From: Jan Wee <jwee@mail.arc.nasa.gov>
Subject: NIH Information and URL
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 08:22:25 -0600
Dear discuss-lfm members,
Scott Coletti, Charlie Lindgren, and many others are the **real experts** on
use of NIH imaging software and I am sure they and others will contribute
their hands on knowledge of NIH software and its ease of use and
application in the classroom. Scott C. designed NIH lessons for beginners
in association with the Live From the Hubble Space Telescope project. These
lessons are located at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov:80/hst/scott/intro2image.html
I would encourage all who are interested in NIH imaging to visit Scott's
**excellent** document which contains links to downloading the software.
If you visit Scott's updated document entitled "Introduction to Electronic
Field Trips" found at our Live From Mars web site (under Teacher Resources --
Guide and related lessons), you will find a link to *Fundamental Tools* -- one
of those fundamental tools is NIH software and leads to this site where you
will find the following info "About NIH Image."
http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image/about.html
******************************************************************************
About NIH Image
NIH Image is a public domain image processing and analysis program for the
Macintosh. It is being developed at the Research Services Branch (RSB) of
the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National
Institutes of Health
(NIH).
NIH Image can acquire, display, edit, enhance, analyze and animate images.
It reads and writes TIFF, PICT, PICS and MacPaint files, providing
compatibility
with many other applications, including programs for scanning, processing,
editing,
publishing and analyzing images. It supports many standard image processing
functions, including contrast enhancement, density profiling, smoothing,
sharpening,
edge detection, median filtering, and spatial convolution with user defined
kernels.
Image can be used to measure area, mean, centroid, perimeter, etc. of user
defined
regions of interest. It also performs automated particle analysis and
provides tools
for measuring path lengths and angles. Spatial calibration is supported to
provide real world area and length measurements. Density calibration can be
done against radiation or optical density standards using user specified units.
Results can be printed, exported to text files, or copied to the Clipboard.
A tool palette supports editing of color and gray scale images, including the
ability to draw lines, rectangles and text. It can flip, rotate, invert and
scale
selections. It supports multiple windows and 8 levels of magnification. All
editing,
filtering, and measurement functions operate at any level of magnification and
are undoable.
Image directly supports Data Translation and Scion frame grabber cards for
capturing
images or movie sequences using a TV camera. Acquired images can be shading
corrected
and frame averaged. Other frame grabbers are supported via plug-in modules.
Image can be customized in three ways: via a built-in Pascal-like macro
language, via
externally compiled plug-in modules and on the Pascal source code level.
Example macros,
plug-ins and complete source code can be downloaded from the Download page.
More information about NIH Image can be found in the Overview section of the
manual.
System Requirements
Image requires a color capable Macintosh and at least 2MB of free RAM. A
Macintosh
with 16MB or more of RAM is recommended for working with 3D images, 24-bit
color or
animation sequences. System 7.0 or later is required. Image directly
supports, or is
compatible with, large monitors, flatbed scanners, film recorders, graphics
tablets,
PostScript laser printers, photo typesetters and color printers.
******************************************************************************
As you can see NIH is primarily for Mac computers BUT I did hear that there
is a Windows version available. I will try to hunt down information on that.
Hope all you NIH users will contribute your expertise... I am on shaky ground
as I have only seen NIH in use (very impressive) but haven't any
first hand experience like Scott, Charlie, and others in this forum.
Now, I will let the experts take over!
Jan
Jan Wee, Education Outreach Coordinator
Passport to Knowledge
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/interactive
Voice: 608-786-2767 (8am-4pm Central time) Fax: 608-786-1819
Email: jwee@mail.arc.nasa.gov