Abstract

A special purpose system controlling in real time the scan pattern of a vidicon tube, converts a conventional TV camera into a versatile 2-D data acquisition system. The system architecture incorporates a scan pattern library (ROM), 2-D video map (RAM), ALU, and a special purpose vidicon driver. A scan pattern determined in real time by the host computer in an interactive mode, or alternatively selected from a scan pattern library, controls the electron scanning beam of the vidicon by means of the ALU and vidicon driver. The readout intensity information is stored in a 2-D video map. The scan path is interrupted every 40 ms by a timing controller operating in the background, before tracing of the scan path is enabled. This constraint on the repetition rate can be eliminated by utilizing other, noncapacitive types of imaging device. The main advantages of implementing the basic system in one of its possible embodiments are the high rate of visual data acquisition and the smaller memory required for storing and analyzing the data, compared with the requirements imposed by conventional scanning.

© 1986 Optical Society of America