System Hardware Settings; Controller; Camera - CellScale BioTester User Manual

BioTester User Manual

7. System Hardware Settings

Controller

The BioTester uses an integrated control board rather
than a group of PC controlled device drivers. This
minimizes communication lag and allows the device to
operate asynchronously with the PC. The control board
details can be seen by selecting Hardware from the
Settings menu, which brings up the window shown to
the right.

Camera

The camera uses a ½" monochrome CCD sensor to
obtain a resolution of 1280 pixels by 960 pixels. The
camera shutter and gain can be controlled during the
setup phase of the test.
The camera captures images at 15 frames per second
during every test and writes these images to a buffer.
The test controller extracts images from this buffer at
the frequency specified in the Set Parameter Editor
(15Hz, 5Hz, 1Hz, 0.1Hz, 0.01Hz, or 0.001Hz). These
images are written to the output directory. The file
name is the ideal capture time. The actual capture time
may differ from the ideal capture time by as much as
1/30 of a second since the images are extracted from a
buffer.
The test software creates an image capture log file in the output directory should this difference
be significant. This log stores the actual capture time and the idealized capture time.
The camera default shutter and gain are specific to each test template and can be set by
selecting Hardware from the Settings menu. Typically, the gain is best left at 20 and the shutter
changed to alter the brightness of the image.
34