Image List List the images that reside in all of the virtual screens and images that were opened but are now closed Click the image of interest If the image was closed it will reopen into the virtual screen selected If the image is open it will be 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 39
32. displayed and cannot be enabled disabled or deleted When you draw an ROI in an image window the original ROI is automatically disabled When you remove or disable all drawn ROIs the original ROI is enabled again 04 05 99 04 05 99 If you are writing a macro using BasicScript commands you must disable the original ROI in order to process ROIs that you have created See AphImgAddRoi for further information and examples To Draw an ROI 1 Open an image window or make an open image active When you open or focus on an image window the Image toolbar appears along the right side of the screen 2 Fal Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI 3 Choose the kind of ROI you want to draw mj To draw a rectangular ROI you do not need to click any additional buttons The Draw Rectangle button is automatically selected o To draw an elliptical ROI click the Draw Ellipse button You can draw an ellipse along the vertical and horizontal axes only E To draw a polygonal ROI click the Draw Polygon button g To draw a freehand ROI click the Freehand Draw button 4 Use the mouse to draw an ROI over the region of interest e For rectangular and elliptical ROIs drag the mouse to draw the ROI To end drawing the ROI release the mouse button e For a polygonal ROI double click to end drawing e For a freehand ROI use the p
33. e The name of the kernel for a convolution e The size of the kernel e The shape of the structuring element for morphological transformations Most parameters are set by selecting a value from a drop down list Some parameters such as strings and numbers must be typed For more information see Selecting Operator Parameters Aphelion User Guide 19 Tip Before you run an operator you must first specify all parameters including any input and output images Advanced Parameters For some operators advanced parameters are available Advanced parameters allow greater control over processes such as segmentation If an operator includes advanced parameters the advanced parameter button is available Click to display the advanced parameters and supply values To run an operator To run an operator use the toolbar buttons at the bottom of the Operator dialog box To run an operator click the green arrow button oe To cancel the operator while it is running click the red stop sign button When the operation is complete the stop sign turns white Shortcut To run an operator press CTRL R After running an operator the output image is displayed if applicable See Viewing Images for information on obtaining different views of the image Processing Images This section describes how to process and enhance images Filtering to remove gray level noise Gray level noise is characterized by varying pixel values This n
34. exporting data 125 file extensions 47 graphical user interface 35 macros 26 maximizing 48 product overview 7 product support 126 project files 66 starting 11 workspace 13 47 Aphelion apm 48 AphImgProfile 101 application toolbar buttons 117 application macros 27 Area Chart button 41 ASCII files 126 Aphelion Online User Guide aspect ratio 50 74 75 Attach Macro button 40 118 Attach to Graphic command Grid pop up menu 44 B BasicScript 110 macro commands 110 ROIs 91 BMP files 16 69 70 boards image acquisition 72 brightness image 77 buttons 3D bar chart 41 Al A2 40 117 Area Chart 41 Attach Macro 40 Camera 40 Context Help 39 Copy 39 Cut 39 Draw Ellipse 40 Draw Line 40 Draw Polygon 40 41 Draw Rectangle 40 Draw Round Rectangle 40 Draw Text 41 Graph List 40 Help 39 Image List 39 40 Info History Messages window 39 ISR Histogram 41 M1 M4 40 117 Macros 40 Move chart 42 New 39 ObjectSet List 40 Open 39 Operator dialog box 39 Paste 39 Plot 41 Print Page Design 39 122 Reset chart 42 Reset Zoom image 41 Save 39 Scale chart 42 Select Fill Color 41 Select Font 41 Select Line Color 41 Select Line Width 41 Select Objects 40 ShowInfo 41 Sort by Column 41 Sort by Index 41 UserMacro 40 117 Index 131 Virtual Screen Filer 40 66 Zoom In chart 42 Zoom In image 41 C calibrating images 76 Camera button 40 Cascade 38 changing fill color graphic overlay objects 88
35. following ways e Type the text e Click the right mouse button and choose Load Highlight the file you want to load and click Open 4 Edit the text as needed e To cut copy and paste text first select the text you want to work with The Cut Copy and Paste buttons on the Main toolbar are then available 5 To save the text file click the right mouse button and choose Save To open an existing text file 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 04 05 99 Overlays 04 05 99 Choose Text Document and click OK An empty text window opens Click the right mouse button to display the Text pop up menu Choose Load to display the Open dialog box ot a Te ih Highlight the file you want If needed change directories to find the file By default the file type is txt 6 Click Open The text file opens in the text window The pathname of the file is displayed in the title bar of the text window Shortcut To bring up the Open dialog box for text files press CTRL T You can draw overlay objects in Aphelion to annotate images or to extract or manipulate information in an image Overlays are attached to the image in which they are drawn and saved with that image When you open an image the Image toolbar is displayed along the right side of the screen The Select Objects tool and Graphic Overlay mode buttons are selected by default The Image toolbar includes an Overlay button at the bottom of the tool
36. macro library The macros are listed in the Files in Library section at the top of the dialog box Click Close Changing the Macro Library To add a macro to the macro library 1 2 Open the macro that you want to add to the macro library With the cursor positioned in the macro window click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu Choose Add To Macro Lib To view the list of macros in the Macro Library click the Macro List button on the Objects toolbar then choose Macro Library To remove a macro from the library 1 2 3 4 Click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar Choose Macro Library The Macro Library dialog box opens Select the macro To select multiple macros hold down the CTRL key Click Remove Aphelion User Guide 115 116 Aphelion User Guide Macro Watch Variables Watch variables are useful to debug a macro or to add a test or a loop to a macro There are two ways to display the value of a variable e Display the value in a message box using the MsgBox command e Use the watch variable feature provided with the debugger This method is more efficient Each time the value of the variable changes the new value appears in the macro window You can only watch variables of fundamental data types such as Integer Long and Variant you cannot watch complex variables such as structures or arrays You can however watch individual elements of arrays or structure members using th
37. macro library 115 the default macro directory 112 the origin of a kernel or structuring element 59 Chart pop up menu 44 Chart toolbar 41 charts histograms 44 80 96 ISR histograms 102 loading 104 message passing 106 models 96 105 overview 96 profiles 99 properties 103 saving 104 scatter plots 44 103 surface maps 102 window location 104 Clipboard Chart command 45 closing images 73 windows 38 Color button text overlays 90 commands BasicScript 110 comments macros 111 communications OLE 81 Context Help button 39 Contrast dialog box 77 contrast brightness image 77 converting graphic overlay objects to ROIs 95 converting ObjectSets to ROIs 95 Copy button 39 copying graphic overlay objects 88 ROIs 94 copyright information 7 Core module Aphelion 8 creating a Print Page Design 122 an ASCII file from a grid document 126 application buttons 118 132 e Index chart models 105 macro buttons 118 macro library 115 neighborhood LUTs 60 project files 67 scatter plots 103 customizing Aphelion workspace 47 toolbar buttons 117 Cut button 39 D data type 76 DC display context 77 debugging macros 116 default macro directory 112 defining a lookup table LUT 79 Delete Column command Grid pop up menu 44 Delete Rows command Grid pop up menu 44 deleting graphic overlay objects 89 ROIs 94 virtual screens 65 watch variables 116 demo movies 10 Developer module Aphelion 9 dialog boxes Add Watch 116 Contrast
38. memory This allows you to clear the workspace but still have ready access to the image file e Freeing an image When you free an image you close it and remove it from memory This frees up system resources After you free an image you must reload the image in order to work with it Closing an Image When you close an image the window closes but the image file is kept in memory This allows you to clear the workspace and redisplay the image as needed Note You can also minimize an image window to clear up display space To minimize a window click the Minimize button in the upper right corner of the image window Or press Alt Spacebar N To close an image e From the menu bar choose File gt Close As a shortcut click the X button in the upper right corner of the image window or press CTRL F4 To close all image windows e From the menu bar choose Window gt Close gt Images To redisplay a closed image l X Click the Image List button 2 From the list of images select the one you want to redisplay Freeing an Image If you are done working with an image and want to close it and remove it from memory you can free the image This frees up memory in the system and may be especially useful when working with large images If you free an image you have to reload it in order to work with it Warning If you have not saved the images you are freeing such as an output image created by running an Aphelion operator you c
39. of the Day 1 From the Help menu choose Tip of the day 2 Clear the Show Tips on Startup check box 3 Click Close Hide or display the Operator dialog box and the IHM window Aphelion User Guide 47 48 e Aphelion User Guide e To hide or display the Operator dialog box click the Z button on the Objects toolbar e To hide or display the IHM window click the m button on the Objects toolbar e Change the language in which the Aphelion interface is displayed See Multiple Language Documentation e Change the background color of the workspace See Options Menu Startup Options When you startup Aphelion you can specify that you want to e runa specific macro automatically e open Aphelion in a maximized window e Joad the last project you were working on Running a Macro You can set up Aphelion so that it runs a macro each time you start the application 1 Create a macro named Aphelion apm 2 Save the Aphelion apm file in the Aphelion Macros directory The next time you start Aphelion the macro will run automatically Starting Aphelion in a Maximized Window If you want the Aphelion window to open maximized each time you start Aphelion make the following change to the Registry Note Changing the Registry is recommended for advanced Windows users only 1 Click Start Run Choose or type Regedit 2 Choose HKEY_ CURRENT USER Then choose Software gt ADCIS AAI gt Aphelion gt 2 3 Format Aphelion 3 In the r
40. of the following ways fe Select an operator from a list of the entire Aphelion Operator Library organized by category A e Pi Select an operator from an alphabetical list of all operators 2 Al Click the Frequently Used Operators button Add Delete Clear teH elnie v ImgThreshold Img olume ImgSobelE dges 3 Click Add to add the currently selected operator to the list To select an operator from a list of frequently used operators 1 Al In the Operator dialog box click the Frequently Used Operators button 2 Click to select the operator you want to use MMX Operators pH Aphelion 2 3 supports the MMX chip from Intel This chip dramatically improves the speed of Aphelion operators If an operator can run on the MMX a flag icon appears in the right corner of the Operator dialog box You can run the operator in the MMX or in the general purpose processor of the PC Note To use MMX acceleration an optional extension has to be installed during Aphelion setup Please see the Release Notes for more information on the MMX installation The following operators are currently implemented on the MMX e AphImgAdd e Aph mgSubtract e AphlmgMaximum e AphImgMinimum e 6AphImgMultiply e AphImgThreshold e AphImgDilate e AphImgErode e AphImgConvolve Aphelion User Guide 55 e AphImgOpen e AphImgClose e AphImgWhiteTophat e AphImgBlackTophat Selecting Input and Output Images If
41. representation the operator computes the appropriate measurements Summary of object measurements e Region location area shape texture color e Line location length angle contrast color e Chain location length curvature contrast color e Polygon location area boundary length color e Edgel location angle magnitude color e Rectangle location area color See the Help page for AphObjComputeMeasurements for more information about each measurement Tip Each object representation can be converted to a region using AphObjSpatialAttributeToRegions This makes it possible to compute all the region measurements for objects such as lines chains and polygons Other object processing operators The above sections are an introduction to the object operator library in Aphelion Here are the other object processing sections with example operators e Conversion AphObjSpatialAttributeToRegions e Transforms AphObjRotate e Morphology AphRegionErode e Grouping AphEdgelsToChains AphRegionSplitConvex e Analysis AphImgVolume AphRegionFeret AphChainAttributes e Utilities AphObjFilter AphObjCopy Reporting Results Printing In Aphelion you can print individual documents such as images macros and charts You can also use Print Page Design to compose a printed page with documents and text 04 05 99 04 05 99 S amp S Focus on the window that contains the document such as an image or macro that you want to prin
42. same original data using the same algorithm is known as an ObjectSet Various operators are provided that will extract Image events Aphelion User Guide 119 Displaying ObjectSets A segmentation operator automatically displays the resulting set of Objects in the overlay of the image To display an ObjectSet on a new image use the AphObjDraw operator Analyzing and Filtering ObjectSets To filter ObjectSets use the AphObjFilter operator See Grid Documents for more information Object Measurements To compute measurements for objects use the AphObjComputeMeasurements operator 120 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Printing and Exporting Data 04 05 99 You can format images charts and text for output to printers There are two ways to print from Aphelion e Use the Print command to print individual documents that are displayed in Aphelion e Use the Print Page Design feature to organize and format the printed layout of images ObjectsSets charts and text You can also export data from Aphelion to other applications such as Excel or PowerPoint Print Command You can print image chart text macro or grid documents from Aphelion The margins for the printed page are determined by the default margins for the selected printer Printing a Document image chart text macro 1 Focus on the window containing the document you want to print e Image e Chart Charts include histograms profiles surface maps and scatter p
43. seeeseeeseseeeeseeeseesseerssesressrrrsserteeserrsserenserenserrresesensenees 35 Menu Bat E EE E R EE AET 36 Pile MENU sosire rpe neee e se aena apii eee n 36 Edit MEDU kie etae e E E ERE i EE 37 View Meit A N Se A EE EE eet 37 Options M nu isorosi arees ene reer EE ea n Er a EES TEE E 37 Windows MEn sereas aa n E E E E E E E E SE 38 04 05 99 4 00 PM Aphelion User Guide 1 Help Men s ii onanii oono iee e eai AAAS oom ai bates 38 Statusbats 452 15 ysis atte tha ee ti Sep te Re Lae Bee on oe 38 Toolbars s ussseseis sise hess setige shih e tate stents aa a ES ask than ees paa a EEE Mab DESP E KSEE a e 39 Maint TOO Dat ssc ee rrara eea Eora ar E I toss EE AE Eros 39 Objects FOO Dar spinenie e ee eaaa aE E EEEE R vend 39 Image Toolb i ess ae e Nea iach aaa ek ences 40 Grid Toolbars isrener aeieea aston hes seugessa seus E E TE E 41 Chart Toolbar irnn e a R a N RRS 41 Macro Toolbar sresti etae ith aE S asi ss 42 Acquisition Toolbar eeeeecesecesseeceseceeececeseeeeseecsscesesaeceeeeesaeesseeeeseeeeees 42 Pop up Menus si erre areren ie eeaeee aeara RER TSE a E de teas coshspvesesedavecotbessesscesiee 43 Image Pop up Menu ise erp sees peres geneser oaee aai SE EERE ES ESN 43 Grid Pop up MenU sincier eeen e n Erea e EE E SES 44 Chart Pop up Menu sissien orero ea aE rnEeE E ES EERE eson 44 Macro Pop up Menu sca esris cavessedeasisovecieesstevvnnsoed e rE Ers Ea EE a Ns 45 Opening New DocumentSsks nen e rE E AA E ER E AEE
44. the Day window Note To exit Aphelion choose File gt Exit from the menu bar or press Alt F4 A message box appears asking if you want to save the current project file Click Yes to save the project file or No to exit without saving changes to the project file Click Cancel to return to Aphelion without saving the current project Terminology To use Aphelion you should be familiar with the following terms e BasicScript A scripting language compatible with Visual Basic In Aphelion you use BasicScript to create macros e Chart A histogram profile surface map or scatter plot window You can modify the properties of a chart using the Properties command on the Chart pop up menu e Display Context A function converting pixel values into lookup table LUT indices For example a display context allows you to display an image of unsigned 16 bit values between 0 and 65536 on an 8 bit display The conversion functions include linear absolute value logarithmic and periodic e Grid Object measurements displayed in a spreadsheet format For example a Grid document may be used to display ObjectSet data for analysis and charting e Measurement Any attribute computed for an image or an individual object Typically one column in an ObjectSet e Message passing A mechanism that sends messages between image views containing object overlays and a grid or chart document allowing you to view the same information in different formats
45. toolbar click the Select Objects button 2 Select the rectangle you want to resize or move 3 Choose one of the following options e To move the rectangle click anywhere inside the selected rectangle and drag the rectangle to a new position e To resize the rectangle click a selection point and drag the side or corner to a new position To change the histogram line color l Make sure that Histogram mode is activated 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the histogram you want to modify 4 Choose the Line Color option in one of the following ways e On the Image toolbar click el e From the Image pop up menu choose Histogram Line Color The Color dialog box appears 5 Select the color you want and click OK The line color of the selected histogram changes to the color you selected To delete a histogram When you delete the drawn region of interest the histogram window is also deleted 1 Ly On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 2 Select the region of interest representing the histogram you want to delete 3 Click the Cut button on the Main toolbar or press CTRL X 98 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 Note When you close a histogram window the region of interest remains drawn with the image When you reselect the region of interest the histogram window is restored Using the Histogram Command Image pop up menu When you use this method to creat
46. what information is displayed in the Info page 04 05 99 04 05 99 Displaying information in the Info page in the IHM window When you display information in the Info page in the IHM window you can then save that information or copy it to a macro or other document 1 2 From the View menu choose Info Window Output All Information Pixel Values Histogram Profile Values Overlay Coordinates Choose the type of information you want to display e All Information Display pixel coordinates chart coordinates overlay information and measurements from global analysis operators e Pixel Values Display pixel coordinates only e Histogram Profile Values Display chart information from a profile line or histogram e Overlay Coordinates Display overlay information such as the pixel coordinates of an ROI Saving information to a file from the Info page Information displayed in the Info page of the IHM window can be saved to a file l 2 3 From the View menu choose Info Window Output Choose what type of information you want to display in the Info page Run or execute Aphelion processes display histograms or compute other information The values from the operations are displayed in the Info page Click the right mouse button in the Info page to display the pop up menu Choose Save or Save As History Page The History page displays a batch file of activities When an operator is executed a line ap
47. you have to specify the low and high bounds of the threshold There are also a number of automatic segmentation operators such as AphImgEntropyThresholdObj Tip All Aphelion region segmentation operators have two versions one that ends in Obj and one that doesn t The Obj operator creates regions within the ISR while the others create binary and label images Many other object representations are available in Aphelion The following list gives example operators for each e Lines AphImgGradientLines e Fdgels AphEdgesToEdgels e Rectangles AphLabelsToRectangles e Chains AphEdgelsToChains e Polygons AphRegionConvexHullPolygons Object Measurements Object measurements are attributes computed for objects such as regions lines and chains Typically measurements are computed in order to filter classify or quantify actual objects in the image Aphelion contains powerful object measurement measurements One row in an database visualization and calculation tools ObjectSet 22 Aphelion User Guide ObjectSets ObjectSets are represented in the Intermediate Symbolic Representation ISR The ISR is a database used to store and retrieve object measurements The easiest way to conceptualize the ISR is to think of it as a two dimensional array just like a spreadsheet In this analogy the rows are objects and each column represents one specific measurement The ISR is much 04 05 99 04 05 99 more th
48. you select an operator that requires input or output images Aphelion displays input and output boxes in the Operator dialog box If multiple input or output images are required multiple boxes are displayed You must specify an image for each box input Output I Real Note To improve processing time for large images you can turn off the display of input and output images as thumbnails From the Options menu choose Preferences In the Preferences dialog box deselect Display image thumbnails then click OK Based on the input and output images you select Aphelion supplies default values for the other parameters Selecting an Input ImageX 1 In the Operator dialog box click the input image box A list of open images appears Based on the task to be performed only the relevant input images appear in the list Input r Pans _ Blood Ha Fall Ceramic 2 Click the image you want to use for the input image 3 After you select an image the input box displays an image pattern similar to the actual image If you turn off Display image thumbnails in the Preferences dialog box a generic image icon is displayed Note You can use drag and drop to select the image you want From the Aphelion workspace drag the image to the input icon Selecting an Output Image Aphelion automatically specifies the output image name You can change that default using the New w Options command on the output image menu See Modifying a
49. 5 46 e Aphelion User Guide Save a macro with a new name In the Save As dialog box type the name of the macro in the File name field Macro files have the extension apm If you forget to save a macro Aphelion automatically saves the macro in the Aphelion tmp subdirectory See Saving a Macro Edit a macro See Editing a Macro for more information Clear Cut Copy Paste Undo You can click Undo or press CTRL SHIFT Z multiple times to reverse multiple actions Debug a macro See Debugging a Macro for more information Calls Clear Break Points Dialog Editor Use the dialog editor to create dialog boxes You can edit an existing dialog box or create a new one e Edit Dialog New See Using the Dialog Editor Modify the font used in the macro window You can modify the font for the entire macro not for selected text See Editing a Macro Add to Macro Add the current macro to the Macro Library The macro library makes it Library possible to call one macro from another or pass arguments to a macro See Macro Library Find Find a string in the current macro If the macro window is selected you can also use CTRL F to open the Find dialog box Opening New Documents 0 You can open a new Grid Macro or Text document from the Main toolbar or from the New command on the File menu Note To open an Image use the Open Image command on the File menu 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens
50. 77 creating 119 Display Context Selection 77 78 editing 119 Find 46 Image Properties 75 Kernel Editor 58 Neighborhood LUT Editor 60 New 80 Open 70 Output Image Options 57 Text Object 90 dialog editor 118 directories macros 112 disabling ROIs 93 display context DC 77 Display Context Selection dialog box 77 78 displaying grids 80 images 49 74 information in the Info page in the IHM window 63 operator results 51 documentation 9 10 04 05 99 documents opening 46 drag and drop editing 66 Draw Ellipse button 40 Draw Line button 40 Draw Polygon button 40 41 Draw Rectangle button 40 Draw Round Rectangle button 40 Draw Text button 41 drawing graphic overlay objects 85 histograms 97 image profiles 100 ROIs 92 dynamic coloring 99 E Ecole des Mines de Paris 7 128 Edit menu 37 editing macros 114 email 126 enabling ROIs 93 English translation 37 example macros 26 exiting Aphelion 12 Export to Excel 44 52 exporting data from Aphelion 121 124 grid data to Excel 125 exporting data from Aphelion 125 F FAQ 10 file extensions Aphelion 47 file formats images 16 17 68 71 File menu 36 fill color 88 Find dialog box 46 Font button text overlays 90 freehand drawing 89 freeing images 73 French translation 37 frequently used operators 55 G Getting Started Acquiring Images 17 Annotated Macro Ceramic apm 28 Aphelion Online User Guide Aphelion Macros 26 Application Macros 27 Example Macros
51. AM FA AM CLR STD COMP STD RGB e MutTech Inc MV 1000 monochrome MV 1300 color V 450 e Data Translation Inc DT 3155 monochrome e Matrox Meteor Matrox Meteor II Matrox Meteor RGB Matrox Meteor PPB e Matrox Pulsar and Corona for non standard acquisition e Integral Technologies FlashPoint 128 monochrome and color Note A Twain driver is also available in Aphelion to acquire images from a scanner or from any external device which supports the Twain format You can use the optional Porting Kit module to interface other acquisition boards with Aphelion Acquiring a Live Image To acquire a live image you first must have the necessary acquisition boards and cameras installed l amp On the Objects toolbar click the Camera button 2 Select the logical camera you want to use 3 fe In the Operator dialog box click the Select Operator button 4 Click Image Acquisition gt Grab Snap gt ImgGrab or ImgSnap In the Operator dialog box click the Acq board drop down list to select the acquisition board you want to use 6 gt Run the operator The image appears in an image window 7 Use the Acquisition Toolbar buttons along the right side of the screen to grab freeze or snap the image or to adjust it See Acquisition Toolbar for more information 04 05 99 04 05 99 Closing and Freeing Images e Closing an image When you close an image the image window closes but the image file is kept in
52. Aphelion Images Ceramic tif The MsgOpen command will display a string in a pop up box The sleep command creates a pause depending on the time lapse defined After opening a message window you must close that window using the MsgClose command MsgOpen Composite material in a ceramics matrix breaktime False False Sleep bt1000 MsgClose The following are a number of messages to guide the user The second message asks the user to specify threshold bounds of 1 and 117 Usually the call to AphImgThreshold has three parameters the two images and the bounds As one of the three parameters has been omitted Aphelion will prompt the user to enter those values However Visual Basic does not permit skipping the first parameters and then specifying the last ones If you want to let the user specify the first parameter then do not specify any parameters in the call to the operator 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 31 MsgOpen The gray level histogram of this image includes two modes breaktime False False Sleep bt1000 MsgClose MsgOpen A threshold will segment the two phases breaktime False False Sleep bt1000 MsgClose MsgOpen Specify Low as 1 and High as 117 0 False False Sleep 3000 The following lines show a threshold of the original image into a new image named Binary1 This name will appear in the window banner and will also allow the user to work later on this image The AphThreshold argument to AphImgT
53. Company 7 surface maps 102 T text files loading 82 opening 82 saving 82 Text Object dialog box 90 text overlays changing 90 creating 89 TIFF files 16 68 70 TIFF T O library 8 Tip of the Day 12 toolbars 39 attaching a macro 117 attaching an application 117 Chart 41 displaying 39 Grid 41 hiding 39 Image 40 Macro 42 Main 39 Objects 39 Operator dialog box 52 trademark information 7 translated documentation 10 translation of Aphelion interface 37 Tutorial Getting Started 15 message passing 108 U Undo command Edit menu 37 Macro Edit pop up menu 46 114 undoing commands or entries 37 138 e Index Macro edits 46 114 URL 126 UserMacro buttons 40 117 V View menu 37 Virtual Screen Filer button 40 66 virtual screens 64 adding 65 deleting 65 filer 66 inserting 65 renaming 66 VisionTutor 11 127 Visualization module Aphelion 8 WwW watch variables 116 window size image 74 Windows 95 11 Windows menu 38 Windows setting 77 Word exporting data from Aphelion to 124 workspace Aphelion 13 workspace customizing 47 Y yoking information 106 Z Zoom In chart button 42 Zoom In image button 41 zooming in on an image 75 04 05 99
54. I as needed such as modifying the size or placement l mj Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI 2 k On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the ROI you want to modify When you select the ROI handles appear along its sides and corners e To move an ROI place the cursor anywhere inside the ROI and drag it to a new position e To resize an ROI point to one of the handles along the ROI outline and drag the point to a new position Copying and Pasting an ROI You can copy and paste an ROI in an image window or from one image window to another You can select and copy multiple ROIs l mj Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI 2 k On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Click to select the ROI you want to copy When you select the ROI handles appear along its sides and corners 4 On the Main toolbar click the Copy button 5 eB To paste the copy into the same image click the Paste button on the Main toolbar Aphelion pastes the copy on top of the original ROI Drag the copy toa new position To paste the copy into another image open or focus on that image Click the Paste button on the Main toolbar The ROI is pasted into the active image Deleting ROIs You can delete individual ROIs o
55. Img Volume the button appears in the Operator dialog box This button allows you to indicate if you want the output displayed in the Info window For AphImgHistogram AphImgBandHistogram and AphImgProfile you can also choose to display the output in a Profile or Histogram window or export the output to an Excel spreadsheet Calibration Many global measurements can be computed in physical units rather than pixels To do this you first need to calibrate the image For more information see Calibrating an Image Aphelion User Guide 21 Object A region point rectangle line edgel or chain and its associated Segmentation You may often be interested in individual objects in an image rather than characteristics of the overall image You can define these individual objects using segmentation operators The following figures show regions and lines extracted from the same image Regions Lines E C Aphelion imag E3 E C Aphelion Imag Ee Ea ag 1 Beall BI HHIH A aut PRADA TE H TREE x EEIT EEE EHHTREHII __ e ms e puai w ES Se ee a Enar aS a DE a mpy See D ee Ee fy a a E ey se Ee ao DS n E ey ees ears a L l l i Regions are the most common object representation A region is a set of connected pixels stored in a bitmap representation The most basic way to get regions is to threshold the image using AphImgThresholdObj This operator is manual in that
56. List button to open the grid Select Regions 4 View the measurements as described in the Grid section Grid Results from an object analysis are automatically saved in an Aphelion grid or spreadsheet A Grid document can be used to display ObjectSet data for analysis and charting You can specify whether you want a grid to open automatically each time an ObjectSet is computed To open grids automatically when they are computed choose Preferences from the Options menu Make sure that the Automatically display grid option is checked If you do not set up grids to open automatically you can open a grid using the following procedure To view ISR data in a grid Aphelion User Guide 23 24 e Aphelion User Guide 1 On the Objects toolbar click the ObjectSet List button The pop up menu lists the grids that have been created Each grid has the same name as the corresponding ObjectSet 2 Select the grid you want to open The grid can be used to sort filter modify and export measurement data It can also be used to select an individual object or a set of objects to view in the overlay For more information see Grid Documents and Message Passing Supported Measurements Aphelion supports a wide range of measurements for objects through the AphObjComputeMeasurements operator Given a set of regions this operator allows you to compute all or some of the available region measurements When presented with lines or another
57. ObjectSet overlay represents one spatial attribute from an ObjectSet such as a set of lines or regions The ObjectSet is computed by one of the segmentation operators Typically these operators automatically create the ObjectSet overlay Custom ObjectSet overlays can be drawn using the AphObjDraw and AphObjDrawMapped operators These operators allow control over the overlay color line width and fill properties In addition the AphObjDrawMapped operator can use a scalar attribute to draw the objects with a range of gray scales A number of operations can be performed on ObjectSet overlays This includes changing drawing attributes selecting objects converting ObjectSets to ROIs and removing object overlays The Image Pop up Menu Each ObjectSet overlay creates an entry on the pop up menu associated with the image in which the overlay is drawn You can use these entries to select an ObjectSet and change the line properties or convert the ObjectSet to an ROI Deleing ObjectSet Overlays The entire ObjectSet overlay can be deleted in two ways e Choose Delete all from the Image pop up menu e Run the AphObjRemoveOverlay operator To remove individual objects first select the objects Then click the Cut button In Aphelion histograms profiles surface maps and scatter plots are referred to as charts They are displayed in chart windows that provide a great deal of flexibility for displaying information You can modify the display prop
58. Remove the selected object e Resize and Move Modify the width and height of the object You can also use the mouse to change the size e Change Priority Change the priority of the object in the page Different priorities are move the object to the front to the back and to the middle e Image Modification Display the image by keeping the image ratio 04 05 99 04 05 99 Modifying Text in a Print Page Design After you add text to a Print Page Design you can use the Text Modification option on the Print Page Design pop up menu to modify the text 1 Select the text by clicking on it When the text is selected a shaded border is displayed around the text 2 Click the right mouse button to display the Print Page Design pop up menu 3 Choose Text Modification The following options are available e Edit Text The Text Edition Insertion dialog box opens You can modify the existing text e Change Color The Color dialog box appears The color you choose affects only the selected text e italic Italicize the selected text e Underline Underline the selected text e Change Font The Text Font dialog box opens You can change the height width and weight of the font of the selected text Using Print Page Design Macros You can use macro functions to create Print Page Designs You can insert an object in a Print Page Design that already exists or specify an identifier of a non existent Print Page Design In this last case
59. S 46 Aphelion File Extensions c0ccssscsessesssscosnssessscosnsssnscossesssnscesnsesneceosnsesnesesensess 47 Customizing A phelton ec 68 heb ke estes teehee AS pe ee ta chatty 47 Customizing Your Workspace eee ecceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeseeeeeeereneeees 47 Startup OPtrOns oar es ip veevecassused see oan sopsede SA EE RAEES Ene SETERS 48 R nning Matosi eneee o erosio saen E eas EEE E r E i 48 Starting Aphelion in a Maximized Window ssssssseesseseseseeessesrerrsreerereereses 48 Loading Projectie i oer E EES TEE E 48 Preferente S arre a edt a E S E RON 49 Modifying the Default Image View sseseeseseesseeesseresrsrssrrrssrrrrrreererresesrsee 49 Setting Project Preferences 00 ee eeceecesecesecesecesecseecaeeeseeeeeeeeeeereneensees 50 Operator Dialog Box sssi ikse serin oka sssasossaceessteisesseed isdusbestepesesbasesesgessnasoeneavess sadsvasedhsveesscetonesess 51 Displaying Results for Global Analysis Operators eseeesseeeeserereersreersererrsreresree 51 Running an Operator enecens e ee ea bet ones E EEE E EE E EE EE Sa E E 52 Operator Toolbars s c cc sicg ee a E nea ete neck gees atthe RE T 52 Selecting an Operators sicie rE E E ETE EEEE SET E S ey EEE ESSE Esi 53 Selecting an Operator from the Aphelion Library 0 0 0 0 eee eeeeeeees 53 Selecting an Operator from an Alphabetical List eee eee eee eeeeeeee 54 List of Frequently Used Operators e seseeeseeeeeesseereeer
60. Stop Operator button turns white the execution is complete 1 Open the images you want to work with 2 Select an operator To view online Help for the currently selected operator click in the Operator dialog box 3 Specify an input image and an output image You can click the image icons and select an image from the pop up list or use the drag and drop feature from the Virtual Screen Filer Note If you do want to display images as thumbnails in the Operator dialog box choose Preferences from the Options menu and deselect Display image thumbnails This is especially useful when dealing with large images 4 Make any necessary changes to the parameters The input and output images you select may affect the default values of the parameters as well as the valid ranges or constraints Most parameters are set to default values which you can modify 5 gt To run the operator click the Run Operator button The progress bar indicates the status of the Operator execution Shortcut To run an operator press CTRL R 6 View the results For global analysis operators you can choose to view the results in the Info tab of the IHM window in a chart or in an Excel spreadsheet Operator Toolbars The Operator dialog box has two toolbars one at the top of the dialog box and one at the bottom The buttons in the toolbar at the top of the Operator dialog box are used to select operators and to access Help for the current operator
61. Version 3 0 Aphelion User Guide Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc Contents Aphelion User Guide 7 Product OVervieW sn seis sinh eth ee ei ee 7 Copyright and Trademark Information 0 0 ieee eceeceeecesecesecesecaecnaecssecsaeeaeeeneeees 7 Core Mod le sereni r a a ioasteesemeces Sides teagsewth oll Haevereemeen aloes 8 Visualization Module eee eeceeecesecesecesecsseceaecseecseseaeseaeeeeeseseeseeseeeaseaessaeaes 8 Developer Module i 4 nse Relate aie Ree Ral eee BR as eed 9 Online Helps sis css sees sess sets seesctessesess dessvecost setsb sedsvesehsavtes esuensvedsseeobdedorascebssey assesses ses eseess 9 Accessing Online Helps eccesicossusteacpevecsvteecees de orusebeesceadhes esperin eSEE 9 Other Documenta thon sss c sc ssc snc iscd ne reenn renee SEEE SEEE OEE ER EEE ea ESEESE ines 10 Multiple Language Documentation esesesesesseeseseersertersrrseerrsterrsserresrertenresreeresesees 10 VISION PUTOL eea ea E E E E E E TEER 11 Get ne Started oe a a A Shes eE T R E adhe A N 11 Finding Your Way Around soeeseeeoeeseesesesessesrsessseessesseesseesstsstesseeeseesesereseseseeseessee 11 Starting and Exiting Aphelion essesessssseeseeesessesessessrsrrsrrrrsesresrerrsseerenreees 11 Tefminol t y ie e a A A e a aa EE a i 12 Graphical User Interfa e sonio er aed diseuiedecyenesttesapevechvesescedcenssysots 13 Using Helpar ccs ok aeee EEEE EEA REESE E E EEES 14 Quick Tutorial ei a e ed E dv EERE o ei rr eraot 15 L
62. acros The example macros provide examples of Aphelion features such as file access and global measurements and are stored in the directory Aphelion Examples e Application Macros The application macros include image processing examples such as color processing and morphology and are stored in the directory Aphelion Macros We recommend that you run each macro and view the results For an annotated version of Ceramic apm see Getting Started Annotated Macro Ceramic apm Tip To load a macro click Zm on the Objects toolbar The drop down menu contains options for the Macros and Examples directories as well as a list of all the macros in the default macro directory determined by the last macro you opened e To load a macro from the Macros directory choose Macros and then select the macro you want e To load a macro from the Examples directory choose Examples and then select the macro you want e To load a macro from the default macro directory select the macro from the list at the bottom of the menu For more information see Loading a Macro Example Macros m The example macros are stored in the directory Aphelion Examples To load an example macro click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar then choose Examples Select the macro you want from the drop down list Macro Name Features highlighted in the macro BrowseDirectory apm Browses an image directory from Visual Basic looping on images ColorImageAcces
63. all images and ObjectSets after you run the macro The values 180 and 48 correspond to the size of the dialog box The string Aphelion Dialog Box is the text which appears in the dialog box banner Begin Dialog YesNoDialog 180 48 Aphelion Dialog Box OKButton 132 8 40 14 GroupBox 4 20 108 24 GroupBoxl Text 4 8 108 8 _ Delete images and ObjectSets Textl OptionGroup OptionGroupl OptionButton 16 32 32 8 YES OptionButtonl OptionButton 72 32 32 8 NO OptionButton2 End Dialog The variable named ABox is defined as a dialog box of type YesNoDialog Dim ABox As YesNoDialog When this dialog variable is used in a dialog call it will appear in Aphelion as Aphelion Dialog Box Delete images and ObjectSets YES NO The following is the definition of a dialog box to specify break time The variables OptionButton1 2 3 will contain the value 0 or 1 depending on the selection Other numerical values correspond to the size and position of the OK and option buttons Aphelion User Guide 29 30 e Aphelion User Guide Begin Dialog BreakTimeDialog 189 76 Break Time during the execution OKButton 144 8 40 14 GroupBox 4 4 132 68 GroupBoxl OptionGroup OptionGroupl OptionButton 16 16 108 8 _ No break during the execution OptionButtonl OptionButton 16 36 116 8 _ messages displayed during 3 sec OptionButton2 OptionButton 16 56 116 8 _ messages displayed during 5 sec OptionButton3 End Dia
64. alues and about macro functions and other routines Aphelion Developer Guide The Aphelion Developer Guide provides information about using Aphelion Developer This guide includes examples for using Aphelion operator DLLs from a custom C C program and for extending the Aphelion operator library Accessing Online Help You can access online Help at anytime while you are using Aphelion e To access the entire Help system choose Help gt Aphelion Help Topics from the menu bar You can use the Index tab to search for a particular topic or click the Contents tab to choose the topic you want P ee Led To view help for a specific interface element such as a menu command or button click the Context Help button then point and click on the element Aphelion User Guide 9 e To access help for a specific dialog box press F1 while in the dialog box or click the Help button for the dialog box Quick Help Quick Help provides brief descriptions of Aphelion interface elements and operators Quick Help is displayed at the left end of the Statusbar at the bottom of the Aphelion screen Use this operator to threshold the input image between a lower and upper bound 34 160 177 e To view Quick Help for an interface element such as a toolbar button move the cursor over the button To view Quick Help for an operator click the Select Operator button in the Operator dialog box and move the cursor until it is positioned over the na
65. an Excel spreadsheet You can then use the Excel file in a PowerPoint or Word presentation 1 2 3 4 5 Select the ImgHistogram operator Select an input image E Click the RESULTS button Choose Export to Excel Run the operator The results are displayed in an Excel spreadsheet Exporting Grid data to Excel From the Aphelion interface you can export grids directly into an Excel spreadsheet You can then use the Excel file in a PowerPoint or Word presentation 1 2 Generate a grid document in Aphelion Select the portion of the grid that you want to send to Excel Select either columns rows or a range of cells To send one or more columns click once on the title of each column To deselect a column click again on the title To send one or more row click once on the number of each row To deselect a row click again on the number Aphelion User Guide 125 e To select a range of cells use the mouse to drag over the cells you want to export 3 Click the right mouse button to display the Grid pop up menu 4 Choose Export to Excel The selected columns are automatically displayed in Excel Note If Excel was already open the spreadsheet does not pop up to the front Switch to Excel to view the spreadsheet Using an Excel Spreadsheet in a Presentation 1 In Excel save the file Adjust the formatting and layout as needed 2 Open the application in which you are creating the presentation s
66. an a spreadsheet though because it allows for efficient addition and deletion of objects and measurements rows and columns and for spatial access There are a number of ISR utility operators including AphObjCopy AphObjFilter AphObjRead To load and save ObjectSets ISR databases use the Open ObjectSet command on the File menu The Aphelion ISR file format is completely compatible with the KB Vision ISR file format Using AphObjDraw you can draw spatial attributes regions as an overlay on a gray level image Example This example describes how to start with an image and produce object measurements in a grid 1 Run AphImgThresholdObj to produce region objects in the ISR To do this set the input image from the pulldown list by clicking within the Input box type regions in the Output ObjectSet type in box and then slide the Low and High threshold sliders until the desired objects are colored red in the image gt Click the Run Operator button to execute the operator Run AphObjComputeMeasurements to compute all the available region measurements To do this select the input image from the pulldown list under Input and then select the region set from the pulldown list attached to the Input ObjectSet parameter gt Click the Run Operator button to execute the operator You now have regions in an ObjectSet with measurements computed for each region On the Objects toolbar click the Objectset
67. ange the content enter new text in the Text field m To change the color of the text click the Color button in the Text area e o Fm To change the font and size of the text click the Font button 04 05 99 04 05 99 mj To change the background color of the text box click the Color button in the Background area The default background color is white e To make the text box background transparent select the Transparent option 4 Click OK Aphelion adjusts the size of the text box to fit the text you entered To reposition the a text box select it and drag it with the mouse Region of Interest ROI Image processing operations are usually performed on an entire image but in some cases it is useful to restrict the processing to a region of interest ROI ROIs let you focus on selected areas of an image For example you might use regions of interest to e Enhance part of an image e Provide faster processing e Produce a count of objects for a selected region There are several ways to create ROIs e Draw ROIs e Convert the spatial attributes of an ObjectSet to ROIs e Convert the spatial attributes of graphic objects to ROIs After you create the ROIs you then run an operator to perform only on the regions of interest You can disable ROIs as needed and later enable them again Note When you draw an ROI in an image the ROI is outlined in green In the current release of Aphelion you cannot change the default color
68. annot restore the images after freeing them To free an image 1 From the Operator dialog box select Image Utilities gt Generation gt ImgF ree 2 Click the Input icon to display a pop up list of all images that have been accessed during the current Aphelion session 3 Select the image you want to free 4 gt Run the operator Aphelion frees the image from memory To free the currently active image 1 With the cursor positioned over the image click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu 2 Choose Free this image Aphelion User Guide 73 74 Aphelion User Guide To free all images a a From the Operator dialog box click the Free All Images button 2 Aphelion displays the message Free all images Click Yes to free all images Click No to cancel and return to the Aphelion screen To reload an image 1 From the menu bar click File 2 Select the image you want to reopen from the numbered list of files at the bottom of the menu If the file is not listed open the image using the usual procedure See Opening an Image Image Views When you open an image it is displayed in an image window The image view can be set to e Pixel Point Indicates that the window cannot be resized beyond the pixel size of its x and y axis If the size of the window is smaller than the size of the image use the scroll bars to pan the image e Aspect Ratio Maintains the aspect ratio of the image e Window S
69. atter Plot In the Model Description file field click the Browse button and select the chart model file that you created Model files have the extension apc Click OK All charts of the type you selected will now automatically use the specified model file Aphelion User Guide 105 Message Passing 106 Aphelion User Guide Message passing is a mechanism that sends messages between images allowing you to view the same information in different formats You can use message passing between images containing object overlays and a grid or chart document or between image windows For example when you draw an intensity profile line across an image the image window and the chart window are automatically linked If you modify the profile line in the image overlay the profile is updated in real time Message passing is currently available between e Animage with a graphic overlay and a grid e An image and a chart document profile or histogram You cannot use message passing with a scatter plot or surface map e Two or more image windows Message passing between an image window and a grid is especially useful for object measurements You can highlight objects in the image and view the associated measurements in the grid Message passing between two or more image windows is especially useful when you want to zoom in one image and examine the same area in another window You can also use message passing to display objects ba
70. bar The Overlay button indicates what mode is currently active To change modes click the Overlay button and select a different mode from the pop up list Button Overlay Mode Graphic objects Regions of interest ROI al a After you select a mode you must then activate one of the tool buttons For example if you want to select an ROI make sure the ROI mode button and the Select Objects tool button are selected Overlay Types and Properties You can change some properties for each type of overlay such as the line color for a specific histogram rectangle See the Help topic for each type of overlay for more information Type Shape tine coor noes Graphic object Point To delete a graphic object select Line a N ral Rectangle the object then click or press Rounded CTRL X rectangle Ellipse Aphelion User Guide 83 Polygon Freehand Rectangle Green Disabled ROIs appear with a Ellipse dashed green and white outline eee To delete all ROls use the Delete reenan All command on the pop up menu Histogram Rectangle Purple Diana a Profile Line Purple PJ Graphic Overlay Objects You can draw graphic overlays in any image window Graphic overlay objects include e Points e Lines e Rectangles e Rounded rectangles e Ellipses e Polygons e Freehand drawing e Text After you draw an object you can change certain properties such as the line or fill colors You can also change the line width
71. can copy and paste an overlay object in an image window or from one image window to another You can select and copy multiple drawn objects Tip To select several objects at once click k then drag the cursor over the objects you want to select When you release the mouse button the objects are selected 1 ya Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Click to select the object you want to copy To select multiple objects hold down the Shift key On the Main toolbar click the Copy button eB To paste the copy into the same image click the Paste button on the Main toolbar Aphelion pastes the copy on top of the original object Drag the copy to a new position To paste the copy into another image open or focus on that image Click the Paste button on the Main toolbar The object is pasted into the active image 04 05 99 04 05 99 Deleting Graphic Overlays You can cut one or more overlay objects in an image window 1 2 3 4 yal Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic L On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Click to select the object you want to copy To select multiple objects hold down the Shift k
72. can draw a surface map To change the properties of the surface map use the Olectra Chart tabbed dialog box 1 Focus on an image 2 Click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu 3 Choose Operators gt Surface Map A chart window containing the surface map opens 4 Inthe surface map window click the right mouse button to display the Chart pop up menu 5 Choose Properties The Olectra Chart tabbed dialog box opens From this dialog box you can change many properties such as color and labels For example you can e Change the background color Click the PlotCube tab then select the Interior tab Under Background color click the RGB box The Color dialog box opens You can then select a color and click OK e Change the appearance of the elevation and contour data Click the ChartGroup tab On the General tab check IsZoned and IsMeshed and IsShaded to enhance the display 6 After you have changed properties click OK to return to the Aphelion workspace Note When you display the Olectra Chart tabbed dialog box you can click the Help button at any time to display context sensitive Help Object Histograms To draw an ISR Histogram To create an IsrHistogram use the pop up menu from a grid and choose Histogram See Grid Documents for more information 102 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Scatter Plots You can create a scatter plot based on two attributes in an ObjectSet A scatter plot is displayed i
73. cation in the histogram is zero this may be due to an image with less than 8 bits per pixel being scaled up to fill 8 bits Profile The profile view shows the intensity surface of an image along one line This is useful for examining the sharpness of edges and the signal to noise ratio Running an Operator To run an operator the Operator dialog box must be open in the interface You then select the operator you want to run supply all parameters including input and output images and run the operator Tip If the Operator dialog box is not visible click Z on the Objects toolbar Selecting an operator Operators are selected using a multi level drop down list The first list gives the operator groups the next level breaks each group into subgroups and the final level lists individual operators Rie r You can also select an operator from an alphabetical list of all operators by clicking the A Z button For more information see Selecting an Operator To select an operator 1 fe Click the Select Operator button 2 Move the pointer to the right to display groups subgroups and then operators 3 Highlight the operator you want and click the left mouse button Note After you select an operator Aphelion displays check marks next to the selected group subgroup and operator name Parameters You must set the value for each parameter before running an operator Parameters include e Names of the input and output images
74. ce include feature based detection and tracking and 3D analysis and visualization AAI developed the VisionTutor System a computer vision course that teaches basic and advanced concepts of image processing and image understanding The VisionTutor materials can be used as a college course or as training in a company setting VisionTutor will be available as an Aphelion option on CD ROM In 1995 AAT established a strategic partnership with the French company ADCIS Advanced Concepts in Imaging Software to develop Aphelion software and to collaborate on other products and projects The two companies cooperate to market their products worldwide The combination of AAI s technology and market focus its commercial and government relationships its strategic collaboration with ADCIS and its professional staff of software engineers and imaging scientists enable AAI to remain a leader in the development of imaging tools and applications ADCIS SA ADCIS stands for Advanced Concepts in Imaging Software The primary mission of the company is to develop market and sell imaging products to end users OEMs and VARs that are working in the field of Computer Vision Currently the main product of the company is an imaging application called Aphelion ADCIS is located in France and takes advantage of a privileged location in the high tech area of the Pole image de Caen in Normandy ADCIS relies on a state of the art product a team Ap
75. change the directory as needed 3 From the list of images choose the one you want to save Or type the name of the file in the File name field 4 Click the Save button Aphelion displays a message box asking if you want to replace the existing file of the same name Click Yes to write over the existing file or No to cancel Shortcut To save an image make sure the Image window is active and click on the Main toolbar or press CTRL S Other Image Formats If you have images in a format other than the supported formats TIFF BMP JPG and KBV you can import the images into Aphelion using the AphImgImport operator or a third party conversion application AphImgImport allows you to read an uncompressed binary file into an Aphelion image For example a SUN raster file can easily be imported into Aphelion using AphImgImport To use the AphImgImport operator 1 Determine the image size pixel type and file characteristics of the image you want to import 2 a In the Operator dialog box click the Select Operator button 3 Click ImageUtilities gt Input Output gt AphImgImport Note You must define the size and type of the output image In the Operator dialog box click the Output image icon then choose New w Options To use a conversion program Several image conversion applications are widely available To convert a file first load the image and then save it as a TIFF or BMP image Graphics Workshop Alchemy Mindworks
76. clusters AphT hreshold 4 AphimaClustersT oLabels Aphlmal clusters Aphlmal labels AphN gbGr AphimaLabelsObj Aphimaf labels AphObi CELLS AphRegionConvexHullPolygons amp phObif CELLS x AphimgT hreshold Aphimo original Aphlmal clusters AphT hreshold 4 Al Copying Lines of Code to a Macro Selected lines can be copied from the History page and pasted into a macro window Highlight the lines you want to copy then click the right mouse button and choose Copy or Cut Note To display a pop up menu for loading saving and modifying information right click anywhere in the History page Messages Page The Messages page displays error messages that are not critical to continuing your work in Aphelion Critical error messages are displayed in a Error Message windows IHH Window Info History Messages Image name was changed to Blood because of a name conflict with bn existing image Virtual Screens 64 e Aphelion User Guide Original Segmentation Analysis ISR Output Aphelion supports multiple screens called virtual screens This feature allows you to display multiple Aphelion objects in the same environment Each tab at the bottom of the screen represents a virtual screen You can bring a virtual screen to the top by clicking on its tab You can display the following objects in virtual screens e Images 04 05 99 04 05 99 e ObjectSets e Grid Documents e OLE Obj
77. crosshair shape when over the image Aphelion User Guide 89 90 Aphelion User Guide 3 6 Click in the image where you want to place the text This brings up the Text Object dialog box Text Object Dialog x Text Text Color mj Font m Background Transparent M Color rT Enter the text you want to add into the Text field Select the text and background options you want m To change the color of the text click the Color button in the Text area e o Fm To change the font and size of the text click the Font button m To change the background color of the text box click the Color button in the Background area The default background color is white e To make the text box background transparent select the Transparent option Click OK Aphelion adjusts the size of the text box to fit the text you entered Note You cannot change the color of the text overlay from the Font dialog box You must use the Color button in the Text area of the Text Object dialog box To reposition the a text box select it and drag it with the mouse Changing a Text Overlay You can change the content font font size text color and background color of a text overlay 1 2 k On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Double click the text overlay that you want to modify This brings up the Text Object dialog box Modify the items you want to change e To ch
78. cs contained under that heading will be printed Accessing Online Help To access the entire Help system from the Contents page click the Help button on the Main toolbar You can use the Contents page to find the topic you want or click the Index tab and search by a word or letters for a particular topic Help To access the entire Help system from the Index page choose menu Help gt Aphelion Help Topics You can use the Index page to search by a word or letters for a particular topic Within the Operator dialog box click the blue Help button to display documentation about the currently selected operator 04 05 99 04 05 99 Tip F1 Within the Operator dialog box press F1 to access Help topics for the Operator dialog box including how to select and run an operator K To view help for a specific interface item such as a menu command or toolbar button click the Context Help button then point and click on the item Help To access help for a specific dialog box click the Help button in the dialog box or press F1 If you frequently reference a specific topic in online Help you can place a Bookmark on that topic First display the topic you want to bookmark Then choose Bookmark gt Define from the menu bar of the Help screen Click OK to add the currently displayed Help topic to the Bookmark list The next time you access online Help click the Bookmark menu and select the bookmarked topic from the list For more infor
79. cts in the image click the Select Objects button on the Image toolbar then click on the object you want to select To select multiple objects hold down the CTRL key or drag the cursor across the objects The outline of the selected objects turns red 2 View the corresponding objects and measurements e Ifyou select objects in the grid document row the corresponding objects are outlined in red in the image overlay e If you select objects in the overlay the corresponding rows are highlighted in blue in the grid document Message passing between images Messages can be passed between two or more image windows The image that sends the messages is called the source image and the images that receive messages are called the target images You can specify only one source image but multiple target images To set up messages 1 Open the images that you want to use for message passing You can pass messages from one image to multiple images 2 On the Objects toolbar click the Message Passing button The Message passing dialog box opens 3 In the left section of the window select the image to use as the source image You can select only one source image 4 Inthe right section of the window select the target images To select more than one target image hold down the CTRL key 5 In the bottom section of the window select what type of messages you wish to send zoom scroll or both zoom and scroll All messages 6 C
80. d when you click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar e what directory is listed when you click the Load command from a Macro window To change the default directory 1 From the File menu choose New 2 In the New dialog box select Macro document and click OK 3 In the Macro window click the right mouse button to display the Macro pop up menu 4 Choose Load The Open dialog box appears listing the macros in the current default directory 5 Change directories and select a macro from another directory Click Open The new directory becomes the default macro directory in You can use the Macros button for easy access to the macros supplied with Aphelion Click the Macros button then choose either Macros or Examples 04 05 99 Running a Macro While a macro is running you can perform other operations in the GUI However it is not advisable to run Aphelion image processing operators during the execution of a macro The Play Macro button remains grayed until the macro is completed Note When a macro is running the macro window cannot be closed To stop a running macro click on the Stop Debug button and then close the window To run a macro 1 Load a macro into the macro window To load a macro you can e Use the Load command from the macro window e Click in on the Objects toolbar Choose the Macros or Examples directory or select a macro from the default directory e Record the execution of an Aphelion operator or o
81. e Index tab of the Help screen type the name of the function To start the communication you create an object relative to the application you wish to start For example to start Excel Set Excel CreateObject Excel Application The function CreateObject creates an OLE Automation object and returns a reference to that object The Set function assigns a value to an object variable After initiating an OLE communication and creating the object you can access the properties and methods of the object using the dot syntax such as object property value Note The properties of an object are described in the on line documentation for the object 04 05 99 For example the Excel documentation provides a list of all the properties attached to the application To view the on line documentation locate the file named vba xl hlp Then select the Microsoft Excel Visual Basic Reference entry Following are some examples of properties attached to Excel Set WorkBook Excel Workbooks Define a Workbook WorkBook Add Add a new book Set Sheet Excel ActiveSheet Activate a sheet in the book Set c Sheet Cells Define cells Set cell c Item 1 1 Define the first cell in the sheet cell value Histogram Output a string in the first cell Excel Quit Exit Excel Every Windows application that supports OLE automation has properties attached to it You can access those properties from an Aphelion macro or from Visual Basic Example Macr
82. e a histogram you can use dynamic coloring to highlight an area in the histogram which is then reflected in the image Dynamic coloring is available only for gray scale histograms 1 Open or select the image to be used 2 Click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu 3 Choose Operators gt Histogram The histogram is displayed in a chart window The title bar of the chart window displays the name of the source image To use dynamic coloring When you create a histogram of a gray scale image using the Histogram command you can use dynamic coloring to view a range in both the Histogram and Image windows You first select a range in the Histogram window which is highlighted with a color The selection is reflected in the Image window using the same color If you modify the range you selected in the Histogram window the Image window is also updated You can highlight as many ranges as needed and change the color for any range 1 Inthe Histogram window start at the leftmost point you want to work with 2 Highlight ranges in the histogram As you highlight a range in the histogram the corresponding area is highlighted in the image e Drag the mouse from left to right to highlight a range of the histogram e To highlight multiple ranges continue to work in the chart from left to right You can select as many ranges as you need Different colors are used for each range up to 5 After that you can use the Selection gt
83. e a name for the new LUT in the Lut Name field Click Set to save the new LUT Click OK to return to the Lookup Table Selection dialog box The new LUT now appears in the list of available LUTs You can then select this new LUT Click Apply to apply the lookup table Click OK to close the dialog box Note To add or change properties of the new LUT click the right mouse button and choose Properties You can add a title change background and foreground colors and modify various other properties 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 79 Grid Documents Grid documents are used to display object measurements in a spreadsheet format For example a grid document may be used to display ObjectSet data for analysis and charting E REGIONS Iof x REGION EXTI RI UR 31 Displaying an Object Grid Document You can specify whether you want a grid to open automatically each time an ObjectSet is computed or open a grid from the interface To open a grid automatically 1 From the Options menu choose Preferences 2 Make sure that the Automatically display grid option is checked To open a grid from the Main toolbar 1 On the Objects toolbar click the Object grid button 2 Select an ObjectSet from the drop down list To open a grid from the menu bar 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 2 Choose Grid Document and click OK to display a blank Grid document window 3 With the cursor positioned in the G
84. e all open images In the Operator dialog box click the ImgFreeAll button Aphelion displays a message box asking you to confirm that you want to free all open images Click Yes to free all open images Loading and Saving Images There are three methods for loading images into Aphelion e Load one of the supported file formats TIFF BMP JPEG KBV e Import an unsupported format e Capture a live image Opening and Saving Images Aphelion supports the following image file formats e Tagged image file tif e Bitmap bmp e JPEG jpg e KBVision im Ca S To open an image 1 From the File menu choose Open Image The Open dialog box appears listing all tif images available in the Aphelion Images directory To change the type of file listed click the drop down arrow in the Files of type field 2 Double click the image you want to load The image opens in an image window The Image toolbar is displayed along the right side of the screen E Shortcut To open an image click 5 on the Main toolbar or press CTRL O To save an Image After you make any changes to an image you must save the image or the changes will be lost when you exit Aphelion 04 05 99 1 Make sure the image window you want to save is active To make an image window active click on its title bar 2 From the File menu choose Save As Image The Save As dialog box opens listing all tif images available in the Aphelion Images directory You can
85. e following syntax variable index member index Where variable is the name of the structure or array variable index is a literal number and member is the name of a structure member Example Dim a 10 watch a 5 Adding or Deleting a Watch Variable To add a watch variable 1 s On the Macro toolbar click the Add Watch button to open the Add Watch dialog box 2 Inthe Variable field enter the name of the variable you want to watch 3 In the Procedure field type the name of the routine in which the variable is defined For example type main to watch the value in the routine main 4 Click OK Note Although many watch variables can be added to the list the watch area only expands until it fills half the Macro window Scroll bars are provided for long lists You can adjust the size of the watch area using the mouse to move the bar between the macro window and watch list area To delete a watch variable 1 Select the variable on the watch list 2 Click Delete Debugging a Macro w Set Breakpoint Use the Set Break Point button to set a breakpoint in the macro so that processing will stop at a specific line of code and not resume until the Play button is clicked again You can place multiple break points in a macro Break points appear in red in the code To remove a break point highlight the line of code and click the Set Break Point button again To clear all break points right click in
86. e macro Aphelion automatically saves the macro in the Aphelion tmp subdirectory To save a macro 1 Record the macro 2 Right click anywhere in the macro window to display the Macro pop up menu On some PCs you may need to right click in the area of the Macro toolbar to display the Macro pop up menu 3 Choose Save 4 Type aname for the macro in the File name field 5 Click Save Shortcut To save a macro click on the Main toolbar Note Macros are automatically saved on disk in the Aphelion tmp sub directory The filename of the automatically saved file includes _sav as the last four characters before the apm extension Example Macrol_sav apm If you uninstall Aphelion these automatically saved files are treated like user created files and are not deleted Editing a Macro After you load a macro you can edit the file You can also copy information from other macro windows or from the Info History Messages window To change the font size You can change the font size for the text in a macro You can change the font only for the entire text not for selected text 1 Click the right mouse button to display the Macro pop up menu 2 Choose Font The Font dialog box is displayed 3 Select the font font style and size 4 Click OK The text in the macro window changes to the attributes you selected To edit a macro You can use the Macro pop up menu to select editing commands such as cut copy and paste After
87. e which images you are modifying e The Windows settings apply to the active window e The Image settings apply to the Image and will be saved with the image e The Global settings apply to all images in the current Aphelion session 4 Click the Options button to open the Contrast dialog box 5 Use the sliders to adjust contrast and brightness As you move the sliders you can see the changes reflected in the image and in the value displayed at the bottom of each slider bar The values for contrast and brightness range from 50 to 50 6 To save the changes to contrast and brightness click OK If you want to return to the default values click Default The default value for both brightness and contrast is 0 7 Click OK again to close the Display Context Selection dialog box Selecting the Display Context It is often useful to display images without using the standard display range 256 gray level values and a ramp lookup table This might be useful when images are digitized on more than 8 bits such as 16 bit integer or floating point images or when the range of the image is different from the 0 255 range For example after the computation of a Fast Fourier Transform it is usually necessary to modify the display context to change it to the Logarithmic LUT and to specify the range of pixels in the neighborhood of the peak An output LUT and a display range are associated with a display context Aphelion User Guide 77 You can
88. e window is also deleted 1 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 2 Select the line representing the profile you want to delete 3 Click the Cut button on the Main toolbar or press CTRL X Note When you close a profile window the line remains drawn with the image When you reselect the line the profile window is restored Using AphImgProfile You can use AphImgProfile to create an image profile The AphImgProfile operator provides exact control over the specifications of the profile line 1 Open or select the image to be used 2 fe In the Operator dialog box click the Select Operator button Aphelion User Guide 101 3 Choose Analysis Interactive gt ImgProfile 4 Inthe Operator dialog box click the Image input icon and select an image The profile is displayed in a chart window 5 Use the Point Set fields in the Operator dialog box to specify the pixel coordinates of the selected profile line 6 You can use message passing to specify a point on the profile and see the corresponding point in the Image window e Ifyou click on a point in the profile chart the corresponding point in the image is marked with an X e If you drag the mouse over a range of points in the profile chart the corresponding area in the image is marked by X s Note To draw additional lines in the image click the Plus sign button in the Operator dialog box Image Surface Maps For any open image you
89. each ruler in pixels Click anywhere in the image to refresh the ruler lines e Click Length Type the length of each ruler line in the unit indicated e From the keyboard press Tab to update the calibration factors To account for distortion you can use the Rotation field to select an angle between the X and Y axes other than 90 degrees Click OK To save a calibration 04 05 99 04 05 99 1 Type the name for the calibration in the Image Calibration field at the top of the dialog box 2 Click Save You can then choose this calibration from the Image Calibration drop down list at the top of the dialog box Note To delete a saved calibration select the one you want to delete from the drop down list Click the delete button next to the Image Calibration field Adjusting the Contrast Brightness You can adjust image contrast and brightness for e The active window e An image e All images in the current Aphelion project Note If you want to adjust the contrast brightness for only the active window right click in the image window and choose Properties gt Contrast Brightness Then follow steps 5 and 6 below To adjust contrast brightness 1 With the cursor positioned in the image window right click to display the pop up menu 2 Choose Properties gt Select DC to open the Display Context Selection dialog box 3 Use the Window Display Context Image Display Context and Global Display Context tabs to indicat
90. eatures Aphelion provides the following flexible features for ROI processing e You can draw an ROI as a rectangle polygon ellipse or freehand contour e You can convert ObjectSets to ROIs e You can convert graphic objects to ROIs e ROIs are outlined in green Disabled ROIs are outlined with a green and white dashed line e You can define any number of ROIs in an image e Ifyou draw overlapping ROIs processing will be performed twice in the intersection of the regions e The ROI pop up menu lets you enable disable or remove ROIs e ROIs are automatically attached to the image in which they are drawn These regions are attached to subsequent images derived from any processing operator such as a convolution or a morphological transform e When you save an image any rectangular ROIs you have drawn are saved with the image This applies only to TIFF images You cannot save an ROI with a bmp im or jpg image file Drawing ROIs You can draw one or more regions of interest in any image window There is no limit on the number of regions that can be defined in an image You can draw an ROI as a rectangle ellipse polygon or freehand drawing When you draw an ROI the ROI is outlined in green In the case of a freehand drawing if the contour is not closed it will then be automatically closed by connecting the two ends Note Every image has an ROI numbered 0 that covers the entire image In the interface this ROI is not
91. ecnseesecesecnseesees 123 Exporting Data from Aphelion ieee ce ceseceeceeceseceneceeceseceaecsaesaecsaecnaeaeenaeenaes 123 Using an image in a presentation 0 eee cee ceeeseceecnseceecaecesecaecseenseaee 124 Using a chart in a presentation eee eeeeeeeeeereseeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 124 Using a grid in a presentation 00 eee ceecesecsnecnecesecaecaeeseenseenseenees 125 Exporting a Histogram to Excel wo cece cesecssessecssecseecaecssecaeesecaeenaes 125 Exporting Grid data to Excel oo eee ceeceeesseseeeneeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeseeeaeseneeeeeens 125 Using an Excel Spreadsheet in a Presentation cece eeeeceeeeeceeeeeee 126 Creating an ASCII file from a Grid document tees eee eects eereeees 126 Product Supports dni eed eae Ne a ett ee eee ed 126 Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc eee esscesecsseceeececeeceeneeceseeeneecesneeeaeceeneecaeenees 127 ADCS SA teun tintin tiitoeti nants atin ta venatitin trait A EE 127 Index 138 Aphelion User Guide 5 Aphelion User Guide Product Overview 04 05 99 Image Processing and Image Understanding Aphelion is a development environment and delivery vehicle for image based applications It is the only software product for Windows 95 98 and Windows NT that provides the latest developments in mathematical morphology and symbolic representation as well as the most effective tools for quantitative image analysis pattern recognition and classification Jointly developed by Am
92. ectly from the CD by dragging one of the scm files onto the scplayer program Or for more convenience copy the Demos sub directory to the Aphelion installation directory in order to make the demos available from the ShowDemos button Image Toolbar When an image window is active the Image toolbar appears along the right side of the screen The Select Objects and Graphics Overlay buttons are selected by default E E E AE i lo Select Objects Lets you select an object and displays handles along the outline of the object Overlay objects can be selected in any image window Draw Point Lets you draw a point in any image window To move a point first select it then drag the point to a new position For more information see Point Overlays Draw Line Lets you draw a line in any image window To move the line first select it then drag the line to a new position The Draw Line button is automatically activated when you click the Profile button Draw Rectangle Lets you draw a rectangle Rectangular objects may be drawn overlaid onto images To move the rectangle first select it and then drag the rectangle to a new position Click the right mouse button to display the rectangle pop up menu Draw Round Rectangle Lets you draw a rounded rectangle Rounded rectangle objects may be drawn overlaid onto images To move a Round Rectangle first select it then drag the rounded rectangle to a new position Click the right mouse b
93. ects e Macros e Text e Charts Note To open up more space for displaying images and other objects you can hide the Operator dialog box and the Info History Messages window e To hide the Operator dialog box click Z on the Main toolbar e To hide the IHM window click on the Main toolbar To display them click the buttons again Adding and Deleting Virtual Screens When you first start Aphelion there is only one virtual screen and virtual screen tab labeled Screen 1 You can create additional virtual screens To add a virtual screen 1 Inthe Virtual Screen tab area at the bottom of the Aphelion window click the right mouse button 2 Choose Add A new tab representing a new virtual screen is added at the end of the row of tabs Note When you exit Aphelion the names of virtual screens but not the content are saved in the configuration file To delete a virtual screen 1 Position the cursor on the tab for the virtual screen you want to delete 2 Right click to display the pop up menu 3 Choose Delete To insert a virtual screen 1 Position the cursor on the tab to the left of where you want to insert a tab for a new virtual screen 2 Right click to display the pop up menu 3 Choose Insert Virtual Screen Filer l Use the Virtual Screen Filer to e Display a diagram of the contents of all virtual screens e Rename any of the virtual screen tabs Aphelion User Guide 65 e Rearrange image
94. efault settings box Select one of the following options e Datatype min max The range is between the minimum and the maximum associated to the type of the image For example in the case of 16 bit unsigned integer images the range will go from the value 0 to value 65535 e Image min max The range is between the minimum and the maximum pixel gray level values This is usually the most appropriate selection However these values are computed every time a new image is refreshed e Estimated min max In the case of large images computing the minimum and maximum values can take a while It then can be interesting to estimate these values by only scanning a subset of the image The percentage associated to this selection allows you to specify the number of pixels randomly scanned to estimate those two values e Manual min max It is sometimes useful to specify manually the minimum and maximal values such as in the case of a power spectrum display after an FFT computation You can type any value in these two fields even if they are out of the image range Click Apply to apply the value Click OK to apply the values and close the dialog box 78 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Selecting a Lookup Table The lookup table defines the mapping from image values to display colors You can use an existing LUT or use the LUT editor to create new LUTs and add them to the existing list To select a LUT 1 With the cursor positioned in the ima
95. elion is displayed in the title bar of the main Aphelion window To start a new project file when another project file is loaded 1 From the Options menu choose Preferences 2 Make sure that Automatically load the last project is not selected 3 Exit Aphelion then restart it Aphelion opens with an empty project 4 Create your new project and choose File gt Save Project As to save it Opening a Project File Use this procedure to open an existing project file 1 From the File menu choose Open Project 2 Select the project file that you want to open Project files have the extension ap 3 Click Open Elements Saved in a Project File Aphelion stores the following information in the project file e General settings such as the pathnames for image macro and project directories e Images e Image aspect Pixel Point Aspect Ratio or Window size e Display Context global and image e Kernels user defined e Structuring Elements user defined e Units user defined e Lookup Tables LUT global and image e Neighborhood Lookup Tables used by thinnings skeletons etc e Virtual Screen names Aphelion User Guide 67 Images 68 Aphelion User Guide e THM window settings including the command history e Operator dialog box settings including the List of Frequently Used Operators e Chart model files used to create histograms profiles surface maps and scatter plots e General information such as the auto
96. els and structuring elements are saved with the project file e For convolution you can modify the value for each element of the kernel e For morphological operators you can modify the structuring element SE In this case only the value X can be entered on each point of the structuring element Editing a kernel or structuring element The Kernel Editor button is displayed in the Operator dialog box if the operator you have selected uses a kernel or structuring element l 2 In the Operator dialog box click the Kernel Editor button to open the Structuring Element editor dialog box K structuring elements 58 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 2 Define the size of the kernel or structuring element SE There is no limit on the size To change the size type values in the X and Y fields under Size Click Update Reset 3 Define the origin of the kernel or structuring element The origin defines which output pixel is set relative to the position of the kernel Changes to the origin have the following effects e Reducing the x position of the origin moves the output pixel values to the left e Reducing the y position moves the output pixels up To change the origin of a kernel or structuring element type values in the X and Y fields under Origin The origin can be placed anywhere inside the kernel 3 Enter values e For a convolution click in each box and enter values integer or floating point e Fora structuri
97. en tool Then select it with the arrow button 5 To draw another ROI first click the type of ROI you want to draw rectangle ellipse polygon or freehand Then follow step 4 above 6 When you have finished drawing ROIs click the Select Objects button to turn off the ROI drawing process and remain in ROI overlay mode Saving ROIs in a Tiff file When you save a TIFF image any rectangular ROIs you have drawn are saved with the image Non rectangular ROIs such as ellipses or rounded rectangles are not saved Note You cannot save ROIs in a bmp im or jpg image file Disabling and Enabling an ROI When you draw an ROI it is automatically enabled You can disable an ROL and later enable it again When an ROI is disabled it will not be processed when you run an operator on that image 1 g Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the ROIs you want to disable Press the Shift key to select multiple ROIs Aphelion User Guide 93 4 Right click to display the Image pop up menu 5 Choose ROI gt Disable The selected ROIs are disabled and are outlined with a green and white dashed line 6 To enable an ROI that has been disabled select the disabled ROI then choose ROI gt Enable from the Image pop up menu Moving or Resizing an ROI You can modify an RO
98. enesneeeaa 89 Freehand Drawing isic heise nts he Seine ho EE EEE EE eee tina noted 89 Text Overlay sccte seas en a ee oe ee eel ea tae ie 89 Changing a Text Overlay osscsiciisse ccesecsseven cheesssstatey chencenebepencheegetvashepsbeaneeses 90 04 05 99 4 00 PM Aphelion User Guide 3 Region of Interest ROD ceeeeescesncceseceececeeeeceaeceseeesaeceeceeceeeeneeceaeeesaeceeeeeeneeesees 91 Macro Example scses 3g ih ter ne Ree ee eee as 91 BasicSeript and Cece tscsscesce staat casessnssshssgeasvet toa S EEr SK a senscesesbass tee EEES en 91 ROM Features EPEE E AE EE E E E T 92 Drawing ROIS oriens niere renonse A a EEE ra E EEEE E S 92 Saving ROIs in a Tiff file s eeeseeeeeeeseeeessseeessrreresreerrsrerrsreeresreresrenresrsresee 93 Disabling and Enabling an ROL sesesseeeesseresserreeseeresreerssesrssrerrsseressrerrssene 93 Moving or Resizing an ROU ieia e n a 94 Copying and Pasting an ROI oe eeeeceseceseeeeceecesececeecssesneeeeensees 94 Deleting RODS nres eee ee ee he eh on E 94 Converting ObjectSets to ROIS oo eee ceeeeeeceseeeeceeeceseeeeeeseceeeeeeeeens 95 Converting Graphic Overlay Objects to ROIS 00 0 ee eee eee ceeeseeeeeees 95 ODJCCES Cts es sone e EEEE Geet iia ea coda paulo A gh cadens E E EE ch caden E 96 Deleing ObjectSet Overlays ieee eeceeecesceseceseceseeeeeeceseeeeeeenseeeeees 96 CUAL eo EE E EEEE ET ag nee epaeaeaeei estes Samat ogee elds 96 Tage Histograms noie e a E scence Se A E A Seetepeons
99. erinex Applied Imaging Inc and ADCIS SA France Aphelion combines and enhances the best technology available to the two companies including key elements of AAT s KBVision System the X LIM morphology software from the Paris School of Mines and both companies expertise in Windows Aphelion contains e Core Module e Visualization Module with professional quality display tools e Developer Module for application development e BasicScript Language for macro development e Online Help e Multiple Language Documentation e VisionTutor Computer Vision Course The main window of the interface can simultaneously display multiple documents such as images graphics text spreadsheets and objects Copyright and Trademark Information 1996 1999 Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc and ADCIS S A Portions 1992 1994 Summit Software Company Portions 1995 Center for Mathematical Morphology Paris School of Mines Portions 1996 Imaging Technology Inc Portions 1996 MuTech Corporation Portions 1995 1996 Data Translation Inc Portions 1996 Preview Software Inc Aphelion User Guide 7 8 e Aphelion User Guide TIFF I O Library 1988 1996 Sam Leffler and 1991 1996 Silicon Graphics Inc Permission to use copy modify distribute and sell the TIFF I O library and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee provided that i the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all cop
100. erties of a chart create models to use when you create new charts and establish defaults for the size and position of chart windows in Aphelion Aphelion supplies models for the following types of charts e Histogram e Profile e Surface Map e Scatter Plot Image Histograms Chart windows can be created to show intensity histograms of selected areas of an image or of the whole image 04 05 99 E Histogram Circuit 41 104 203 186 1000 800 600 400 200 0 120 40 180 200 c a lza a we Grey Level Note To view information about the histogram in the Info page of the Info History Messages window choose View gt Info Window Output gt Histogram Profile Values from the Aphelion menu bar You can create an image histogram in one of the following ways Create a histogram for a rectangular area of interest See Drawing a Histogram e Create a histogram for an entire image To create a histogram for an entire image display the Image pop up menu and choose Operators gt Histogram See Using the Histogram Command e Use one of the following operators to compute a histogram on either the entire image or on ROIs drawn in the image You can copy the code from the History pane to use in a macro e AphImgHistogram e AphImgBandHistogram You can also create a histogram based on ObjectSet data e ISR Histograms e AphObjHistogram Note To display intensity profiles along a line see Image Profiles Drawing a Hi
101. es D Graphic pul ROI e Profile Histogram Grid Toolbar The Grid toolbar appears along the right side of the screen when a grid window is active m ISR Histogram Draw a histogram of selected data Highlight the column in the Grid that represents the data set ObjectSet attribute of interest then click m A chart window opens displaying the histogram Sort by Index Sort the grid by index number first column Sort by Column Sort the grid by the currently selected column Showlnfo Display the following ObjectSet information in the last five rows of the Grid units minimum maximum mean standard deviation Chart Toolbar The Chart toolbar is displayed along the right side of the screen when a chart window is active Charts include histograms profiles surface maps and scatter plots a 04 05 99 Plot Set the presentation type to a line plot Area Chart Set the presentation type to a filled plot 3D bar chart Set the presentation type to 3D bar Aphelion User Guide 41 42 Aphelion User Guide a2 oe Move Move the chart within the chart window Scale Increase or decrease the size of the chart Click the Scale button then drag the cursor up to increase or down to decrease the size of the chart Zoom In Zoom in on a selected rectangular area Click this button again to turn off zooming Reset Reset the chart to its original presentation location and size Macro Toolba
102. eselect a row click on the index number again Keep Rows Display only the selected rows To select a row click on the index number first column for the row To deselect a row click on the index number again Caution Choose Keep Rows only if you have selected one or more rows Otherwise the grid will be cleared and the data will be lost Sort by Sort by index number first column index Sort by Sort the currently selected column column When this command is checked the last five rows of the Grid Document display the following ObjectSet information units minimum maximum mean and standard deviation Chart Pop up Menu To display the Chart pop up menu right click anywhere in a histogram profile or surface map or scatter plot window 44 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Properties Display the Olectra Chart Control Properties dialog box You can change the titles of each axis the color of the various areas of the chart and other aspects of the display See Setting Chart Options Save Model Save the properties of the current chart as a model You can use the model when you create other charts To specify which model you want to use for a particular type of chart choose Options gt Chart from the Aphelion menu bar Save Chart Saves the chart description and the data For more information see Charts Load Chart Load a chart file that you previously saved Mark the peaks of the plot Mark the valleys of the pl
103. ey Or drag the mouse over the objects you want to select On the Main toolbar click the Cut button or press CTRL X Freehand Drawing In Graphic Overlay or ROI mode you can draw in an image window using the Pen Eraser tool This tool allows you to modify pixel values in the image or to mark binary objects to be removed 1 Make sure that Graphic Overlay or ROI mode is enabled Click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic or ROI On the Image toolbar click the Pen Eraser button Drag the mouse to draw a freehand contour in the image Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Click on the contour you just drew to select it Click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu Choose Graphic gt Pen Eraser You can then e Set the contour to value 0 e Set the contour to 1 or the maximum of the image type e Set the contour to the local minimum on the contour e Set the contour to the local maximum on the contour e Remove binary objects marked by the pen Text Overlays In Graphic Overlay mode you can add text boxes to an image using the Draw Text tool You can position text set the font text color and background color of the text box 1 2 Make sure that Graphic Overlay mode is enabled Click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic nal On the Image toolbar click the Draw Text button The cursor changes to a
104. f Basic code When you click this button the current macro window is cleared and a new macro window appears with the command Sub main Be sure the current code has been saved before you record a new macro Stop Recording Stop recording a macro When you click this button the command End Sub is automatically appended to the end of the recorded code Keyword Help Display context sensitive online Help for macro functions Make sure that you click on the command Aphelion operator or Aphelion function for which you want Help before clicking the Help button Acquisition Toolbar como Grab Image Start acquisition of an image Freeze Image Freeze an image Snap Image Snap an image Set Gain Offset Display the Gain Offset dialog box and adjust the image in real time 04 05 99 E Input LUT Select the input LUT for a live image Statistics on Live Image Display the mean in the Statusbar H Histogram on Live Image Display a histogram of the live image Pop up Menus In various areas and windows of the Aphelion interface you can click the right mouse button to display a pop up menu Each pop up menu lists commands pertaining to the area of the screen where the mouse cursor is positioned Image Pop up Menu To display the Image pop up menu right click anywhere in an active Image window View Change the pixel aspect for the active image Select Pixel Point Aspect Ratio or Window Size To change the defaul
105. f each pixel 04 05 99 graph4 graphs AphNgbGraph 2D 4 connected AphNgbGraph 2D 8 connected aa After all the declarations the code begins First the dialog box to select the time between two operators break time is displayed using the Dialog function and the BreakBox variable This dialog returns two values 1 if the OK button is pressed or 0 if the CANCEL button is selected As there is no CANCEL button the dialog can only return 1 When the OK button is selected the variable OptionGroup tells which option has been selected This variable can take three values 0 1 and 2 response Dialog BreakBox Use the CASE command to test a variable and to branch to any line depending on the value This is useful for handling the different button selections from a dialog Select Case responses Case 1 OK button If BreakBox OptionGroupl 0 Then breaktime 0 Else If BreakBox OptionGroupl 1 Then breaktime 3 Else breaktime 5 End If End If Cancel button MsgBox Cancel button doesn t exist Case 0 End Select All times in Visual Basic are given in milliseconds Thus the number of seconds specified by the variable OptionGroup1 is multiplied by 1000 bt1000 breaktime 1000 Load the image ceramic tif from disk and create a new image in Aphelion using the AphImgNew operator The full path to the image file has to be specified original AphImgNew AphImgRead original c
106. filtering is PIXEL_COUNT The lower and upper bounds are set respectively to 1000 and 1400 AphObjFilter AphObj FIBERS AphObjNew SURFACE PIXEL_COUNT 1000 1400 AphObjDraw will overlay the resulting ObjectSet on top of the original image AphObjDraw il AphObj SURFACE POLYGON End If The following lines filter based upon the position of the objects in the image As the lower labels are in the upper part of the image it is sufficient to filter on the TOKEN_INDEX variable The two bounds are set to 1 and 10 A new ISR object named LOCATION is created If FBox location Then i2 AphImgNew Location AphImgCopy original i2 AphObjFilter AphObj FIBERS AphObjNew LOCATION TOKEN_INDEX 1 AphObjDraw i2 AphObj LOCATION POLYGON MsgOpen Selection of the 10 first fibers breaktime False False Sleep 2000 MsgClose End If The following lines filter based on the elongation of the objects The elongation has to be measured on the regions and not the boundaries The two bounds of the filter are set to 0 and 0 05 A new ISR object named ELONGATION is created If FBox elongation Then i3 AphImgNew Elongation AphImgCopy original i3 AphRegionShape AphObj FIBERS REGION AphObjFilter AphObj FIBERS AphObjNew ELONGATION ELONGATION 0 05 AphObjDraw i3 AphObj ELONGATION POLYGON MsgOpen Fibers with elongation between 0 and 0 05 breaktime False False Sleep 2000 MsgCl
107. fo Window Output gt Histogram Profile Values from the menu bar 04 05 99 04 05 99 Modifying an Image Profile You can modify an image profile by moving resizing or deleting the profile line drawn in the image The changes are reflected in the profile window You can also change the line color To move or resize the profile line 1 Make sure that Profile mode is activated 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button bad Select the line you want to modify Modify the line as needed e To move the line place the cursor anywhere on the line except for the end points and drag the line to a new position e To resize the line point to an endpoint Hold down the mouse button until the cursor turns into a double headed arrow Drag the end to a new position To change the profile line color 1 Make sure that Profile mode is activated 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the line you want to modify 4 Choose the Line Color option in one of the following ways S On the Image toolbar click the Line Color button e From the Image pop up menu choose Profile gt Line Color The Color dialog box appears 5 Select the color you want and click OK The line color of the selected objects changes to the color you selected To delete an image profile To delete an image profile you delete the profile line that is drawn in the image When you delete the line the profil
108. g an image histogram Grid Pop up Menu To display the Grid pop up menu right click anywhere in an active Grid window Note You can also access the Histogram Sort by Index Sort by Column and Show Info commands from the Grid toolbar See Grid Toolbar Display a list of ObjectSets Select the ObjectSet you want to load Attach to Set up a message passing link between one column attribute in the Grid Graphic document and an ISR histogram window Select a column then choose Attach to Graphic Choose New to create a chart or select an existing chart Draw a histogram of selected data Highlight the column in the Grid that represents the data set ObjectSet attribute of interest then choose Histogram A chart window containing the histogram opens Draw a scatter plot made up of two attributes The scatter plot is displayed in a chart window The title bar of the chart window displays the name of the grid and the two ObjectSet attributes that the scatter plot is based on Export to Create an embedded Excel document and load the ObjectSet data into it Excel Delete Delete any selected columns You can delete columns of scalar attributes Column only You cannot delete columns containing spatial attributes To select a column click on the heading for the column To deselect a column click on the heading again Delete Rows Delete any selected rows To select a row click on the index number first column for the row To d
109. ge window The following sections describe how to investigate image properties through different views of the information in the image Image View The image view can be varied in many ways This includes zooming panning and changing the display mapping by altering the brightness and contrast or the display LUT Tip Zooming and panning Changing the display context Changing brightness and contrast Changing the LUT Resizing an image You can modify several image characteristics from the Image Properties dialog box Click the right mouse button in an image window to display the Image pop up menu Choose Properties gt Properties You can get precise information about an image as well as adjust its characteristics or presentation properties For example you can change the underlying data type for operators that require input images to be of a specific data type or change the lookup table to view fine detail in images that are too dark or too bright 04 05 99 04 05 99 Histogram The histogram view shows the gray level histogram for an image A histogram is useful for determining which processing and segmentation techniques will be effective For example if the histogram is bi modal many of the automatic threshold techniques such as AphImgEntropyThreshold or AphIngMaximumContrastThreshold work well The histogram can also indicate digitization problems that may need to be corrected through filtering For example if every odd lo
110. ge window right click to display the Image pop up menu 2 Choose Properties gt Select LUT to open the Look Up Table Selection dialog box 3 Use the Window LUT Image LUT and Global LUT tabs to indicate which parameters are affected e The Window settings apply only to the active image window e The Image settings apply to the Image and will be saved with the image e The Global settings apply to all images in the current Aphelion session 4 Touse an existing LUT select it in the list on the left side of the dialog box 5 Click Apply to apply the lookup table 6 Click OK Note For a global LUT you can also select an image class All images in the chosen class will default to the defined LUT Defining a New LUT You can define a new LUT which can then be saved with the current project 1 6 7 From the Lookup Table Selection dialog box click the New LUT button The LUT Editor dialog box appears Add delete or move the control points e To add a control point move the mouse click the right mouse button and choose Add Point gt All You can add multiple control points on the curve e To delete a control point click the right mouse button and choose Remove Point e To move a control point drag the point using the mouse e To specify the exact location of a point click the right mouse button and choose Show Point To help define points click the Zoom button to zoom in on the curve After you define the LUT typ
111. ghborhood LUT Editor dialog box 60 neighborhood LUTs 59 creating 60 modifying 61 selecting 60 New button 39 New command File menu 46 New dialog box 80 new documents opening 46 O Object histograms 102 object linking and embedding OLE overview 81 object measurements 22 24 25 80 106 119 120 Index 135 objects 119 Objects toolbar 39 ObjectSet List button 40 ObjectSet overlays deleting 96 ObjectSets 12 119 deleting overlays 96 overview 96 OLE object linking and embedding BasicScript functions 81 example macros 81 overview 81 online Help 9 Open button 39 Open dialog box 70 opening charts 104 grids 80 images 70 macro windows 111 macros 25 111 112 new documents 46 project files 67 text files 82 Operator dialog box button 39 overview 51 toolbars 52 operators frequently used 55 global analysis 51 MMX 55 parameters 58 running 52 selecting 53 Options menu 38 origin kernel 59 structuring element 59 Output Image Options dialog box 57 output images 56 57 58 overlay objects copying and pasting 88 deleting 89 drawing 85 fill color 88 freehand drawing 89 handle size 87 layered 84 line color 87 line width 87 moving 86 overview 83 points 86 properties 84 136 Index resizing 86 text 89 overview message passing 106 Overviews charts 96 ROIs 91 P panning an image 74 parameters images 71 operator 58 Paris School of Mines 7 128 particle count 119 See object measurements Pa
112. gle I rounded Rectangle E Eip E poizon EA recnana E tex 3 After you click the type of object you want to draw the cursor changes into a cross hair shape or a pen shape e To draw a point position the cursor and click once e To draw a line rectangle rounded rectangle or ellipse drag the mouse To end the drawing release the mouse button e To draw a polygon click at the desired vertices The cursor changes into the shape of a pencil as you draw Double click to end the drawing e To draw a freehand polygon drag the mouse Double click to end the drawing e To draw a contour with the pen just move the mouse over the image clicking on the left mouse button to modify the image e To add text click in the image where you want to place the text Enter the desired text and formatting options in the Text Object dialog box Aphelion User Guide 85 Note After you have drawn objects on the image you can convert those objects except text to ROIs See Converting Graphic Overlay Objects to ROIs Point Overlays You can use point overlays to place markers in an image display the pixel coordinates and copy those coordinates to a macro 1 From the View menu choose Info Window Output gt Overlay Coordinates 2 yal Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic 3 ciick the Point button 4 C
113. he Operator dialog box is open when you first start Aphelion Use the ShowOpDialog button on the Objects toolbar to hide or display the Operator dialog box You can use the mouse to drag the Operator dialog box to a different location The Operator dialog box cannot be resized Displaying Results for Global Analysis Operators When you select a global analysis operator such as AphImg Volume the button appears in the Operator dialog box This button allows you to indicate if you want the output displayed in the Info window For AphImgHistogram AphImgBandHistogram and AphImgProfile you can also choose to display the output in a Profile or Histogram window or export the output to an Excel spreadsheet Example 1 Select AphImgHistogram 2 E Click the Results button 3 Choose one or more of the options e View Output in Info Window e Create Profile Histogram Window e Export to Excel 4 gt Click the Run Operator button to run the operator The results will appear according to the options you chose Aphelion User Guide 51 Note When you choose an input image for AphImgProfile the chart window is displayed automatically If you chose Export to Excel you must click the Run Operator button to export the results to an Excel spreadsheet Running an Operator The following procedure outlines the steps to select and run an operator Note J To interrupt the execution of an operator click the Stop Operator button When the
114. he Select button 04 05 99 04 05 99 e Modify or move the profile line The chart is updated to reflect the changes Message passing between an image and a grid Messages can be passed from an image overlay to a grid or from a grid to an image overlay To pass messages from a grid to an image overlay select the grid rows you are interested in They are automatically highlighted in the overlay display To pass messages from an image overlay to a grid first select which ObjectSet will be used Then select an object from the image overlay and the corresponding row in the grid is highlighted To use message passing you must first e Display an ObjectSet in the image window as an overlay e Open a grid document containing the ObjectSet information To pass messages from an image overlay to a grid you must also enable ObjectSet mode by selecting an ObjectSet To display an ObjectSet You can display an ObjectSet in either of the following ways e Run an operator whose name ends with Obj such as AphImgGrowObj to create an ObjectSet associated with an image e Ifthe ObjectSet is already computed use the ObjDraw operator to display the ObjectSet on top of an image All objects are outlined in the selected color The default color is yellow To change the default color use the advanced parameters for ObjDraw Note The operator AphImgClustersObj creates an ObjectSet from a binary image If you want to perform a classical individual a
115. helion User Guide 127 of experts in the field of Image Processing Image Understanding and Image Analysis and close relationships to the research centers located in France The mission of ADCIS is to e Market Aphelion an Image Processing and Image Understanding software package based on the most innovative imaging algorithms e Provide turn key solutions for Image Processing using Aphelion and specialized hardware such as frame grabbers and other peripherals e Deliver high level support and training on the company s products as well as consulting on specific vertical vision applications ADCIS was founded in July 1995 At its inception the ADCIS founders signed agreements with the Ecole des Mines de Paris in France and Amerinex Applied Imaging in the U S These relationships provide the company with a set of superior algorithms in image processing image analysis and image recognition ADCIS markets Aphelion in Europe and Japan through a network of specialized distributors 128 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 e 129 Index 3 3D bar chart button 41 A Al A2 buttons 40 117 acquiring images 72 acquisition boards 72 Acquisition toolbar 42 ActiveX controls 8 82 Add Watch dialog box 116 adding virtual screens 65 watch variables 116 alphabetical list of operators 54 analysis individual 80 119 See object measurements local 80 119 See object measurements Aphelion customizing 47 exiting 12
116. hreshold is not specified as described above b1 AphImgNew Binaryl AphImgThreshold original bl MsgClose MsgOpen Interactive gray level Thresholding breaktime False False Sleep bt1000 MsgClose The binary image resulting from the threshold includes the fibers and also parts of the background the darkest pixels However the fibers are much larger than the background noise so you can apply a morphological dilation to the original gray scale image with a structuring element whose size is greater than the size of the objects in the background but smaller than the size of the fibers to remove the darkest pixels The following lines perform a gray scale dilation of size 3 based on a square structuring element The dilation is performed on the original image and the output image is named Imagel il AphImgNew Imagel AphImgDilate original il AphSElement Square 3 A new threshold is performed to extract the core of the fibers The two bounds are set to 0 and 117 The threshold is performed on the result of the previous dilation and the output image is named Binary2 Binary2 contains the seed points for the fibers but not for the background noise b2 AphImgNew Binary2 AphImgThreshold i1 b2 AphThreshold 0 117 The following call to AphImgReconstruct performs binary reconstruction of the first binary image using seeds detected after the second threshold The output result will contain all blobs from the first
117. ick Help on the left end of the Statusbar Depending on where the cursor is positioned Quick Help displays e A brief description of a toolbar button or menu item e A brief description of each operator listed on the drop down Operator list in the Operator dialog box e The position and value of a pixel e The position of an ROI or a graphic overlay object 04 05 99 Draws a round rectangle using default line width and color 113 33 88 000 For example the position and value of a pixel are displayed based on the position of the mouse cursor For a color image the Statusbar displays pixel coordinates and the RGB values Toolbars Main Toolbar The Main toolbar is displayed just below the menu bar when you open Aphelion If you want to hide the Main toolbar choose View Main toolbar O New Document Create a new document window You specify the kind of document you want to create macro grid text or OLE re Open Image Open a previously saved image LA Save As Image Save the currently selected image i Cut Cut an object and place it onto the Clipboard You can use the Cut button to cut information from an image macro or text window You must first select the material you want to cut before the Cut button becomes available To cut information in any tab in the Info History Messages window use the contextual pop up menus Copy Copy an object and place it onto the Clipboard You can use the Copy button to
118. ick the button To delete an SE in the Neighborhood LUT Editor dialog box 1 Select the SE in the list box on the right side of the dialog box 2 Click the es button Info History Messages IHM Window When you first start Aphelion the IHM window is displayed in the lower right hand corner of the interface 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 61 62 Aphelion User Guide IHH Window Info History Messages The tabs in the Info History Messages window let you access the following information e The Information Info tab displays pixel values output of measurements and other Statistics e The History tab displays a list of executed operators and their parameters e The Messages tab displays information about non critical error messages Tip To display or hide the IHM window click T on the Objects toolbar Information Info Page Info History Messages Area 65536 187 170 1 201 181 1 226 206 1 251 241 1 201 1 Er The Info page can display the following information e Pixel coordinates and pixel values e Location of mouse cursor e Histogram values e ROI coordinates e Global measurements e Other information generated by an Aphelion operator Note Information displayed in the Info page can be saved to a file To save the information to a file click the right mouse button in the Info page and choose Save or Save As Use the View menu on the Aphelion menu bar to indicate
119. ies of the software and related documentation and ii the names of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics may not be used in any advertising or publicity relating to the software without the specific prior written permission of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED AS IS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EXPRESS IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE IN NO EVENT SHALL SAM LEFFLER OR SILICON GRAPHICS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL INCIDENTAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE DATA OR PROFITS WHETHER OR NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF DAMAGE AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE Aphelion is a trademark of Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc and ADCIS S A KBVision and VisionTutor are trademarks of Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc Khoros Khoros and Design and Cantata are trademarks or registered trademarks of Khoral Research Inc All other product names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners Core Module The Aphelion Core Module provides the following capability e Image Processing Operators e Image Understanding Operators e Morphological Operators e Image Analysis Operators e Support for Importing and Exporting Images e Support for I O Hardware e Support for Processing Accelera
120. ight pane of the Registry window right click and choose New gt DWORD Value 4 Type Maximize as the name for the new value To maximize the Aphelion window on startup right click on the name Maximize and choose Modify 6 Type 1 in the Value Data field To change back to the default position type 0 7 Click OK The next time you start Aphelion it will open as a maximized window Loading a Project You can set up Aphelion so that the project you were working on when you exited Aphelion will be opened automatically when you restart Aphelion 04 05 99 04 05 99 1 From the Options menu choose Preferences The Preferences dialog box is displayed The section for setting Project preferences is at the bottom of the dialog box M Project MV Automatically load the last project I Save Images in the project T Save Command History in the project P Automatically display grid M Display image thumbnails 2 Select the option Automatically load the last project 3 Click OK Preferences From the Options menu on the Main toolbar you can specify preferences for how images are displayed in Aphelion and for how you use projects e Default Image View e Project Preferences For more information about viewing an image see Image Views For more information about projects see Aphelion Projects Modifying the Default Image View When you first start Aphelion the default image view is set to maintain the aspec
121. image file in the JPEG format can be set through the following registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software ADCIS AAT Aphelion 2 3 A phelion Settings JpegRatio The initial value 100 corresponds to a compression with the best quality Minimizing this value will reduce the quality of the saved image and will also produce smaller files The following image types are not supported e edge and complex images types e and 64 bit pixel types e CMYK format Aphelion does not currently support writing of complex float or signed image data to JPEG files Multi band images Aphelion images support an arbitrary number of bands Some typical uses are for Aphelion User Guide 69 70 Aphelion User Guide e color images 3 bands e edge images 2 or 4 bands When you display a multi band image you can choose to display all bands the first band the second band or the third band Click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu then choose the View command For working with multi band images see the following operators e AphImgSplitBands e AphImgJoinBands e AphImgRGBToColor e AphImgColorToRGB Opening Images There are several ways to open images in Aphelion including importing and acquiring Opening an Image Aphelion supports the following image file formats e Tagged image file tif e Bitmap bmp e JPEG jpg e KBVision im To open an image 1 From the File menu choose Open Image The Open dialog b
122. int image data through the Data Sample Format tags 04 05 99 04 05 99 e Complex image data Aphelion supports reading and writing of complex image data 2 samples per pixel real imaginary as indicated by the value 32837 for the Photometric Interpretation tag Additional details about Baseline and Extended TIFF 6 0 can be found in the TIFF Revision 6 0 specification from Adobe Systems BMP files Aphelion supports reading and writing of Microsoft Windows Bitmap BMP image files also known as Device Independent Bitmap DIB image files Both uncompressed and RLE compressed BMP files can be read by Aphelion Aphelion writes only uncompressed BMP files Aphelion does not currently support any DIB format extensions KBV files Aphelion can read most images from the KBVision system format IM extension The subset supported for reading is e one band images of unsigned byte e signed int e signed short int e float pixel types Multi band images and images in the blocked format are not supported Aphelion does not support KBV format for writing JPEG files Aphelion 2 3 supports reading and writing of JPEG image files In general gray scale and color unsigned byte images are supported Aphelion can read any standard compression quality rate and also supports progressive scans Aphelion writes only non progressive scans in RGB or gray scale mode with the maximum quality rate The compression rate used when saving an
123. ize Allows each axis of the window to be resized independently By default images are opened with the image view set to Aspect Ratio To modify the view for a particular image open the image and click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu Choose View To modify the default view for all images opened in Aphelion choose Options gt Preferences from the Aphelion menu bar Resizing an Image To resize an image you may need to change the pixel aspect for the image You can do this for an individual image by using the View command from the Image pop up menu Note To set the default pixel aspect use the Options gt Preferences command on the Aphelion menu bar See Modifying the Default Image View To resize an image 1 With the cursor positioned in the image window click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu 2 Choose View to display a pop up menu v Pixel Point Aspect Ratio Window Size 3 Choose one of the following options e To indicate that the window cannot be resized beyond the pixel size of its x and y axis choose Pixel Point If the size of the window is smaller than the size of the image use the scroll bars to pan the image Hold down the mouse button and move the scroll bars then release the mouse button to refresh the image 04 05 99 04 05 99 e To maintain the aspect ratio of the image choose Aspect Ratio e To allow each axis of the window to be resized independently ch
124. l Importing Images If you have images in a format other than the supported formats TIFF BMP JPG KBV you can import the images into Aphelion using the AphImgImport operator or a third party conversion application AphImgImport allows you to read an uncompressed binary file into an Aphelion image For example a SUN raster file can easily be imported into Aphelion using AphImgImport To use the AphImgImport operator 1 Determine the image size pixel type and file characteristics of the image you want to import 2 M In the Operator dialog box click the SelectOper button 3 Choose ImageuUtilities gt Input Output gt Imglmport Note You must define the size and type of the output image In the Operator dialog box click the Output image icon then choose New w Options Determining Image Parameters To run AphImgImport you must know the size pixel type and file characteristics of the image If you do not know these values you can compute the values or use trial and error to determine them e To compute the parameter values use the information you have such as the X and Y dimensions to determine the other parameters This can be done by subtracting the product of the X and Y dimensions from the file size If the remaining number of bytes is fairly small less than 2000 then those bytes are most likely a file header that can be skipped by setting the File Header Size parameter If the resulting value is large you may have
125. labeled image each object has a different gray level value All the pixels of the same connected object have the same value The labels go from 1 to the number of objects The first object is the first one hit while scanning the image from top to bottom and left to right The connectivity is very important while performing a labeling 11 AphImgNew Label AphImgClustersToLabels b4 11 AphNgbGraph 2D 4 connected AphiImgFree b4 After a labeling you can change the image representation and go from the pixel space to a symbolic representation The ObjectSet named FIBERS is created after calling the Aphelion operator AphImgLabelsObj The object FIBERS has a spatial representation of the fiber regions and a few basic measurements such as the number of pixels in each region One way to examine this data is to use the grid feature available in Aphelion A grid is similar to a spreadsheet where each row corresponds to a label or object and each column is an attribute or measurement AphImgLabelsObj 11 AphObjNew FIBERS After creating the FIBERS objects it is possible to analyze each region and compute their convex hull from the region representation This is the best way to compute the convex hull of objects from their boundary representation AphRegionConvexHullPolygons AphObj FIBERS The object FIBERS can be viewed in the grid or the boundary of each object can be overlaid on the original image The operator AphObjDraw overlay
126. lbar click the Print Page Design button The Print Page Design window opens The window represents a page with the size and margins as defined in the default for the selected printer If you resize the window the aspect ratio is maintained 4 Right click to display the Print Page Design pop up menu e Insert an Image Display a list of all the images loaded in Aphelion Click the image you want to insert e Insert a Chart Display a list of all charts open in Aphelion Click the chart you want to insert e Insert Text Display the Text dialog box Type the text you want to insert in the Print Page Design and click OK e Print Page Send the page to the printer e Page Setup Define the orientation of the page the margins and the size of the paper e Set Unit to Inch Set the units to millimeters or inches Note In the current release of Aphelion you cannot save the Print Page Design as a file or as part of a project Arranging Documents in a Print Page Design After you insert objects in a Print Page Design you can arrange the objects on the page or delete them Note If you modify an image in the Aphelion workspace the image in the Print Page Design is also modified 1 Focus on the object you want to modify 2 Click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu e Center Center the object in the page You can center it in the horizontal or vertical direction or in both directions e Remove
127. lect the ObjectSet you created The grid window opens displaying the measurements that were computed Make sure that you can view both the grid and the image at the same time To use message passing from the grid to the image view select rows 6 through 8 in the grid The corresponding objects are highlighted in the image To use message passing from the image to the grid e Focus on the image e DBI Click the OBJ button on the Image toolbar and select the ObjectSet from the pop up list Select one or more objects in the image The corresponding rows are highlighted in the grid To display the ten largest objects in the overlay 1 Select the column labeled AREA by clicking the left mouse button on the AREA title Click the right mouse button to display the grid pop up menu Select the Sort by column command The rows in the grid are automatically sorted in descending order with the largest object in the first row of the grid Select the first ten rows by clicking the left mouse button on the index of each row To deselect a row click it again In the image overlay the ten largest objects appear outlined in red To remove the five darkest objects 1 2 3 Select the column labeled INTENSITY_MEAN Scroll to the bottom of the grid and select the bottom five rows Choose Delete Rows from the grid pop up menu The objects rows will be removed from the grid and from the object overlay Aphelion User Guide 109
128. lick in the image to place the points For each point the pixel coordinates are displayed in the Info page of the IHM window If the window is not visible click the Show IHM button on the Objects toolbar Tip Use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the point 5 Copy the coordinates from the Info page to use in a macro You can also draw point overlays using the following operators e AphImgTrace e AphImgWarpControlPoint Moving and Resizing a Graphic Overlay Object To Move a Graphic Overlay Object l yaj Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the object you want to modify Handles appear along the outline of the object 4 Point the cursor anywhere within the object Hold down the mouse button and drag the object to a new location 5 Release the mouse button To Resize a Graphic Overlay Object l ol Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic 2 Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button 3 Select the object you want to modify Handles appear along the outline of the object 4 Point the cursor at one of the handles 86 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 6 e To resize the image and maintai
129. lick the Close button to close the Message passing window You can now pass messages between the selected image windows Example Run the Blood apm macro Keep the images open Click the Message Passing button select the images you want to use for message passing select All messages in the bottom of the window then close the window Click the Zoom button on the Image toolbar and drag the mouse in the source image The corresponding areas of the target images zoom as well Tutorial Message Passing This tutorial demonstrates how to use message passing between an image and a grid In this tutorial you first display the ten largest objects in the overlay Then you delete the 5 darkest objects To enable Message Passing 04 05 99 04 05 99 5 On the Main toolbar click the Open button Open the image blood tif Select the ImgThresholdObj operator e For the input image choose blood tif e In the Output Objectset field type a name for the ObjectSet you are creating e For parameters use 40 for the Low value and 100 for the High value Run the operator Select the ObjComputeMeasurements operator e In the Input ObjectSet field click the drop down arrow and select the ObjectSet you created when you ran ImgThresholdObj e Do not click the Select button to select specific measurements all measurements will be calculated Run the operator If the ObjectSet did not open automatically click the ObjectSet List button and se
130. lly load the last project Save Images in the project T Save Command History in the project I Automatically display grid M Display image thumbnails 2 Select or clear the following options e Automatically load the last project If you select this option Aphelion automatically loads the last project you were working on If you do not select this option the untitled ap project is loaded Default Off e Save Images in the project Default Off e Save Command History in the project Default Off e Automatically display grid while running an AphObj operator Automatically open a grid when you run an operator that creates an ObjectSet Default Off e Display image thumbnails This option allows you to display images as thumbnails in the Operator dialog box If you are dealing with large images turn off this option to improve processing time Default On 3 Click OK Note If you save images and history in the project file you may notice that it takes a long time for Aphelion to start This may mean that the project file has become too large You should clear the History pane and the saved images e To clear the history right click in the History pane and select Clear e To clear the images run AphImgFreeAll from the Operator dialog box then exit Aphelion 50 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Operator Dialog Box 04 05 99 The Operator dialog box is used to apply Aphelion operators to images and symbolic data sets T
131. log The variable named Breakbox is defined as a dialog box of type BreakTimeDialog Dim BreakBox As BreakTimeDialog When this dialog variable is used in a dialog call it will appear in Aphelion as Break Time during the execution No break during the execution C messages displayed during 3 sec messages displayed during 5 sec The following is the definition of a dialog box to specify which filters will be performed on the ISR measurements This dialog includes 4 check boxes an OK button and a Cancel button All numerical values correspond to positions in pixels and sizes Begin Dialog FilterBox 172 100 Object Filtering OKButton 124 8 40 14 CancelButton 124 28 40 14 Text 16 8 92 20 _ The filtering of the fibers is based on _ Text1 Arial 9 ebBold CheckBox 16 36 68 8 Surface area surface CheckBox 16 52 68 8 Location location CheckBox 16 68 68 8 Elongation elongation CheckBox 16 84 68 8 Compactness compactness End Dialog The variable named FBox is defined as a dialog box of type FilterBox Dim FBox As FilterBox When this dialog variable is used in a dialog call it will appear in Aphelion as Object Filtering x The filtering of the fibers is based on Cancel M Surface area Cancel M Location MV Elongation Aphelion supports both 4 and 8 connectivity The two following variables are used for the labeling operation to specify the number of neighbors o
132. lots e Text Text is printed using the default font for the selected printer e Macro A macro is printed as text To change the font use the Font command on the Macro pop up menu 2 From the File menu choose Print The Print dialog box opens 3 From the Print dialog box change the Printer options if necessary For example you can change the paper size from 8 1 2 X 11 to A4 4 Click OK Printing a Grid Document spreadsheet 1 Open the grid document 2 Click the right mouse button to display the Grid pop up menu 3 Choose Export to Excel 4 From the File menu in Excel choose Print Print Page Design Use Print Page Design to print a report or other output that includes e Images e Charts Charts include histograms profiles surface maps and scatter plots e Text e ObjectSets Within the Aphelion interface you can arrange the image and chart documents on the page and create text labels or annotations You can also use macro functions to produce Print Page Designs Aphelion User Guide 121 122 e Aphelion User Guide Creating a Print Page Design Before you create a Print Page Design make sure that the images you want to include are loaded in Aphelion and that the charts you want to include are open After you create the Page you can add text to annotate and label the images and charts 1 Load the images you want to include 2 Open the charts that you want to include 3 On the Main too
133. mat Distance X Y Intensity e Distance is defined as max X2 X11I Y2 Y 11 e X Y are the exact coordinates in pixel units e Intensity is the gray scale intensity Note To view information about the profile in the Info page of the Info History Messages window choose View gt Info Window Output gt Histogram Profile Values from the Aphelion menu bar You can create a profile in one of the following ways e On the Image toolbar make sure that Profile mode is activated To activate Profile mode click the Overlay button and then click Profile Then draw the profile line in the image e Run the AphImgProfile operator Drawing an Image Profile 1 Select the image to be used 2 On the Image toolbar make sure that Profile mode is activated To activate Profile mode click the Overlay button and then click Profile e When you click the Profile button the Line button is automatically activated e The shape of the cursor turns into a cross hair 3 Drag the mouse to draw a line over the area of interest When you release the mouse button the profile is displayed in a chart window The title bar of the chart window includes the name of the source image and the coordinates of the profile line Note If you click on a point in the profile chart the position and value of that point are displayed in the Statusbar If you want to view that same information in the Info page and be able to save it or copy it to a macro choose View gt In
134. matic opening of grids and the display of image icons When you open a project by clicking File gt Open Project from the menu bar you can reopen the images associated to the project by clicking the Image List button on the Main toolbar and then clicking on each image name Note ObjectSets are not saved in a project file Most Aphelion operators can be used on a wide variety of image formats including monochrome or color images binary 8 bit 16 bit 32 bit and 64 bit images and integer and float images Image File Formats Aphelion supports the following image file formats e Tagged image file tif e Bitmap bmp JPEG jpg e KBVision im To import files in other formats use the Aphelion operator AphImgImport or a third party conversion tool You can also acquire live images using a camera TIFF files Aphelion supports reading and writing of TIFF 6 0 Baseline image files Multiple page and Tiled TIFF images are not currently supported Aphelion can read both uncompressed and certain types of compressed TIFF files The following compression types are supported for read only e CCITT Group 3 1 Dimensional Modified Huffman RLE e CCITT Group 3 Fax encoding e CCITT Group 4 Fax encoding e PackBits Macintosh RLE Aphelion writes only uncompressed TIFF files In addition Aphelion supports the following extensions to TIFF 6 0 Baseline e Data Sample Format Aphelion supports reading and writing of signed and floating po
135. mation about how to use Help see Online Help Quick Tutorial If you are a new user and want to try out some of the basic tasks in Aphelion you can follow the Quick Tutorial outlined below The tutorial demonstrates how to open an image select and run an operator and execute a macro The steps in bold represent the general task while the specific actions you should follow are listed in the paragraph following the bold step We recommend that you read the complete Getting Started section before using Aphelion on a regular basis and look up information as needed in the Aphelion User Guide and the Aphelion Reference Guide Da a Open an image On the Main toolbar click the Open icon From the Open dialog box double click on the file Ceramic tif The image opens in an image window View or change the display parameters for the image as needed With the cursor positioned anywhere in the image window click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu Choose Properties to change display parameters such as the lookup table and the display context fe Select the operator you want to run In the Operator dialog box click the SelectOperator button From the drop down list click Filtering gt Low Pass gt ImgLowPass3x3 The Operator dialog box displays the input and output icons for ImgLowPass3x3 View the online Help for the selected operator In the Operator dialog box click the OperatorHelp button The Help topic for the
136. me of an operator Other Documentation In addition to the online Help the following documentation is available e installation Guide and Quick Overview This guide is distributed with your CD Much of the material is also available in the Getting Started section of the online Aphelion User Guide e Demo Movies The Aphelion CD contains a set of multimedia demos and tutorials in the Demos sub directory These ScreenCam movies provide an introduction to Aphelion interfaces concepts and algorithms To play a file directly from the CD drag the scm file onto the scplayer program Or for more convenience copy the Demos sub directory to the Aphelion installation directory You can then click the ShowDemos button on the main toolbar in Aphelion and select a demo Note that the movies include sound so you should enable the speaker on your PC e Release notes The release notes detail features of each new Aphelion release including new operators fixes to known problems and documentation updates You can read the release notes file README txt during the installation process If you want to read the file after you have installed Aphelion you can access the file in the directory where you installed Aphelion typically C Program Files Aphelion e FAQ The FAQ Frequently Asked Questions list is available at the Amerinex Web site http www aai com AAI APHELION FAQ html Multiple Language Documentation The Aphelion user interface s
137. n Output Image 1 In the Operator dialog box click the Output icon The output image menu appears It lists open images and displays a check mark next to New Image by default 56 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 Blood Blood_labels Muscle Circuit v New Image New w Options 2 Use the default New Image or select an image from the list of existing images e If you select New Image the new image icon appears as the output icon You can modify the image data type size or name of the image e Ifyou select an existing image the output icon displays an image pattern similar to the actual image Note You can use drag and drop to select the image you want From the Aphelion workspace drag the image to the input icon Modifying an Output Image 1 In the Operator dialog box click the Output icon Make sure that New Image is selected Click New w Options to display the Output Image Options dialog box Output Image Options x Image Data Type C Let Aphelion decide Specify Type Image Size Let Aphelion decide C Specify Size Complex64 Dimension 4 lS 256 256 m Image Name Let Aphelion decide C Set Name Cancel Aphelion User Guide 57 3 For each of the following categories you can modify the values or Let Aphelion decide the appropriate value e Image Data Type Click the Specify Type radio button
138. n a chart window 1 Display a grid 2 Select the columns in the grid that represent the data sets ObjectSet attributes of interest You must select two columns 3 Click the right mouse button to display the Grid pop up menu 4 Choose Scatter Aphelion displays a chart window containing the scatter plot The title bar of the chart window displays the name of the grid and the two ObjectSet attributes that the scatter plot is based on Setting Chart Options You can change the default models for each type of chart or create new models Use the Options gt Charts command from the menu bar to specify which model you want to use for a particular kind of chart e Chart model files which store only the properties for a particular type of chart have the extension apc e Files that store both the data and the properties of a chart have the extension 0C2 or 0C3 Modifying the Properties of a Chart When you create a chart you can change the properties of the chart window using the Olectra Chart tabbed dialog box For example you can change the colors of the foreground and background of various areas of the chart or modify the style of the chart When you make these changes you can save them as a model to use when you generate other charts To Change the Colors in a Chart To change the colors in a chart you generally use the Interior tab for the area of the chart you want to modify The following screen shows the names for the
139. n the aspect ratio point at one of the corner handles e To resize the image by width or height point at one of the handles along the sides Hold down the mouse button the cursor turns into a double headed arrow and drag the object until it is the size you want Release the mouse button Changing the Line Color of a Graphic Overlay Object 1 ya Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Select the object you want to change To select additional objects first hold down the Shift key Choose the Line Color option in one of the following ways e On the Image toolbar click hs e From the Image pop up menu choose Graphic gt Line Color The Color dialog box appears Select the color you want and click OK The line color of the selected objects changes to the color you selected Changing Line Width and the Size of Handles You can change line width or size of handles for a graphic overlay objects for one selected object at a time 1 oe a he ya Make sure you are in Graphic Overlay mode To enable Graphic Overlay mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose Graphic Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Select the object you want to modify Right click to display the Image pop up menu
140. n use drag and drop editing to move elements from one virtual screen to another Graphical User Interface The Aphelion interface contains a menu bar toolbars Statusbar Operator dialog box Info History Messages window and an area called the workspace where images macros graphics text and all other Aphelion documents are displayed and processed fie Edt Yew Window teed Menu Bar Diala salaj arji ZES 4 momes a E we 12 CEEE Operator Dialog Box lebo Hoare Messages manwe ___ Status y a BD Menu Bar The menu bar located near the top of the screen contains menus such as File and View that list commands for Aphelion activities Main Toolbar The Main toolbar which appears just under the menu bar contains buttons for common Windows tasks such as open save and print Objects Toolbar The Objects toolbar located to the right of the Main toolbar contains buttons for working with objects in Aphelion Other Toolbars Other toolbars such as the Image toolbar are displayed depending on what window is active Statusbar Aphelion User Guide 13 Quick Help provides brief descriptions of Aphelion interface elements and operators Quick Help is displayed at the left end of the Statusbar at the bottom of the Aphelion screen 14 Aphelion User Guide The left end of the Statusbar displays Aphelion Quick Help The right end displays the current pixel coordinates and value
141. nalysis to compute measurements on objects such as the surface and shape factors of blobs create a threshold by running AphImgThreshold Then use AphImgClustersObj to generate an ISR object that contains basic measurements As shortcut to these two steps use the AphImgThresholdObj operator To open a Grid Document l On the Objects toolbar click the ObjectSet list button The drop down list of available ObjectSets is displayed 2 Select an ObjectSet from the drop down list to open the grid window Each row within the grid represents an object To enable Overlay to Grid Message Passing Only one ObjectSet can be used to pass messages from an image overlay to a grid To select an ObjectSet follow this procedure 1 Activate the image window containing the Object overlay you want to work with To select the image window click anywhere in the image 2 o Click the ObjectSet button on the Image toolbar A drop down list of available ObjectSets is displayed 3 Select the ObjectSet you want to use for message passing To use Message Passing After you have established the proper message passing settings you use message passing as follows Aphelion User Guide 107 108 Aphelion User Guide 1 Select one or more objects in the image overlay or in the corresponding grid e To select an object row in the grid click the row number The selected rows are highlighted in blue You can select multiple rows Li To select obje
142. ne input or output image is required for an operator multiple boxes are displayed Note After you select an operator Aphelion displays check marks next to the selected group sub group and operator name Selecting an Operator from an Alphabetical List A 1 a In the Operator dialog box click the A Z button The Operator Selection dialog box appears Operator Selection x Group al Groups aa Sub Group ChainLineFit ChainNeighbors EdgelNeighbors EdgelsT oChains FGFreeze Img bs Img daptivePercentileT hreshold Img dd Img ddConstant Ima4ddReconsClose ImaAlternateS equential Cancel Help Click on an operator or type the first letters to find it 2 Locate the operator you want to select e In the blank field type the first letter or letters of the operator Do not type the prefix Aph The list of operators automatically refreshes as you type e If necessary use the scroll bars to scroll through the list of operators 3 Click OK or press Enter to select the operator you want Note To locate an operator by a specific group click the drop down list next to the Group field and select the group To further narrow the list select a Sub Group from the drop down list next to that field 54 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 List of Frequently Used Operators To create a customized list of frequently used operators 1 From the Operator dialog box select an operator in one
143. ng element click in each box until you get the adequate value 4 After defining a kernel or SE you can type a name in the Kernel Name field Click the Add button to add the kernel or SE to a list If the kernel or SE already exists in the list just pull down the list and select it 5 After defining a kernel or SE click OK The name of the kernel appears in the Operator dialog box Neighborhood LUTs Thinning and thickening operations in Aphelion are performed using a lookup table LUT A structuring element generates a family of LUTs with entries ranging from 0 to 511 Depending on the configuration of the structuring element and the type of operation the output of the LUT is 0 or 1 By default Aphelion supplies two predefined LUTs for the Neighborhood Lut Editor e L Skeleton 8C e L Skeleton 4C These LUTs correspond to the L configurations for the structuring elements associated to the skeleton in 4 and 8 connectivity You can use the system supplied LUTs by selecting one from the drop down list or create additional LUTs by clicking on the re button Any defined structuring element and its associated LUT is saved in the current project with the name you supply When you create a new Neighborhood LUT you can define the exact configuration of the structuring element System Defined Neighborhood LUTs Following is a list of the system defined neighborhood LUTs These LUTs may not all be available for some operators
144. nu Main Toolbar v Objects bar v Status Bar Info Window Output gt Language gt Use the View menu to adjust the way some features of the interface are presented such as hiding or displaying toolbars You can also control the way certain statistics pixel values and output measurements are displayed You can e Display or hide toolbars that are displayed in Aphelion Click to hide or display the Main toolbar Objects toolbar or Status Bar For more information about adjusting the workspace in Aphelion see Customizing Aphelion e Indicate what information should be displayed in the Info Window For more information see Information Info Page e Change the language in which the interface is displayed The Aphelion user interface currently supports the English French and Kanji languages The menu bar tooltips pop up menus operator parameters and Aphelion messages are translated For more information see Multiple Language Documentation Options Menu Preferences Charts BackGround Use the Options menu to set Aphelion defaults Use Preferences to set the default pixel aspect to indicate whether images and a history of commands are saved in a project and to automatically open the last project when you start Aphelion You can also control some display properties such as whether a grid is automatically displayed when an ObjectSet is created For more information see Preferences Aphelion User G
145. oading and Saving Images eee cesesseeesecseecseeesecaeecaeeeaeeaeecseeenseaeeeseseneeeeseneeees 16 Opening and Saving Images eee eee eeceeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeseseeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 16 Other Image Format 0 cece cece cee csecesecssecseceaeceaecsaesaecsaecsueaecaeenaesaes 17 Acquiring IMAGES rreren n E E E E cubes cave E ER censeten ies 17 Vie WINS LMA BES 5 5555 specs cstsessastsskes tenes svesscetseetcscystestencheseeavceddagtcsvseb ove svetaseessoesseunees 18 RUMNING AN Operatorii esseere ee eosar aeien i euei a a EE ES de ESEE e 19 Processing IMa ES eeo eE EE dhe vet sad EEE AE EE EEEE E EE E 20 Extracting Objects from Images eesseeseeseseeseseresrsrestsreresrertsresrestenrsrenresreerrreresrt 21 Global Measurements sisii ri iriser ineeie easi 21 Segmentation e e e A E E A A AR a a 22 Object Measurements 000 0 eee inore neieiet ies einet Ts 22 Grid aere d hne ie e a hie ate Be ea Ae 23 Other object processing Operators 0 0 eee eee ee eeseeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeseeseeeeeeseees 24 Reportin Results eere in covert ecesnp evens e e aa a e iaaa 24 SCUUP UI E neei RA Eee ETE BE adres a E Liew ce ESEA A K ESE 25 Aphelion Macros iiien ann a as e E A aE AREE 26 Example M CfO Ser cscissisaceescasesesiisces cise eduaibep rina EE S EE E E E r E 26 Application Macros rinra ir a a ENEE E O ERRE 27 Annotated Macro Ceramic apm eesssessseseessssssserssessersstessrssesssereeereeseeesee 28 Aphelion Graphical User Interface
146. odify the image class click the drop down arrow and select an image class Changing the image class can be useful when an operator only accepts one type of image class For instance ImgJoinBands requires a color input image If you want to join a gray scale image to a color image you can change the Image Class from AphGreyScale to AphColor Note Do not use the Image Class drop down menu to change a grey scale image to a binary image Use the AphImgThreshold operator instead as this allows you to specify the thresholds to use e To modify the data type click the drop down arrow and select a data type Changing the image data type can be useful for reducing the amount of memory used by an image For instance if an image uses Int32 pixels but all the values Aphelion User Guide 75 76 Aphelion User Guide 4 are between 0 and 255 you can change the type to UInt8 and reduce the size of the image by a factor of four without losing any data e To modify the size of the image type or click the arrows to specify the new size Click Apply then click OK Note Click the Display Context and LUT tabs to change those values for the current image window only To change the Display Context or LUT at the image or global level use the Select DC and Select LUT commands from the Image pop up menu Calibrating an Image Measurements calculated by Aphelion use the calibration values set in the Calibration dialog box You use the Calibrati
147. oise can be random or regular e Linear or Convolution Filters Linear filters are the most basic of image processing tools Depending on the kernel passed to AphImgConvolve you can apply a low pass filter or a high pass filter to an image For removing random gray level noise use one of the low pass filters available in Aphelion such as AphImgLowPass5x5 e Non linear Filters Non linear filters are filters whose output is not proportional to the input For example smoothing by averaging is linear while median smoothing is not An example of a non linear filter in Aphelion is AphImgMedian This operator replaces the central pixel with the median or middle value when all the neighborhood values are ordered from lowest to highest As with the linear low pass filters a larger neighborhood results in a more uniform output image e Frequency Filters Frequency filters are useful when you have predictable gray scale noise Itis often useful to run AphImgFFT to view the power spectrum of the image If you see well K filtering 20 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 defined clusters which are not near the center of the power spectrum these may be noise that can easily be removed using one of the frequency filtering operators such as AphImgLPRectangularFilter e After filtering the power spectrum image use the AphImgInverseFFT operator to recreate the gray scale image Filtering to remove spatial noise Some noise is s
148. olbar dialog box 2 To attach a macro to a button select one of the four macro buttons To attach an application to a button select one of the two application buttons Macro Application al m E E 3 Under File name click the Open button to display the Open dialog box 4 Select the macro file or application you want to attach and click Open e Macro files have the extension apm e Application files have the extension exe 5 Click OK Modifying a Macro or Application Button 1 a On the Objects toolbar click the AttachMacro button to display the Attach a macro to toolbar dialog box 2 Select the button you want to detach 3 Delete the file name in the File name field Make sure the field is empty 4 Click OK Note To change an attached macro or application highlight the button you want to change and click Open to select a different macro or application Using the Dialog Editor The dialog editor is used to create a dialog box in a macro for user input When you create a dialog box the code for the dialog box is automatically inserted in the macro as in the following example 04 05 99 E C Aphelion Macros jean apm Sub main a 10 Begin Dialog UserDialog 180 96 Untitl OKButton 132 8 40 14 CancelButton 132 28 40 14 OptionGroup OptionGroupl OptionButton 20 16 56 8 Option End Dialog Dim Breakbox As UserDialog response Dialog Breakbox b 12 Line 1 Cok 1
149. olbar to display a list of macros in the current macro directory as well as options for listing the macro files in the Examples and Macros directories Simply click to load the macro you want to use L ENOL ojx Sub main a 10 b 12 MsgBox a b End Sub Recording a Macro Each operator you run from the Operator dialog box can be recorded in a macro for saving and later playback This is useful for grouping common operations or for creating an application macro that performs filtering segmentation measurement and output tasks For more information see Recording a Macro Aphelion User Guide 25 Running and Debugging a Macro A full BasicScript execution and debug environment is included within Aphelion This allows you to run macros step through the instructions and watch variable values This can be used to catch problems in your macros or as a demonstration method where the steps of your demo are recorded in a macro and executed one at a time For more information see Macros Creating Dialogs BasicScript includes a complete dialog building environment You can create a dialog and add buttons type in areas pulldown lists etc This is useful for creating applications which present options to the user such as three filtering options followed by measurement options For more information see Using the Dialog Editor Aphelion Macros The following macros are provided in the standard Aphelion distribution e Example M
150. omatically be associated with the chart type If you save a new model file you must then use the Options menu to specify that model file as the default for a chart type To save chart characteristics as a model 1 2 3 Use the Olectra dialog box to change the properties of the chart From the chart right click to display the Chart pop up menu Choose Save Model Save the model file Model files have the extension ape You can overwrite the default model file for a particular type of chart or create a new model file The default chart model files are e Histogram apc e Profile apc e Surface apc e ScatterPlot apc If you overwrite one of the existing model files you do not need to make any further changes If you create a new model file you need to specify that model file as the default for a specific chart type To specify a chart model as a default If you save a new model file apc other than the default model for a particular type of chart you must specify that model file in the Options gt Charts dialog box for the particular type of chart Note This setting is saved in the project file if Save images in the project is selected in the Preferences dialog box 1 2 04 05 99 From the Options menu choose Charts In the Chart Options dialog box click the drop down arrow in the Model Name field Choose the type of chart for which you are specifying a model e Histogram e Profile e Surface Map e Sc
151. on dialog box to modify the default values and assign units and distance to pixels in an image You can define the units to be applied to each pixel including pixel image points size meters or other units and time seconds To calibrate an image 1 7 With the cursor positioned anywhere in the image window click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu Choose Properties gt Calibrate e The Calibration dialog box opens e A set of rulers is displayed in the image window The lines of the rulers are red In the top half of the dialog box specify the unit of measurement such as microns or meters You can click the drop down arrow and select a unit or type a new unit in the field If you know the calibration factors per pixel type those values in the fields for the X and Y axes You can also specify a value for either X or Y and then click Pixel Aspect to specify the ratio of X Y If you do not know the calibration factors you can calculate them using the ruler that is overlaid on the image window e Use the mouse to move the rulers displayed over the image First click inside the rulers to display the handles on the lines To move the rulers drag the mouse inside the rulers To move only one end drag the handle at the end of the line Move the rulers until they represent the desired starting point and length To further adjust the length of each ruler click the X Y button and type the length of
152. oose Window Size The image is resized to fit the window 4 Use the mouse to resize the image as needed Zooming Image Q Click the Zoom button on the Image toolbar to zoom in on a selected part of an image When you zoom in on an image the aspect ratio of the image is maintained Note You can also zoom in on a chart window For more information see Chart Toolbar 1 Make sure that the image you want to zoom in on is active 2 Click the Zoom button The cursor changes to the shape of a magnifying glass 3 Drag the cursor over the part of the image you want to zoom in on Release the cursor e To undo the zoom click the Reset Zoom button or press CTRL Z e To reset the image to its original display undo the Zoom as many times as needed or close the image file and reopen it Image Properties After you open an image you may need to enhance the display by modifying image properties such as the lookup table or display context Image Properties If you need to modify properties for a specific image including LUT display context and image name data type and size use the Properties command on the Image pop up menu To modify image properties 1 With the cursor positioned in the image window right click to display the Image pop up menu 2 Choose Properties gt Properties to display the Image Properties dialog box for the active image 3 From the Image Data page you can make the following modifications e To m
153. or call to the History page without executing the operator The panel in the middle of the toolbar displays the progress of the operator execution SGG880008 Selecting an Operator From the Operator dialog box you can select an operator in the following ways fe Select an operator from a list of the entire Aphelion Operator Library organized by category A Select an operator from an alphabetical list of all operators al AN Create a list of operators that you use frequently and select an operator from that list Selecting an Operator from the Aphelion Library l E3 In the Operator dialog box click the Select Operator button Aphelion displays a list of operator groups 2 Select the group you want and move the mouse to the right The second level of categories is displayed 3 Select the sub group you want and move the mouse to the right Arithmetic Logic bi v Arithmetic gt Img dd Edge Detection gt Bit Logic gt ImgSubtract Filtering gt Logic gt ImoaMultiply Frequency Domain gt Constants gt w ImgDivide Aphelion User Guide 53 4 To view Quick Help for an operator move the cursor over the name of the operator A one line description of the operator appears on the left side of the Statusbar at the bottom of the Aphelion screen 5 Click the operator you want to use The operator name and parameters including Input Output boxes for images are displayed in the Operator dialog box If more than o
154. os Aphelion includes two example macros that demonstrate the OLE communication feature e ExportToExcel apm shows how to interact with Microsoft Excel Aphelion User Guide 81 Text Files 82 Aphelion User Guide e ExportToWord apm shows how to communicate with Microsoft Word Communicating with ActiveX or COM Components You can communicate with an ActiveX or COM component from an Aphelion BasicScript macro As with OLE communication an ActiveX component has properties and methods which can be accessed from a macro The following example shows how to call aCOM component in a macro This component is a stand alone program to control the stage of a microscope Dim sres As string Dim sarg As string Dim Ascope As Object Set Ascope CreateObject AutoScope AutoScopeCmd sarg Move sres Ascope sarg Set Ascope Nothing In this example AutoScope is an ActiveX component You first create the object and then call that object with parameters To explain or clarify information you can add text files You can type the text or load an existing text file The text window can also be used as a log file Example of Aphelion tm Text Box Note To display a pop up menu for loading saving and editing text right click in the text window To add text 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 2 Choose Text Document and click OK An empty text window opens 3 Enter text in one of the
155. ose End If The following lines filter based on the compactness of the objects The first call to AphObjAttributeRatio generates a new attribute named A1 which is equal to the PERIMETER divided by the AREA of each object The second call defines a new attribute A2 equal to Al divided by the PERIMETER or the AREA divided by the square of the PERIMETER The compactness is defined from this ratio The two bounds of the filter are set to 0 045 and 0 06 This filter shows how new attributes can be defined from already computed ones For further information on creating new attributes from BasicScript see the Obj macro functions The final result is displayed on top of the original image 34 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 If FBox compactness Then i4 AphImgNew Compactness AphImgCopy original i4 AphRegionShape AphObj FIBERS REGION AphobjAttributeRatio AphObj FIBERS PIXEL_COUNT PERIMETER A1 AphObjAttributeRatio AphObj FIBERS Al PERIMETER A2 AphObjFilter AphObj FIBERS AphOb7jNew COMPACTNESS A2 0 045 0 06 AphObjDraw i4 AphOb3j COMPACTNESS POLYGON MsgOpen Fibers whose shape is close to a circle breaktime False False Sleep 2000 MsgClose End If Case 0 Cancel button MsgBox Cancel button doesn t exist End Select This dialog box asks whether to delete all the images created by running this macro The first choice is the deletion of all the images and the value of the OptionGroup i
156. ot Print the chart Choose from the following options Same Size Using Width Using Height Best Fit Full Page Clipboard Put a copy of the chart on the clipboard Save As Save the chart as a bitmap Bitmap Set Defaults Set the default for the size and position of a particular type of chart Move the window to the size and position you want to establish as the default then click Set Defaults gt Size and Set Defaults gt Position You set the size and position separately The next time you open a chart of that type it will use the default size and position Note To save defaults for charts in a project make sure that you choose Options gt Preference from the menu bar then select Save Images in the project When using dynamic coloring delete or change the color of a selected area of a chart e Delete selection Delete the selection where the mouse cursor is positioned Delete all selections Use this command to clear all ranges used in dynamic coloring For more information see Using the Histogram Command Color Change the color of the current selection Macro Pop up Menu To display the Macro pop up menu right click anywhere in an active macro window Note On some PCs you may need to right click in the area of the Macro toolbar to display the Macro pop up menu Load Load a macro You can also use the Macro List button on the Objects toolbar to load a macro See Loading a Macro 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 4
157. ox appears listing all tif images available in the Aphelion Images directory e To change the type of file listed click the drop down arrow in the Files of type field e To change the directory use the standard Windows features 2 Select the image you want to open 3 Click Open The image opens in an Image window The Image toolbar is displayed along the right side of the screen After you open an image you can modify it in various ways With the cursor positioned anywhere over the image to be modified right click to display the Image pop up menu Saving an Image After you make any changes to an image you must save the image or the changes will be lost when you exit Aphelion Note For tif files graphic overlays and rectangular ROIs are saved with the image ObjectSet overlays are not saved with the image To save an Image 04 05 99 1 Make sure the image window you want to save is active To make an image window active click on its title bar 2 From the File menu choose Save As Image The Save As dialog box opens listing all tif images available in the Aphelion Images directory You can change the directory as needed 3 From the list of images choose the one you want to save Or type the name of the file in the File name field 4 Click the Save button Aphelion displays a message box asking if you want to replace the existing file of the same name Click Yes to write over the existing file or No to cance
158. patial rather than gray level This noise is characterized by rough boundaries or holes in objects The morphological operators can be very effective at cleaning up this kind of noise For instance AphImgOpen can be applied to a binary gray scale or color image in order to remove outlying fringes of bright objects AphImgClose can be used to fill in holes in objects Other image processing The above sections are an introduction to just one section of the operator library in Aphelion Here are other image processing sections with example operators e Arithmetic Logic AphImgAdd AphImgMultiplyConstant e Edge Detection AphImgSobelEdges e Transforms AphImgRotate AphIngRGBToHSI e Acquisition AphImgSnap e Utilities AphImgCreateGaussianNoise AphImgCopy Extracting Objects from Images This section describes how to use Aphelion to measure distances sizes and objects in images Global Measurements Global measurements are those computed directly on the image For example e Given a binary image you can compute the number of foreground pixels as the area of the image This measurement is computed by AphImgArea e Given a gray scale image you can compute the sum of all the pixel values as the volume of the image using AphImg Volume e Other global measurements are interactive For instance AphImgDistance reports the length of a line you draw in the image overlay Tip When you select a global analysis operator such as Aph
159. pears in the History page describing the type of operator used the names of the input and output images and the parameters or arguments of the operator You can specify whether you want to save the history for the current Aphelion session or for the current project Use the Options gt Preferences command from the menu bar to display the Preferences dialog box and make one of the following specifications To save history for the current project select Save Command History in the project To display history only for the current Aphelion session make sure that Save Command History in the project is not selected Running One Line of Code You can use the editing bar at the bottom of the History page to edit and execute a line of code Click the line you want to run The line appears in the editing bar To edit the code click within the line and type You can use keyboard editing shortcuts such as CTRL C for copy and CTRL P for paste Aphelion User Guide 63 e Torun the code click the R button at the right end of the editing bar Running Multiple Lines of Code You can also highlight and run multiple lines of code from the History page Click to highlight the lines you want to run then click the right mouse button to display the pop up menu Choose Execute to run the selected lines of code Info History Messages phlmgRead phlmagl original c aphelion images blood tif phimaThreshold phlmal original Aphlmal
160. r The Macro toolbar is displayed along the top of the macro window Ga EE 2 g ga E E Run Macro Begin execution of a macro Stop Execution Pause execution of a macro The pointer appears on the line of code where the macro stopped executing This is the line of code to be executed next Click the Run Macro button to continue execution Stop Debug Stop execution of a macro Set Unset Break Point Add or remove a breakpoint on a line of code Click on any line within the macro and then click on this icon to set a breakpoint To unset a breakpoint click on a line where the breakpoint was already set and click on this icon To clear all break points right click in the macro window and choose Debug Clear Break Points Add Watch Display the Add Watch dialog box in which you can specify a variable This variable together with its value if any is then displayed in the watch area of the Macro window It allows you to check the value of variables for loops test conditions etc Step Into Execute the next line of a macro and then suspend execution of the macro Ifthe macro calls another macro execution will continue into each line of the procedure Step Over Execute the next line of a macro and then suspend execution of the macro Ifthe macro calls another macro the called procedure will run in its entirety Start Recording Once the record mode has been selected each action in the GUI is recorded as a line o
161. r all ROIs using the Image pop up menu or the Cut button on the Main toolbar To delete all ROIs l mj Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI 2 Inthe image that contains the ROIs you want to delete right click to display the Image pop up menu 94 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 3 Choose ROI gt Remove all To delete a single or multiple ROIs 1 g Make sure that ROI mode is enabled To enable ROI mode click the Overlay mode button at the bottom of the Image toolbar and choose ROI Li On the Image toolbar click the Select Objects button Select the ROI you want to delete To select additional ROIs first hold down the Shift key Or drag the cursor over the ROIs you want to select then release the mouse button Delete the selected ROIs in one of the following ways e Within any ROI right click to display the Image pop up menu Choose ROI gt Remove e On the Main toolbar click the Cut button e Press CTRL X Converting ObjectSets to ROIs If you have drawn a spatial attribute of an ObjectSet you can convert the objects to ROIs You can then perform operations on only the objects that make up the region of interest 1 0BJ On the Image toolbar click the OBJ button A pop up menu lists the ObjectSets attached to the active image Select the attribute you want from the pop up menu In the Image window
162. rawing 92 enabling 93 features 92 Aphelion Online User Guide macro example 91 moving 94 overview 91 pasting 94 resizing 94 saving 93 running macros 113 operators 52 S Save As Bitmap Chart command 45 Save button 39 Save Chart command 45 Save Model command 45 saving charts 104 images 16 70 images in a project file 50 information to a file from the Info page 63 macros 114 ROIs 93 text files 82 Scale chart button 42 Scatter command Grid pop up menu 103 scatter plots 44 ScreenCam demos 10 screens virtual See virtual screens segmentation 22 Select Fill Color button 41 Select Font button 41 Select Line Color button 41 Select Line Width button 41 Select Objects button 40 selecting a lookup table LUT 79 display context DC 77 input and output images 56 input images 56 neighborhood LUTs 60 operator parameters 58 operators 53 54 output images 56 sending information between windows 106 Set Defaults Chart command 45 setting chart options 103 project preferences 50 settings Global 77 Image 77 Windows 77 Show Info command Grid pop up menu 44 Show Maximum command 45 Index 137 Show Minimum command 45 ShowInfo button 41 sizing an image 74 skewness images 43 Sort by Column button 41 Sort by column command Grid pop up menu 44 Sort by Index button 41 Sort by index command Grid pop up menu 44 starting Aphelion 11 statistics images 43 Statusbar 38 structuring elements editor 58 Summit Software
163. rerssrrresrerrsserrrnresresere 55 MMX Operators seit sc scsse0u se bun ssndien singe soet a Enep ESS KSEE E AOE TEESE p sdb sbpesdevacsyetueess 55 Selecting Input and Output Images 0 eee ee ce eee cess ceeeeeeeeeeceseeeeeeseceseeeeeeenseeneees 56 Selecting an Input ImageX oo eee eee eee cee eeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeseeseeeeeeeeeeseeeeed 56 Selecting an Output Image eee eee cess ceeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeseeseeeeereeseeed 56 Modifying an Output Image ee ee eee cess ceseeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeseseseeeensees 57 Changing the Default Name of the Output Image eects 58 Selecting Operator Parameters eee ceseesecesecesecseecaeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeseensecsaeesaeesaeaes 58 Kernel Editors adonne o nied es Be A ed Rei 58 Editing a kernel or structuring element eee cece eeeeeeeeeeeeseeeneenee 58 Neighborhood LUTS veresre ers e ean ae eaea E E SRE S EEE E 59 System Defined Neighborhood LUTS ssseeesesesssseesssreeresrsrrerrsresresreerssesees 59 Selecting a Neighborhood LUT eessssessseeesssreessseeresreseeeresrerrsserrrnresreereses 60 Creating a Neighborhood LUT eee eeeeeeeceeeceseeeecesecnaeceaecsaeeneeeas 60 Modifying a Neighborhood LUT ee eecesecese cree ceecaeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeenes 61 Info History Messages THM Window e ee eecesecesecssecseecaeeeseeeeeeeeeeseeeeeesecnseceaecsaessaesaee 6l Information Info Page sneen ii i O RE E a 62 Displaying information in the Info page in the IHM window 0 63 Saving information
164. rid document click the right mouse button 4 Choose Load and slide the mouse to the right Select the file to be loaded ISR Histograms You can draw a histogram of selected data from a grid 1 Display a grid 2 Select the column in the grid that represents the data set ObjectSet attribute of interest 3 Click the right mouse button to display the Grid pop up menu 4 Choose Histogram Aphelion displays a chart window containing the histogram The title bar of the chart window displays the name of the grid and the ObjectSet attribute that the histogram is based on Note You can use message passing to select a range on a histogram and highlight the corresponding objects in the grid Click the mouse to select one bin or drag the mouse to select multiple bins on the histogram As you highlight the histogram the corresponding objects are highlighted in red on the grid You can highlight just one range at a time 80 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 OLE Objects You can use either BasicScript functions or the Aphelion interface to set up OLE communication Using OLE and BasicScript Macros From a macro you can start an OLE communication and access the properties and methods of another application Three BasicScript functions are available to control the OLE communication and to access objects e CreateObject e GetObject e Object For more information about these functions see the Macro Language Reference Guide Or in th
165. rsreee 115 Macro Watch Vanables i e es seseina apea p e Sars 116 Adding or Deleting a Watch Variable seeeseeeeeeeeseeeeeesrsesseeereserersrrersse 116 Debugging a Macro aaee r e E O E E re E AE S E N en E Sht 116 Macro and Application Toolbar Buttons 00 cee ceeeesseceeeeceneeesceceseeeaeceeneeenaeeeneees 117 4 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 4 00 PM 04 05 99 4 00 PM Attaching a Macro or Application Button to the Toolbar 118 Modifying a Macro or Application Button cece eeeeeeereeereeeeeeeeenes 118 Using the Dialog Editor riri ccsssscsoeesss isbssestes specs sseescthe ss setseessgebacdotacnscvenessoussenegenset 118 Intermediate Symbolic Representation ISR eee eeeeeeeseeseeeeeeeeeeseeeseeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeseneeeeeees 119 Printing and Exporting Data 35 5 eeii een e e E aE EE E AAT E N 121 Print Command senese e din wane ene E R 121 Printing a Document image chart text Macro seeseesseesesrsereesesrseeseee 121 Printing a Grid Document spreadsheet sseeseseeesseeeeeeseereeereeresrrrreerees 121 Print Pape Designs scscesev 2c c cucteveceus a cdg seen E e E aa ee ERE 121 Creating a Print Page Design esesereeseeeeseseressrrrsrrrrsserrrsrerrsserrrsreeresee 122 Arranging Documents in a Print Page Design cee eeeeeeeeceneecneeeeeeeeteees 122 Modifying Text in a Print Page Designo eee cee ceseceecesecesecnecnseeeaes 123 Using Print Page Design Macro ee eescscesecssecneceseces
166. s String management commands and control boxes SelectBox 110 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 AskBox InputBoxs MsgBox CInt Len Instr StrComp Chr For more BasicScript commands see the Macro Language Reference Guide Macro Comment Usage To enter a full line comment 1 Type an apostrophe at the start of the line 2 Type the comment following the apostrophe The text of the comment appears in purple To enter a comment at the end of a line of code 1 Position the insertion point in the empty space beyond the end of the line of code 2 Type an apostrophe 3 Type comment following the apostrophe The text of the comment appears in purple Opening a Macro Window Macro windows provide a flexible way to create load and run macros You can have multiple macro windows open which allows you to cut copy and paste code between macro windows To open a macro window 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 2 Choose Macro Document and click OK to open a macro window You can also open a macro window with a macro already loaded See Loading a Macro Loading a Macro You can load a macro by opening a macro window and selecting a macro to load Or you can use the Macros button on the Objects toolbar as a shortcut You can record a macro by recording the execution of Aphelion operators or other tasks See Recording a Macro Loading a Macro from the Toolbar in
167. s apm Shows how to access pixels in a color image from BasicScript ComplexImageAccess apm Shows how to access pixels in a complex image from BasicScript 26 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 Dialog apm ExportToExcel apm ExportToNotepad apm ExportToWord apm FileAccess apm FrameGrabber apm FuzzyClassifier apm GlobalMeasurements apm HistogramAccess apm ImageAccess apm ImageFlickerView apm ImageRefresh apm ImgBoxes apm ImgChains apm ImgHistogramChart apm ImgLines apm ImgRead apm LineROI apm Lines2Regions apm ManageOverlay apm ObjectAccess apm ObjHistogramChart apm PrintPage apm ProcessDialog apm RegionMorphology apm RegionRotate apm Regions2Lines apm ShowImageSequence apm ViewManipulation apm Calls the Fuzzy Logic Classifier and computes scores from Basic Computes a number of global image measurements Accesses the histogram values from Visual Basic Reads and writes the pixels in an image from Basic images to compare them Starts with a gray level image and extract lines Prompts the user to select an image and then loads and displays the image This macro can be used as a prefix in another macro to load an image to process Creates processing Regions of interest ROIs which are derived from a line object set Conversion of objects into regions for measurement purposes Shows how to get coordinates of various objects drawn in the overlay Accesses attributes for an ISR object from Basic
168. s or other objects within a virtual screen e Drag images to the Operator dialog box The example shown below has three virtual screens named Original Tab1 Tab2 The virtual window named Original contains two objects an image and a macro window C 4phelion Images CERAMIC tif Macro2 J Tabl Tab2 To display or hide the Virtual Screen Filer click the Virtual Screen Filer button The Virtual Screen Filer supports drag and drop editing You can move objects from one virtual screen to another and you can move objects from the Virtual Screen Filer to other areas of the interface such as the input and output images in the Operator dialog box Note To display a pop up menu of Virtual Screen Filer options click the right mouse button anywhere in the Virtual Screen Filer area To rename a virtual screen tab l amp On the Objects toolbar click the Virtual Screen Filer button 2 Highlight the tab that you want to rename 3 Click again on the tab until you see the blinking cursor 4 Type the new name for the virtual screen tab 5 Press Tab Aphelion Projects 66 e Aphelion User Guide An Aphelion project stores images image settings and other information such as virtual screen names You can use an Aphelion project file to save information and settings specific to a particular task you are working on For example in one project you can save everything you ve done on a quality control application and in
169. s the object FIBERS seen as polygons on top of the image named original AphObjDraw original AphObj FIBERS POLYGON The ObjectSet contains extensive information about the fibers You can filter the objects based on their associated measurements or use AphObjComputeMeasurements to compute many more attributes of the fibers PIXEL_COUNT Number of pixels within each object POLYGON EXTENTS LL X Lower left X coordinates of the polygon extents POLYGON EXTENTS LL Y Lower left Y coordinates of the polygon extents POLYGON EXTENTS UR X Upper right X coordinates of the polygon extents POLYGON EXTENTS UR Y Upper right Y coordinates of the polygon extents POLYGON NUMPOINTS Number of vertices in the convex hull of the object REGION EXTENTS LL X Lower left X coordinates of the region extents REGION EXTENTS LL Y Lower left Y coordinates of the region extents Aphelion User Guide 33 REGION EXTENTS UR X Upper right X coordinates of the region extents REGION EXTENTS UR Y Upper right Y coordinates of the region extents The FBox dialog box lets the user to select which filter to apply There are four types of filters available surface location elongation compactness response Dialog FBox Select Case responses Case 1 OK button If FBox surface Then il AphImgNew Surface AphImgCopy original il The following line filters the ObjectSet FIBERS into a new ObjectSet named SURFACE The attribute involved in the
170. s then 0 The variable response is the returned value of the dialog box response Dialog ABox If ABox OptionGroupl 0 Then AphImgFree original if il lt gt 0 hen AphImgFree il AphObjFree AphObj SURFACE end if f i2 lt gt 0 hen phimgFree i2 phObjFree AphObj LOCATION nd if f i3 lt gt 0 hen phimgFree i3 phObjFree AphObj ELONGATION nd if f i4 lt gt 0 hen phimgFree i4 phObjFree AphOb 3 COMPACTNESS nd if hOb jF ohObj FIBERS This is the end of the macro and the subroutine main The call to the function End Sub ends the subroutine Aphelion Graphical User Interface The Aphelion graphical user interface GUI provides a workspace for displaying images and other kinds of documents and the tools to work with those documents The main workspace includes a menu bar Main toolbar and Objects toolbar When you first start Aphelion the Operator dialog box and tabbed Information History Messages window are also open You can rearrange elements of the interface to provide more workspace to display images charts and other documents For information about customizing the workspace see Customizing Aphelion The Aphelion workspace displays the following types of windows e Image 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 35 36 Aphelion User Guide e Acquisition image for use with cameras e Chart e Grid e Text e Macro e OLE e Error message Depending on wha
171. sed on specific attributes For example you might want to highlight objects with the smallest or highest value of a particular attribute This can be accomplished by sorting the grid rows by the attribute and then selecting the top or bottom rows See the Message Passing Tutorial for more information Message passing between an image and a chart Message passing is available between a chart profile or histogram and an image You can select multiple ranges in the chart and view the corresponding pixels in the image Note Dynamic coloring between an image and a histogram is available only for histograms created using the Operators Histogram option on the Image pop up menu 1 Open the image you want to work with 2 Create a profile or histogram To create an intensity profile chart click the Profile button on the Image toolbar then draw a profile line by dragging in the image e To create a histogram that uses message passing click the right mouse button to display the Image pop up menu Choose Operators gt Histogram 3 Changes or selections to the profile or histogram chart are reflected in the image e If you click on a point of the profile line the corresponding point in the image is marked with an X e Ifyou select a range in the chart the corresponding range is shown in the image 4 Changes to the profile line in the image are reflected in the chart e Activate the image window R On the Image toolbar click t
172. seesesseresrseeresreerrresrrrreeeesseees 107 Message passing between images eee eee eee eeeceeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeees 108 Putortal Message Passing ss 2scecseiens eeri preson Ven hee aa EEEn ufos NEE EEES ENES 108 MaC OS sie svc pe aneo E E EE E EE aia E E E E ERE 110 BasicScript Commands sseeeseeeeeerereerseererserersterersreeesrererseuererererserersrerersenersreresserers 110 Macro Comment Usage vi sce ccciscssseccscsscsssestessoeunssseboun cosevesebsnes EEE E Er EKE Es ES 111 Opening a Macro Window sisi sscesccitisecse cesta siesveeesee a e E E E E ES 111 Loading Mactio senne e e A AEE AE E ENE Ei 111 Loading a Macro from the Toolbar sessseseessseesessseessesserssresseesressesseeseet 111 Loading a Macro from the Macro Window c cssseseceecsseceeeeceeeeeeneeeees 112 Changing the Default Macro Directory 00 0 0 cece eeseceseeeeceseceeeseeeseensees 112 R nning A Macro eniran ces eoe ae e E E EEEE es thupdonebes vos ibencoapee cdesseesteey 113 Recording a MacOs inie eE e a KERE EE ERA E NEEESE 113 Saying A MACIO sser sags sstetbeue Save sucbl E rE E EEorEEES EETE eapescavasous shebes 114 Editii a Macio eenen n ER A E E A N tains 114 Macro Library onoi omaani reee ts els eas bate Bie A aea naian ea ieod 115 Creating the Macro Library sssesesesssseesseessrsrrerrsreresreeresreerreeresresrsreeresee 115 Changing the Macro Library eeeeesseesesseseseresesrssrsreeresreresresresresesrrsr
173. ste button 39 pasting graphic overlay objects 88 ROIs 94 Pixel Point 50 74 Plot button 41 point overlays 86 pop up menus 11 Chart 44 Grid 44 Image 43 Macro 45 overview 43 PowerPoint exporting data from Aphelion to 124 preferences 49 project files 50 Print Chart command 45 Print Page Design creating 122 macros 123 modifying 122 overview 121 Print Page Design button 39 printing Aphelion documents 121 data from Aphelion 121 documents 24 grid documents 121 Print Page Design 24 product overview Aphelion 7 product support 126 profiles 99 drawing 100 modifying 101 project files 67 content 67 creating 67 description 66 04 05 99 loading 67 loading automatically 48 opening 67 preferences 50 properties charts 44 103 images 75 overlay objects 84 Properties Chart command 45 Q Quick Help 10 R README txt 10 recording macros 113 regions of interest ROT BasicScript 91 converting graphic overlay objects to 95 converting ObjectSets to 95 copying 94 deleting 94 disabling 93 drawing 92 enabling 93 features 92 macro example 91 moving 94 overview 91 pasting 94 resizing 94 saving 93 release notes 10 renaming virtual screens 66 Reset chart button 42 Reset Zoom image button 41 resizing graphic overlay objects 86 ROIs 94 resizing images 74 ROIs BasicScript 91 C 91 converting graphic overlay objects to 95 converting ObjectSets to 95 copying 94 deleting 94 disabling 93 d
174. stogram To create a histogram for a rectangular area of interest use the Histogram button on the Image toolbar Dynamic coloring is not available for this type of histogram 1 Open or select the image to be used 2 On the Image toolbar click the Overlay button and choose Histogram e When you click the Histogram button the Rectangle button is automatically activated e The shape of the cursor turns into a cross hair 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 97 3 Drag the mouse to draw the area of interest When you release the mouse button the histogram is displayed in a chart window The title bar of the chart window includes the name of the source image and the coordinates of the rectangular area of interest Note If you click on a point in the histogram chart the position and value of that point are displayed in the Statusbar If you want to view that information in the Info page and be able to save it or copy it to a macro choose View gt Info Window Output gt Histogram Profile Values from the menu bar Modifying a Histogram You can modify a histogram by moving resizing or deleting the histogram rectangle drawn in the image The changes are reflected in the histogram window You can also change the line color of the rectangle To move or resize the rectangular area of interest When you move or resize the rectangular area of interest for a histogram the chart window interactively reflects the changes 1 Li On the Image
175. t Click the Print button on the Main toolbar Click the Print Page Design button on the Objects toolbar to open a Print Page window Click the right mouse button to display the Print Page Design menu and add images charts and text to the page Use the mouse and the pop up menu to move resize and position the elements on the page Then click the Print button on the Main toolbar to print the page Exporting Object Measurements You can export object measurements to Excel Access or any other Windows program in order to sort report print or graph results Use the AphObjExport operator to create a TAB separated ASCII file This type of file can be imported into Excel Access and other programs using their Insert commands For more information see Exporting Data from Aphelion Scripting BasicScript is a powerful Visual Basic compatible scripting language Using BasicScript you can record sequences of operators loop over a number of images or objects access pixels and create dialogs Note Macro files have the extension apm Loading a macro 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 2 Choose Macro Document and click OK to open a macro window 3 In the macro window click the right mouse button to display a pop up menu 4 Choose Load to display the Open dialog box listing the macros in the macro directory Highlight the macro you want to load and click Open Shortcut Click in on the Objects to
176. t include these overlays see To use images with an ObjectSet overlay To use images in a presentation 1 Create the images you want to use by running Aphelion operators macros or other operations 2 Focus on the image you want to export 3 From the File menu choose Save As Image 4 Inthe Save As dialog box type a name for the image file and specify the type of file such as tif or bmp e The default directory for Aphelion images is Aphelion Images You can change the directory as needed e The default file type is tif but you can also save an image as a bitmap file bmp in some cases Note Many Aphelion images cannot be saved as bitmaps because the bitmap format only supports 8 bits e Ifyou save anything other than unsigned 8 bit images they may not display correctly in other applications 5 Click OK 6 Open the application in which you are creating the presentation such as PowerPoint or Word 7 From the Insert menu choose Picture Select the file you want to insert and click OK To use images with an ObjectSet overlay It is not currently possible to save ObjectSet overlays with an image If you want to use an image with an ObjectSet overlay in a presentation or report you can use a paint or screen capture program such as PaintShopPro or SnapShot32 to capture the image in Aphelion and copy it into PowerPoint or Word When you copy the bitmap file you may need to modify or scale the image to get the
177. t pixel aspect use the Options gt Preferences command See Modifying the Image View and Modifying the Default Image View For color images you can also select whether to display all bands default or the first second or third bands only Properties Modify image properties such as image type display context or lookup table LUT Properties See Image Properties Calibrate See Calibrating an Image Contrast Brightness See Adjusting the Contrast Brightness Select DC See Selecting the Display Context Select LUT See Selecting the LookupTable Operators Apply one of the following commands to the active image Free this image Free the image from Aphelion memory See AphImgFree Surface Map Create a surface map See Image Surface Maps Histogram Create a histogram of the entire image See Image Histograms Statistics Display the following information in the Info tab of the IHM Window Minimum Maximum Mean StdDev Standard Deviation Skewness e Kurtosis Modify properties of the selected graphic See Graphic Overlays and Converting Graphic Overlay Objects to ROIs Enable disable or delete ROIs associated with the active image See Disabling and Enabling an ROI and Deleting ROIs Change the line color of a selected profile line in an image window See Modifying an image profile 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 43 Change the line color of a histogram rectangle drawn in an image window See Modifyin
178. t ratio of images This means that all images are opened with the image view set to Aspect Ratio You can modify the default image view at any time Note To change the image view for a specific image use the View command on the Image pop up menu See Resizing an Image To modify the default image view 1 From the Options menu choose Preferences The Preferences dialog box is displayed The section for setting the Default Pixel Aspect is at the top of the dialog box Default Pixel Aspect Pixels Point Aspect Ratio C Window Size 2 Click the radio button to choose one of the following options Aphelion User Guide 49 e To indicate that an image window cannot be resized beyond the pixel size of its x and y axis choose Pixel Point If the size of the window is smaller than the size of the image scroll bars will be displayed e To maintain the aspect ratio of the image choose Aspect Ratio e To allow each axis of the window to be resized independently choose Window Size 3 Click OK Setting Project Preferences Use the Preferences dialog box to customize what is saved in a project file For example you might choose not to save images in projects if you want to save disk space To set project preferences 1 From the Options menu choose Preferences The Preferences dialog box is displayed The section for setting Project preferences is at the bottom of the dialog box Project MV Automatica
179. t type of window is active the corresponding toolbar is displayed For example when you open an image window the Image toolbar appears along the right side of the screen Menu Bar The menu bar runs along the top of the Aphelion screen The menus provide convenient access to Aphelion commands File Edit View Options Window Help File Menu New Ctrl N Open Image Ctrl O Open ObjectSet Close Save As Image Ctrl S Save As ObjectSet Open Project Save Project As Print Ctrl P Print Preview Printer Setup 1 C Aphelion mages Blood tif 2 C Aphelion mages Ceramic tif 3 Blood apm Exit Use the File menu to create a new file open a file save a file print a file select one of the last files opened open and save a project and exit Aphelion The File menu also includes a numbered list of recently opened files To open one of these files type the number or highlight the file and press Enter 04 05 99 04 05 99 Edit Menu Cut Cirle Copy Ctrl C Paste Ctrle Paste Specia Use the Edit menu to work with overlay objects and ROIs Use the Cut command on the Edit menu to remove overlay objects and ROIs from an image To cut copy and paste images see AphImgCut AphImgCopy and AphImgPaste Use the Undo command to reverse certain commands or delete the last entry you typed If the Undo command is grayed not available then you cannot undo the last action View Me
180. the Size or Location of a Chart Window You can change the default size and location of the chart window for each type of chart The new default settings can be applied to the current Aphelion session only or saved as part of a project There are four types of chart windows in Aphelion e Histogram e Profile e Surface Map e Scatter Plot To set chart window defaults 1 Open an image and create a chart such as a histogram 2 Move the window to the size and position you want to establish as the default e To resize the chart window drag on one of the sides or corners of the window e To move the chart hold down the mouse anywhere along the title bar and drag the window 3 Click the right mouse button to display the Chart pop up menu You set the defaults for size and position separately e Choose Set Defaults gt Size to set the size e Choose Set Defaults gt Position to set the position The next time you open a chart of that type it will use the default size and position 4 To save the defaults as part of the project file make sure that Save Images in the project is selected in the Preferences dialog box To check the setting choose Options gt Preferences from the menu bar 04 05 99 Creating a Chart Model After you modify the display properties of a chart you can save the properties as a model You can use the model when you create other charts of the same type If you overwrite the existing default model the file will aut
181. the macro area then select Debug Clear Break Points 04 05 99 Example of code without a breakpoint Highlight line of code chosen for breakpoint and click the Set Break Point button Sub main a 10 b 12 c 20 MsgBox axb End Sub Example with a single line of code highlighted Click the Play button to start execution of macro Sub main a 10 c 20 MsgBox ax b End Sub Example of set toggle breakpoint Code is red Sub main a 10 b 12 c 20 MsgBox a b End Sub Example showing highlighted code when execution stops Click the Play button again to continue with execution of the macro Sub main a 10 c 20 MsgBox a b End Sub Macro and Application Toolbar Buttons You can attach a macro you have written to one of the four UserMacro buttons M1 M4 on the Objects toolbar You then click the UserMacro button to run the attached macro file You can also attach any application to one of the two Application buttons A1 A2 After you attach a macro or application to a toolbar button the button is available not gray and the tooltip for that button displays the pathname of the macro or application Buttons that are not attached to a macro or application are grayed 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 117 118 o Aphelion User Guide C Aphelion M acros Ceramic apm Attaching a Macro or Application Button to the Toolbar 1 m On the Objects toolbar click the AttachMacro button to display the Attach a macro to to
182. the right arrow button gt The values are listed in the box on the right To edit an existing Neighborhood LUT click on the LUT in the box on the right then make any changes to the SE configuration on the left 7 Enter additional SEs if necessary The morphological operations will alternate between the SEs 8 Indicate whether the SE will be rotated e no rotation e 4 rotations 90 degree rotation after each iteration e 8 rotations 45 degree rotation after each iteration 9 Inthe Operations allowed section indicate what operations will be allowed e Thinning central pixel of the SE will be set to 0 e Thickening central pixel of the SE will be set to 1 e Skeleton thinning or thickening till idempotence e Hit or miss if the configuration is found the central pixel is then set to 1 otherwise it is set to 0 10 If you want to use In Place substitution check that box at the bottom of the dialog box This option allows you to define whether the operation is performed as a recursive operation if the box is checked or not the box is not checked A recursive operation is one in which the modified pixel is immediately used for the next pixel in the neighborhood 11 Click OK to create the neighborhood LUT The Neighborhood LUT is saved with the current project Modifying a Neighborhood LUT To delete an SE Configuration Neighborhood LUT 1 Select the name of the Neighborhood LUT from the drop down list 2 Cl
183. then click the drop down arrow and select a data type from the list e Image Size Click the Specify Size radio button and indicate the number of dimensions 2 or 3 and make any necessary changes to the image size e Image Name Click the Set Name radio button and type the name you want to use for the output image 4 Click OK Changing the Default Name of the Output Image You can change the default name of the New Image output from Image to another name 1 Using WordPad or any other text editor open the file StdMessages txt in the appropriate language directory under Aphelion Language 2 Search for the string newImNameS Image 1 3 Change the word Image to the default name you prefer Selecting Operator Parameters After you select an operator the Operator dialog box displays drop down lists and sliders for selecting image and parameter values Aphelion supplies default values for many parameters for others you must supply the values For information about setting parameters for specific operators see the Aphelion Reference Guide Note You must specify all parameters before you can run an operator bml op Parms bmp ie bmi op_Parms2 bmp Parameters for AphImgMorphGradientEdges Parameters for AphImgThreshold Kernel Editor The kernel editor is used to modify a kernel or a structuring element SE You can define a kernel or structuring element name it enter its name in a list and save it Kern
184. ther Aphelion tasks 2 m Click the Play Macro button Aphelion executes all the code in the current macro except comment lines Message boxes and other standard Visual Basic commands are executed Note z To run a macro step by step click the Step Into button Recording a Macro When you use the Start Recording button the current macro window is cleared and a new macro window appears with the command main Be sure the current code has been saved before you record a new macro See Saving a Macro for more information When you click the Stop Recording button the command is automatically appended to the end of the recorded code 1 From the File menu choose New The New dialog box opens 2 Choose Macro Document and click OK A macro window opens 3 From the macro window click the Start Recording button 4 Inthe Aphelion interface perform the actions you want included in the macro Each action is recorded as a line of BasicScript code 5 n From the macro window click the Stop Recording button 6 The command End Sub is automatically appended to the end of the recorded code Note Any macro can be attached to a button on the Objects toolbar See Macro and Application Toolbar Buttons for more information 04 05 99 Aphelion User Guide 113 114 e Aphelion User Guide Saving a Macro When you record a macro be sure to save the macro so that it will be available to be run or modified If you forget to save th
185. threshold image which contain one or more seed pixels in the second threshold image The binary reconstruction is based on the 4 connectivity which means that every pixel in the binary image has four neighbors in the 0 90 180 and 270 degree direction b3 AphImgNew Binary3 AphImgReconstruct b1 b2 b3 graph4C The following call to AphImgFree deletes the first two binary images Binary and Binary which are not needed anymore AphiImgFree bl AphiImgFree b2 Some of the fibers in the remaining binary image are connected The use of binary segmentation operators based upon mathematical morphology techniques will segment all the fibers The following lines call AphImgClustersSplitConvex an operator based on the watershed algorithm 32 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 b4 AphImgNew Binary4 AphImgClustersSplitConvex b3 b4 10 graph4c Now AphImgHoleFill is used to fill the holes within blobs fibers in the previous binary image AphImgHoleFill b4 b4 graph8C AphImgBorderKill will eliminate the objects intersecting the border of the image partial fibers Notice that both input and output images are identical This feature is supported by Aphelion for all the operators which have input and output images of the same type The operator is based on 4 connectivity AphImgBorderKill b4 b4 graph4c The following AphImgClustersToLabels operator takes a binary image as input and generates a labeled image In the
186. timent Emergence 7 rue Alfred Kastler 14000 Caen FRANCE FAX 33 2 31 46 26 51 For the United States and other countries 9 00 am to 5 00 pm EDT Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc 409 Main Street Amherst Massachusetts USA 01002 FAX 413 253 4203 Technical support is handled only by electronic mail or FAX Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc Amerinex Applied Imaging Inc AAI develops and markets software products that employ computer vision technology AAI s first commercial offering in 1987 the KB Vision System was the most innovative and advanced imaging toolset ever introduced commercially It has been widely used in image understanding research and has been embedded in third party systems developed by AAI and its OEM customers AAI s products and technology have established the company as the leading software developer of image understanding tools and solutions In recognition of AAI s expertise the company has received both government and commercial contracts to develop imaging software systems The Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded AAI a U S government contract to develop the IUE Image Understanding Environment an advanced system for government sponsored imaging research AAI was also selected by a major stock exchange to develop stock certificate reading software that uses image understanding rather than template matching to handle free form documents Other imaging applications with which AAI has experien
187. to a file from the Info page eee cece eeeeeeeeeeeee 63 History Pages cis Seiken et ine he Rash ects ieee Rugi hesche declares ente e Revidgs adeecenueten 63 Messages Paceictecduicid i isaue siete edie ate hile ede EREET S ERT SN 64 Virtual Screens joes scccscishes caseseaesieines sapusseveesiebes chee aE EEE E EEE E E EEEE E esa 64 2 e Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 4 00 PM Adding and Deleting Virtual Screens eee ee eceecceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeseeereeeeeeeees 65 Martial Screen Pilot s 2 52253 2es ete a eaves tence dee ee ane eee teens a ea ee see Sate AG 65 Aphelion Projects cssscssetssssssscs sees ech sss vecteee sees lagvssvesssetacessgehsesssss seedvassdeaubevisbase EI ES ak Te EIEE 66 Creating a Project Pile ices poses cedartenesdecesh cofedasnsssedsasessagscpadgesoc ee dtess AAEE EES PEN EiS 67 Opening a Project Flen iniiis eneste oone tobe svsnen e Ere e eE oE SEESE EE ERSSON 67 Elements Saved in a Project File ssseeseeeeseeesereseseerssreeresreresesrenresrerrssrnrreeerereresre 67 Mae Se EE E E A E EAT E E EEE E A E 68 Image File Formatsion e a a r E E E E E A 68 TPP IES eTe ea a A a eth 68 BMP fileSit2s te salsh chain na Beles Slots Beil hee 69 KB TILES EE save EEEE 69 JPEG FIle Sonis esorare iesea vers len eaa E SEa eS EE E aei 69 Mullti band images noeneen enoe eriei eerie inao Ee EEEE S iao 69 Opening Mages eia a a E e ae ieee E EE eee eve 70 Opening an mage snie roteer EEEE E Er EEEE o r EE E EREE
188. tors e Database for Symbolic Features Attributes Visualization Module The Aphelion Visualization Module includes the visualization of 2D and color images It is part of the Developer module and is available as a set of ActiveX components or as a subset of Aphelion For more information about the Visualization Module see the Aphelion Developer Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 Developer Module The Aphelion Developer Module contains e Core and Visualization Modules e Graphical User Interface GUI e Menu Based or Script Based Selection of Operators e Drag and Drop of Images Symbolic Data Objects e BasicScript Language e Project Based Interface to Control Workspaces and Data e Online Documentation and Multiple Language Support Online Help The Aphelion online Help system includes the following guides e Aphelion User Guide e Aphelion Reference Guide e Aphelion Developer Guide e Macro Language Reference Guide e Macro Dialog Editor Guide The online Help also includes context sensitive Help for menu commands toolbar buttons and other interface elements Aphelion User Guide The User Guide contains information about the Aphelion interface including e descriptions of all toolbars and buttons e procedures for accomplishing standard tasks such as loading an image and recording a macro Aphelion Reference Guide The Aphelion Reference Guide contains information about specific operators including parameters and default v
189. uch as PowerPoint or Word 3 To insert the spreadsheet file choose Object from the Insert menu e In PowerPoint click Create from File in the Insert Objects dialog box e In Word choose the Create from File tab in the Objects dialog box 4 Click the Browse button and locate the file you want to insert Click OK Note You can copy cells from an Excel spreadsheet and paste them directly into Word as a table For more information see the Word on line documentation Creating an ASCII file from a Grid document 1 Create the grid you want to export 2 In the Operator dialog box choose the operator ObjExport Object Utilities gt Object VOD ObjExport 3 As the Input ObjectSet choose the grid document you want to export 4 Inthe Output Filename field type a file name for the output ASCII txt file By default the file is stored in the C Program Files Aphelion directory You can click the Browse button to change directories 5 B Click the Run Operator button to create the ASCII txt file You can then export the ASCII file to other applications Product Support Please report problems and enhancement requests at the following Web address http www aai com AAI APHELION support Username aphelion Password version23 email aphelion_support aai com Support is available at the following locations 126 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 04 05 99 For Europe and Japan 9 00 am to 5 00 pm GMT ADCIS SA Ba
190. uide 37 38 e Aphelion User Guide Use Charts to specify a model file to be used with a specific type of chart histogram profile surface map or scatter plot For more information see Creating a Chart Model Use Background to set the background color of the Aphelion workspace Windows Menu Cascade Close gt 1 ImaThreshold 2 HM Window 3 Bronze Use the Windows menu to manage the display of windows in Aphelion You can use Cascade to display all open windows in a cascade You can use the Close command to close image chart or grid windows The Close command does not apply to macro windows The Windows menu also includes a numbered list of open windows To focus on one of these windows type the number or highlight the name and press Enter Help Menu Getting Started Aphelion Help Topics Reference Guide xA Na VisionT utor Tip of the day About Aphelion Use the Help menu to access online Help The Getting Started command takes you directly to the online version of the Getting Started Guide The Aphelion Help Topics command displays the Index tab for all Aphelion online documentation including the Aphelion Reference Guide and the Aphelion Developer Guide For more information see Online Help Statusbar The Statusbar provides information about the active window virtual screen or interface element The information provided is a function of the position of the mouse You can view e Qu
191. upports the English French and Kanji languages Menus messages tooltips and Operator text are translated and displayed To select a language choose the View menu then click Language Select one of the following languages e English e French e Kanji 10 Aphelion User Guide 04 05 99 VisionTutor g VisionTutor is a computer vision course that provides an introduction to image processing and image understanding VisionTutor is an optional module for Aphelion users VisionTutor allows the user to explore the concepts of computer vision image processing and image understanding The VisionTutor experiments consist of Aphelion macros that perform experiments automatically and allow the user to investigate the results The experiments enable the user to explore the nature of computer vision algorithms by providing interaction with the operators and images Course Syllabus e Introduction e Image Formation e Image Enhancement e Edge Detection e Morphology e Region Segmentation e Convolution Filtering and Fourier Transform To order VisionTutor please contact your Aphelion distributor or your local representative Getting Started 04 05 99 The Getting Started section provides you with basic information about using Aphelion from starting the application to processing images and printing your results Finding Your Way Around Windows To use Aphelion you should be familiar with Windows 95 98 or Windows NT 4 0
192. utton to display the rounded rectangle pop up menu Draw Ellipse Lets you draw an ellipse Ellipse shaped objects may be drawn overlaid onto images Click the right mouse button to display the ellipse pop up menu Draw Polygon Lets you draw a polygon Polygon objects may be drawn overlaid onto images Click the right mouse button to display the polygon pop up 04 05 99 menu Freehand Draw Lets you draw in an image using a pen This pen can be used for changing pixel values splitting or connecting objects or marking objects for a binary and manual segmentation Draw Text Lets you add text to an image You can set font text color and background color of the text box Zoom In Zoom in on a selected area Click Zoom In then draw a rectangle over the area you want to zoom in on You can repeat this procedure to zoom in further on an area Reset Zoom Return an image to its previous magnification Click the Reset Zoom button or press CTRL Z as many times as necessary to return to the original display Select Fill Color Display a dialog box from which you can select a fill color for drawn objects Select Line Color Display a dialog box from which you can select a line color Select Line Width Display a dialog box from which you can select a line width Select Font Display a dialog box from which you can select a font for the text in a document not available Overlay Display a pop up list of overlay mod
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194. you select text in the macro window you can also use the Cut Copy and Paste buttons on the Main toolbar 1 Select the text you want to copy or cut 2 Click the right mouse button to display the Macro pop up menu 3 Choose Edit From the Edit menu you can choose Clear Cut Copy Paste or Undo You can click Undo or press CTRL SHIFT Z multiple times to reverse multiple actions 04 05 99 04 05 99 Note If you choose Clear it clears the entire macro window Macro Library You can create a macro library which contains frequently used macros This makes it possible to call one macro from another The called macro can be located in the same or a separate directory The macro library also makes it possible to pass arguments to a macro This may include a list of images integer values text strings or other arguments Note You can create only one macro library Creating the Macro Library T in Click the Macros button on the Objects toolbar Choose Macro Library The Macro Library dialog box opens Click the F button to display the Open dialog box listing all macros files in the Macros subdirectory If needed you can change the directory to access other macro files Note Macro files have the extension apm Select the macros you want to include in the macro library To select multiple macros hold down the CTRL key Click Open All the macros appear in the Macro name field Click Add to add the macros to the

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