Internet Surfer 2.0/Internet Surfer 2.0 (Wayzata Technology) (1996).iso/pc/text/mac/faqs.319

Text File | 1996-02-12 | 29KB | 707 lines

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.319



==========================================================================

10. 3D scanners
--------------

a. Cyberware Labs, Monterey, CA, manufactures a 3D color laser digitizer
  which can be used to model parts of, or a complete, human body.
  They run a service bureau also.
  Address:
    Cyberware Labs, Inc
    8 Harris Ct, Suite 3D
    Monterey, CA 93940
  Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]

b. Polhemus makes a 6D input device (actually a couple of models)
  that senses position (3D) and *orientation* (+3D) based on electromagnetic
  field interference.  This equipment is also incorporated in the
  VPL Dataglove.
  This hardware is also called ISOTRACK, from Keiser Aerospace.

Ascension Technology makes a similar 3D input device.
There is a company, Applied Sciences(?), that makes a 3D input
device (position only) based on speed of sound triangulation.

[More info?? Phone/Fax #s/ Addresses?? - nfotis]

  Some addresses:

  Ascension Technology
  Bird, Flock of Birds, Big Bird: 6d trackers
  P.O. Box 527,
  Burlington, VT 05402
  Phone: [phone], Fax: [phone]

  Polhemus Incorporated
  Digitizer: 6d trackers
  P.O. Box 560, Hercules Dr.
  Colchester, Vt. 05446
  Tel: [phone]

  Logitech Inc.
  Red Baron, ultrasonic 6D mouse
  6506 Kaiser Dr.
  Freemont, CA 94555
  Tel: [phone]w

  Shooting Star Technology
  Mechanical Headtracker
  1921 Holdom Ave.
  Burnaby, B.C. Canada V5B 3W4
  Tel: [phone]
  Fax: [phone]

  Spaceball Technologies, Inc.
  Spaceball: 6d stationary input device
  600 Suffolk Street
  Lowell, MA, 01854
  Tel: [phone]
  Fax: [phone]
  Tel in Mountain View: [phone]

  Transfinite Systems
  Gold Brick: PowerGlove for Macintosh
  P.O. Box N
  MIT Branch Post Office
  Cambridge, MA 02139-0903
  Tel: [phone]
  email: [e-mail]

  VPL Research, Inc.
  EyePhone: head-mounted display
  DataGlove: glove/hand input device
  VPL Research Inc.
  950 Tower Lane
  14th Floor
  Foster City, CA 94404
  Tel: [phone]
  Fax: [phone]

  SimGraphics Engineering
  Flying Mouse: 6d input device
  1137 Huntington Rd. Suite A-1
  South Pasadena, CA 91030-4563
  [phone]


==========================================================================

11. Background imagery/textures/datafiles
-----------------------------------------

a. Check in the FTP places that are mentioned in the FAQ.

b. Get a good 24-bit scanner, like Epson's. Suggested is an SCSI port for
  speed. Eric Haines had a suggestion in RT News, Volume 4, #3 :
  scan textures for wallpapers and floor coverings, etc. from doll
  house supplies.
  So you have a rather cheap way to scan patterns that don't have
  scaling troubles associated with real materials and scanning area..

c. Find some houses/books/magazines that carry photographic material.
  Educorp, 1-619-536-9999, sells CD-ROMS with various imagery - also
  a wide variety of stock art is available.
  Stock art from big-name stock art houses, such as Comstock,
  UNIPHOTO, and Metro Image Base, is available.

  In Italy, there's a company called Belvedere that makes such books
  for the purpose of clipping their pages for inclusion in your
  graphics work. Their address is:
    Edition Belvedere Co. Ltd.,
    00196 Rome Italy,
    Piazzale Flaminio, 19
    Tel. [phone], Fax (06)  360-29-60

d. Mannikin Sceptre Graphics announced TexTiles, a set of 256x256 24-bit
  textures. Initial shipments in 24-bit IFF (for Amigas), soon in 24-bit
  TIFF format. Algorithmically built for tiled surfaces. SRP is $40 / volume
  (each volume = 40 images @ 10 disks). Demo disks for $5 are available.

  Contact:
  Mannikin Sceptre Graphics
  1600 Indiana Ave.
  Winter Park, FL 32789
  Phone: [phone]
  FAX: [phone]

e. ESSENCE is a library of 40 (forty) new algoritmic textures for Imagine by
   Impulse, Inc. These textures are FULLY compatible with the floating point
   versions of Imagine 2.0, Imagine 1.1, and even Turbo Silver.
   Written by Steve Worley.

   For more info contact:
   Essence Info
   Apex Software Publishing
   405 El Camino Real Suite 121
   Menlo Park CA 94025 USA

[ What about Texture City ?? ]

==========================================================================

12. Introduction to rendering algorithms
----------------------------------------

a. Ray-Tracing:

 I assume you have a general understanding of Computer Graphics. No? Then read
  some of the books that the FAQ contains. For Ray-Tracing, I would
  suggest:
   An Introduction to Ray Tracing, Andrew Glassner (ed.), Academic Press
     1989, ISBN 0-12-286160-4
  Note that I have not read the book, but I feel that you can't be wrong
  using his book. An errata list was posted in comp.graphics by Eric Haines
  ([e-mail])

There's a more consise reference also:

  Roman Kuchkuda , UNC @ Chapel Hill: "An Introduction to Ray Tracing", in
  "Theoretical Foundations for Computer Graphics and CAD", ed. R.A.E.Earnshaw,
  NATO AS, Vol. F-40., pp. 1039-1060. Printed by Springer-Verlag, 1988.

It contains code for a small, but fundamentally complete ray-tracer.

b. Z-buffer (depth-buffer)

A good reference is:

    _Procedural Elements for Computer Graphics_, David F. Rogers,
    McGraw-Hill, New York, 1985, pages 265-272 and 280-284.

c. Others:
???
[ More info is needed -- nfotis ]

==========================================================================

13. Where can I find the geometric data for the:
------------------------------------------------

a. Teapot ?
-----------

I suggest you read the "Displays on Display" column of IEEE CG&A, Jan. '87.
It contains an account from Frank Crow of the whole story, plus the data
and a Pascal program to display them. The data were without structure ie.
polygons.

Jim Blinn had another article in "Jim Blinn's Corner" in the same magazine,
Sep. '87, in which he lists the teapot data as control points for Bezier
patches.

The OFF and SPD packages have these objects, so you're advised to get
them to avoid typing the data yourself.  The OFF data is triangles at
a specific resolution (around 8x8[x4 triangles] meshing per patch).
The SPD package provides the spline patch descriptions and performs a
tessellation at any specified resolution.

b. Space Shuttle ?
------------------

Tolis Lerios <[e-mail]> has built a list of Space Shuttle
datafiles. Here's a summary (From his sci.space list):

model1:
A modified version of the newsgroup model (model2)

406 vertices (296 useful, i.e. referred to in the polygon descriptions.)
389 polygons (233 3-vertex, 146 4-vertex, 7 5-vertex, 3 6-vertex).
Payload doors non-existent.
Units: unknown.

Simon Marshall ([e-mail]) has a copy. He
said there is no proprietary information associated with it.

model2:
The newsgroup model, in OFF format. You can find it in

gondwana.ecr.mu.oz.au , file pub/off/objects/shuttle.geo
hanauma.stanford.edu ,  /pub/graphics/Comp.graphics/objects/shuttle.data

model3:
The triangles' model.

This model is stored in several files, each defining portions of the model.

Greg Henderson ([e-mail]) has a copy.  He did
not mention any restriction on the model's distribution.

model4:
The NASA model.

The file starts off with a header line containing three real numbers,
defining the offsets used by Lockheed in their simulations:

<x offset> <y offset> <z offset>

From then on, the file consists of a sequence of polygon descriptions

3473 vertices.
2748 polygons (407 3-vertex, 2268 4-vertex, 33 5-vertex, 14 6-vertex,
 10 7-vertex, 8 8-vertex, 8 12-vertex, 2 13-vertex, 2 15-vertex,
 17 16-vertex, 2 17-vertex, 2 18-vertex, 3 19-vertex, 8 24-vertex).
Payload doors closed.
Units: inches.

Jon Berndt ([e-mail]) seems to be responsible for the model
Proprietary info: unknown

model5:
The old shuttle model.

The file consists of a sequence of polygon descriptions.

104 vertices.
452 polygons (11 3-vertex, 41 4-vertex).
Payload doors open.
Units: meters.

We have been using this model at STAR Labs, Stanford University, for
some years now. Contact me ([e-mail]) or my supervisor
Scott Williams ([e-mail]) if you want a copy.

==========================================================================

14. Plotting packages
---------------------

Gnuplot 3.2
-----------
  It is one of the best 2- and 3-D plotting packages, with
  online help.It's a command-line driven interactive function plotting utility
  for UNIX, MSDOS, and VMS platforms.  Freely distributed, it supports many
  terminals, plotters, and printers and is easily extensible to include
  new devices. It was posted to comp.sources.misc in version 3.0, plus
  2 patches.
  You can practically find it everywhere.

Xvgr and Xmgr (ACE/gr)
-----------------------
  Xmgr is an XY-plotting tool for UNIX workstations using
  X or OpenWindows. There is an XView version called xvgr for
  Suns. Collectively, these 2 tools are known as ACE/gr.
  Compiling xmgr requires the Motif toolkit version 1.1
  and X11R4 - xmgr will not compile under X11R3/Motif 1.0x.

  Check at ftp.ccalmr.ogi.edu [129.95.72.34} in
  /CCALMR/pub/acegr/xmgr-2.09.tar.Z (Motif version)
  /CCALMR/pub/acegr/xvgr-2.09.tar.Z (XView version)

  Comments, suggestions, bug reports to Paul J Turner
  <[e-mail]> (if mail fails, try [e-mail]).
  Due to time constraints, replies will be few and far between.

Robot
-----
  Release 0.44 : 2-D and limited 3-D. Based on XView 3, written
  in C / Fortran (so you need a Fortran compiler or the f2c translator).
  Mainly tested on Sun4, less on DECstations. Check at
  astrod.astro.psu.edu (128.118.147.28),  pub/astrod.

VG plotting library
-------------------
  This is a library of Fortran callable routines at sunspot.ceee.nist.gov
  [129.6.64.151]

Xgobi
-----
  It's being developed at Bellcore, and its speciality are
  multidimensional data sets analysis and exploration. You can call it
  from the S language also, and it works as an X11 client using the Athena
  widget set (or with an ASCII terminal). It's distributed free of charge
  from STATLIB at CMU.
  To get it via e-mail, send email to [e-mail] and
  in the body area of the message, put the line

  send xgobi from general

  If you want to pick it via ftp, connect to lib.stat.cmu.edu. Log in as
  "statlib" and use your e-mail address as your password. Then type

  cd general
  mget xgobi.*

  Warning: It's about 2 MB sources + large Postscript manual. Read the
  relevant README to decide whether you need it or not.

PGPLOT
------
  Runs on VAX/VMS and supposedly on UNIX. Available at
  deimos.caltech.edu [131.215.139.14].

GGRAPH
------
  Host shorty.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.8] : /pub/ggraph.tar.Z
  Unknown more details.

epiGRAPH
--------
  For PCs. Call [e-mail] (Vladimir J. Dmitriev) for details.
  You can get the program demo or (and) play version, if sent 10 $ to

    1251 Budapest posta fiok 60
    Hungary
    ph/fax [phone]  Budapest
    ph     2017760

==========================================================================

End of Part 1 of the Resource Listing
--
Nick (Nikolaos) Fotis         National Technical Univ. of Athens, Greece
HOME: 16 Esperidon St.,       UUCP:    mcsun!ariadne!theseas!nfotis
      Halandri, GR - 152 32   or InterNet : [e-mail]
      Athens, GREECE          FAX: [phone]
Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu comp.graphics:31802 news.answers:3599
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,news.answers
Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!news.belwue.de!math.fu-berlin.de!news.netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!pythia.csi.forth.gr!ntua.gr!theseas!nfotis
From: [e-mail] (Nick C. Fotis)
Subject: (15 Oct 92) Computer Graphics Resource Listing : WEEKLY [part 2/2]
Message-ID: <nfotis.719061557@theseas>
Followup-To: poster
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Nick (Nikolaos) Fotis)
Organization: National Technical Univ. of Athens
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 11:19:17 GMT
Approved: [e-mail]

Archive-name: graphics/resources-list/part2
Last-modified: 1992/10/15


Computer Graphics Resource Listing : WEEKLY POSTING [ PART 2/2 ]
===================================================
Last Change : 15 Octomber 1992


15. Image analysis software - Image processing and display
----------------------------------------------------------

[ MAJOR reorganization + additions! ]
[ Here I include a half baked list from [e-mail] (Kenneth
 Ritley) on such softare, plus additions from Stephen L. Pendergast's
 <[e-mail]> list, which was derived in turn from Tim Allen's
 <[e-mail]> list -- phew!! and various other sources here and
 there. Also I tried to make a major reorganization under the various platform
 categories . Still don't know how to separate the Remote Sensing stuff
 Any ideas?? -- nfotis ]

PC and Mac-based tools (multi-platform software)
======================

IMDISP
------
  IMDISP Written at JPL and other NASA sites. Can do simple display,
  enhancing, smoothing and so on. Works with the FITS and VICAR/PDS
  data formats of NASA. Can read TIFF images, if you know their dimensions
  [PC and Macs]

LabVIEW 2
---------
  LabVIEW is used as a framework for image processing tools. It provides a
  graphical programming environment using block diagram sketch is the
  "program" with graphical elements representing the programming elements.
  Hundreds of functions are already available and are connected using a
  wiring tool to create the block diagram (program).  Functions that the
  block diagrams represent include digital signal processing and
  filtering, numerical analysis, statistics, etc.  The tool allows any
  Virtual Instrument (VI, a software file that looks and acts like a real
  laboratory instrument) to be used as a part of any other virtual
  instrument.

  National Instruments markets plug-in digital signal processing (DSP)
  boards for Macintoshs and PC compatables that allow real-time
  acquisition and analysis at a personal computer.  New software tools for
  DSP are allowing engineers to harness the power of this technology. The
  tools range from low-level debugging software to high-level block
  diagram development software.  There are three levels of DSP programming
  associated with the NB-DSP2300 board and LabVIEW:
  Use of the NB-DSP2300 Analysis Library: FFTs, power spectra, filters
  routines callable from THINK C and Macintosh Programers Workshop (MPW) C
  that execute on the NB-DSP2300 board. There is an analysis Virtual
  Interface Library of ready-to-use VIs optimized for the NB-DSP2300.

  Use of the National Instruments Developers Toolkit that includes an
  optimizing C compiler, an assembler and a linker for low-level
  programming of the DSP hardware.  This approach offers the highest level
  of performance but is the must difficult in terms of ease of use.

  Use of the National Instruments Interface Kit software package which has
  utility functions for memory management data communications and
  downloading code to the NB-DSP2300 board. (This is the easiest route for
  the development of custom code.)

Ultimage Concept VI
-------------------
  Concept VI  by Graftek-France is a family of image processing Virtual
  Instruments (VIs) that give LabVIEW 2 (described above) users high-end
  tools for designing, integrating and monitoring imaging control systems.
  A VI is a software file that looks and acts like a real laboratory
  instrument. Typical applications for Concept VI include thermography,
  surveillance, machine vision, production testing, biomedical imaging,
  electronic microscopy and remote sensing.

  Ultimage Concept VI addresses applications which require further
  qualitative and quantitative analysis.  It includes a complete set of
  functions for image enhancement, histogram equalization, spatial and
  frequency filtering, isolation of features, thresholding, mathematical
  morphology analysis, density measurement, object counting, sizing and
  characterization.

  The program loads images with a minimum resolution of 64 by 64, a pixel
  depth of 8, 16, or 32 bits, and one image plane.  Standard input and
  output formats include PICT, TIFF, SATIE, and AIPD.  Other formats can
  be imported.

  Image enhancement features include lookup table transformations, spatial
  linear and non-linear filters, frequency filtering, arithmetic and logic
  operations, and geometric transformations, among others.  Morphological
  transformations include erosion, dilation, opening, closing, hole
  removal, object separation, and extraction of skeletons, among others.
  Quantitative analysis provides for objects' detection, measurement, and
  morphological distribution.  Measures include area, perimeter, center of
  gravity, moment of inertia, orientation, length of relevant chords, and
  shape factors and equivalence.  Measures are saved in ASCII format.  The
  program also provides for macro scripting and integration of custom
  modules.

  A 3-D view command plots a perspective data graph where image intensity
  is depicted as mountains or valleys in the plot.  The histogram tool can
  be plotted with either a linear or logarithmic scale. The twenty-eight
  arithmetic and logical operations provide for: masking and averaging
  sections of images, noise removal, making comparisons, etc.  There are
  13 spatial filters that alter pixel intensities based on local
  intensity.  These include high-pass filters for contrast and outlines.
  The frequency data resulting from FFT analysis can be displayed as
  either the (real , imaginary ) components or the (phase, magnitude)
  data.  The morphological transformations are useful for data sharpening
  and defining objects or for removing artifacts.

  The transformations include: thresholding, eroding, dilating and even
  hole filling.

  The program's quantitative analysis measurements include: area,
  perimeter, center of mass, object counts, and angle between points.

  GTFS, Inc. 2455 Bennett Valley Road #100C Santa Rosa, CA 95494
  707-579-1733

IPLab Spectrum
--------------
  IPLAB Spectrum supports image processing and analysis but lacks the
  morphology and quantitative analysis features provided by
  Graftek-FranceUs Ultimage Concept VI.  Using scripting tools, the user
  tells the system the operations to be performed. The problem is that far
  too many basic operations require manual intervention. The tool
  supports: FFTs, 16 arithmetic operations for pixel alteration, and a
  movie command for cycling through windows.


Macintosh-based tools
=====================

NCSA Image, NCSA PalEdit and more
---------------------------------
  NCSA provides a whole suite of public-domain visualization tools for the
  Macintosh, primarily aimed at researchers wanting to visualize results
  from numerical modelling calculations.  These applications,
  documentation, and source code are available for anonymous ftp from
  ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu. Commercial versions of the NCSA programs have been
  developed by Spyglass.

  Spyglass, Inc. 701 Devonshire Drive Champaign, IL  61820 [phone]
  fax: [phone]

NIH IMAGE
---------
  Available at alw.nih.gov (128.231.128.7) or (preferably)
  zippy.nimh.nih.gov [128.231.98.32], directory:/pub/image.
  It has painting and image manipulation tools, a macro language,
  tools for measuring areas, distances and angles, and for counting
  things. Using a frame grabber card, it can record sequences of
  images to be played back as a movie. It can invoke user-defined
  convolution matrix filters, such as Gaussian. It can import raw
  data in tab-delimited ASCII, or as 1 or 2-byte quantities. It also
  does histograms and even 3-D plots. It is limited to 8-bits/pixel,
  though the 8 bits map into a color lookup table. It runs on any Mac
  that has a 256-color screen and a FPU (or get the NonFPU version
  from zippy.nimh.nih.gov)

PhotoMac
--------
  Data Translation, Inc. 100 Locke Dr. Marlboro, MA 01752 508-481-3700

PhotoPress
----------
  Blue Solutions 3039 Marigold Place Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 805-492-9973

PixelTools and TCL-Image
------------------------
  "Complete family of PixelTools (hardware accelerator and applications
  software) for scientific image processing and analysis.  Video-rate
  capture, display, processing, and analysis of high-resolution
  monochromatic and color images.  Includes C source code."

TCL-Image:
  "Software package for scientific, quantitative image processing and
  analysis. It provides a complete language for the capture, enhancement,
  and extraction of quantitative information from gray-scale images.
  TCL_Image has over 200 functions for image processing, and contains the
  other elements needed in a full programming language for algorithm
  development -- variables and control structures.  It is easily
  extensible through "script" (or indirect command) files. These script
  files are simply text files that contain TCL-Image commands.  They are
  executed as normal commands and include the ability to pass parameters.
  The direct capture of video images is supported via popular frame
  grabber boards.  TCL-Image comes with the I-View utility that provides
  conversion between common image file types, such as PICT2 and TIFF."

  Perceptics 725 Pellissippi Parkway Knoxville, TN 37933 615-966-9200

Satellite Image Workshop
------------------------
  It comes with a number of satellite pictures (raw data) and does all
  sorts of image enhancing on it. You'll need at least a Mac II with co-
  processor; a 256 color display and a large harddisk. The program doesn't
  run under system 7.x.ATE1 V1

  In the documentation the contact address is given as:  Liz Smith, Jet
  Propulsion Laboratory, MS 300-323, 4800 Oak Grove Dr,.Pasadena, CA 91109
  [phone]

Visualization Workbench
-----------------------
  "An electronic imaging software system that performs interactive image
  analysis and scientific 2D and 3D plotting."

  Paragon Imagine 171 Lincoln St. Lowell, MA 01852 508-441-2112

Adobe Photoshop
---------------

  The tool supports Rtrue colorS with 24-bit images or 256 levels of grey
  scale.  Once an image has been imported it can be Rre-touchedS with
  various editing tools typical of those used in Macintosh-based RpaintS
  applications.  These include an eraser, pencil, brush and air brush.
  Advanced RpasteS tools that control the interaction between a pasted
  selection and the receiving site have also been incorporated.  For
  example, all red pixels in a selection can easily be preventing from
  being pasted. Photoshop has transparencies ranging from 0 to 100%,
  allowing you to create ghost overlays.  RPhoto-editingS tools include
  control of the brightness and contrast, color balancing, hue/saturation
  modification and spectrum equalization.  Images can be subjected to
  various signal processing algorithms to smooth or sharpen the image,
  blur edges, or locate edges.  Image scaling is also supported.

  For storage savings, the images can be compressed using standard
  algorithms, including externally supplied compression such as JPEG,
  availlable from Storm Technologies. The latest version of Adobe
  Photoshop supports the import of numerous image formats including: EPSF,
  EPSF, TIFF, PICT resource, Amiga IFF/ILBM, CompuServe GIF, MacPaint,
  PIXAR, PixelPaint, Scitex CT, TGA and ThunderScan..

  Adobe Systems, Inc. 1585 Charlestown Road PO Box 7900 Mountain View, CA
  94039-7900 415-961-4400

ColorStudio and ImageStudio
---------------------------
  ColorStudio is an image-editing and paint package from Letraset that has
  more features than Adobe Photoshop but is decidedly more complex and
  therefore more difficult to use.  Several steps are often required to
  accomplish that which can be done in a single step using Photoshop.  The
  application requires a great deal of available disk space as one can
  easily end up with images in the 30 MB range.  The program provides a
  variety of powerful selection tools including the "auto selection tool"
  which lets the user choose image areas on the basis of color, close
  hues, color range and mask.

ImageStudio: Don't know...

  Letraset USA 40 Eisenhower Drive Paramus, NJ 07653 201-845-6100

Dapple Systems
--------------
  "High resolution image analysis software provides processing tools to
  work with multiple images, enhance and edit, and measure a variety of
  global or feature parameters, and interpret the data."

  Dapple Systems, 355 W. Olive Ave, #100 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 408-733-3283

Digital Darkroom
----------------
  The latest release of Digital Darkroom has five new selection and
  editing tools for enhancing images. One such feature allows the user to
  select part of an image simply by "painting" it. A new polyline
  selection tool creates a selection tool for single pixel wide
  selections.  A brush lets the operator "paint" with a selected portion
  of the image. Note that this is not a true color image enhancement tool.
  This tool should be used when the user intends to operate in grey-scale
  images only.  It should be noted that Digital Darkroom is not as
  powerful as either Adobe Photoshop or ColorStudio.

  Silicon Beach Software 9770 Carroll Ctr. Rd., Suite J San Diego, CA
  92126 619-695-6956

Dimple
------
  It  is compatible with system 6.05 and system 7.0 , requires Mac LC or
  II series with 256 colours, with a recommended min of 6Mb of ram. It has
  the capability of reading Erdas files. Functions include; image
  enhancement, 3D and contour plots, image statistics, supervised and
  unsupervised classification, PCA and other image transformations. There
  is also a means (Image Operation Language or IOL) by which you can write
  your own transformations. There is no image rectification, however
  Dimple is compatable with MAPII. The latest version is 1.4 and it is in
  the beta stage of testing. Dimple was initially developed as a teaching
  tool and it is very good for this purpose."

  "Dimple  runs on a colour Macintosh.  It is a product still in its
  development phase.. i.e. it doesn't have all the inbuilt features of
  other packages, but is coming along nicely.  It has its own inbuilt
  language for writing "programs" for processing an image, defining
  convolution filters etc. Dimple is a full mac application with pull down
  menus etc... It is unprotected software."

  Process Software Solutions, PO Box 2110, Wollongong, New South Wales,
  Australia. 2500. Phone [phone]  Fax [phone].

Enhance
-------
  Enhance has a RrulerS tool that supports measurements and additionally
  provides angle data. The tool has over 80 mathematical filter
  variations: "Laplacian, medium noise filter", etc.  Files can be saved
  as either TIFF, PICT, EPSF or text (however EPSF files can't be imported).

  MicroFrontier 7650 Hickman Road Des Moines, IA  50322 515-270-8109

Image Analyst
-------------
  An image processing product for users who need to extract quantitative
  data from video images.  Image Analyst lets users configure
  sophisticated image processing and measurement routines without the
  necessity of knowing a programming language.  It is designed for such
  tasks at computing number and size of cells in images projected by video
  cameras attached to microscopes, or enhancing and measuring distances in
  radiographs.

  Image Analyst provides users with an array of field-proven video
  analysis techniques that enable them to easily assemble a sequence of
  instructions to enhance feature appearance; count objects; determine
  density, shape, size, position, or movement; perform object feature
  extraction; and conduct textural analysis automatically.  Image Analyst
  works with either a framegrabber board and any standard video camera, or
  a disk-stored image.

  Within minutes, without the need for programming, the Image Analyst user
  can set up a process to identify and analyze any element of a image.
  Measurements and statistics can be automatically or semi-automatically
  generated from TIFF or PICT files or from captured video tape images.
  Image Analyst recognizes items in images based on their size, shape and
  position.  The tool provides direct support for the Data Translation and
  Scion frame grabbers. A menu command allows for image capture from a VCR
  video camera or other NTSC or PAL devices.