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From: owicki@lapis.berkeley.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Image-analysis software for VAXstation II ???
Message-ID: <2574@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19-Feb-87 20:08:51 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.2574
Posted: Thu Feb 19 20:08:51 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 06:01:24 EST
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: owicki@lapis.berkeley.edu()
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 34
Keywords: image analysis, VAX, electron micrograph

Do you know of any image-analysis software that runs on VAX-architecture
machines?  Preferably free or inexpensive.  Here are more details:

I want to analyze features of  electron-microscope images of cell membranes.  
Each electron micrograph contains hundreds to thousands of approximately
circular blobs (each a protein molecule);  the software must recognize
the blobs automatically and report the area and centroid coordinates of each.
Some standard image-processing operations (e.g., thresholding, 
dilation-erosion) may precede the feature analysis.  Blazing speed isn't
necessary.

Difficult cases must be handled interactively.  Run-together blobs can be
recognized by area or shape criteria and presented to the operator
for editing, e.g. using a mouse.

I have access to good image digitization equipment and probably could buy 
a VAXStation II through one of U.C. Berkeley's sweetheart deals with DEC.  
The monochrome display on the VAXStation II is sufficient for my needs; 
anyway, I don't have the money to buy both the computer and a fancy 
graphics display.  

Although  have quite a bit of experience writing applications code on
micros and mainframes, I don't want to try to write the image analysis
programs from scratch.  I would consider modifications, though.

So I need software to do basic image processing, blob recognition, and
interactive editing on a VAXStation II screen.  Any ideas?  Since this
is a fairly specialized request, it would be best to reply to me directly
at this account.

Jack Owicki
Dept. of Biophysics
U.C. Berkeley
(415) 643-8879