Records uncompressed video directly to disk (with suitable
.computer and RAID controller) at 512 x 480 x 8 bit x 30 Hz or better.
Built-in support for NI frame grabbers for recording analog video
Plug-ins add support for particular digital cameras and other hardware (stages, shutters, etc.).
Acquired images are time-stamped for subsequent analysis.
Video display
Displays recorded video in built-in player. Player
supports random access to frames, slow- and high-speed playback, and
manual jog.
Display gain and offset easily adjustable.
Can display same video squence in multiple windows with different gain/offset, zoom, pan/scroll
Motion analysis
Manual tracking (via mouse clicks) and calculation of displacements and velocities
Automatic, multiple particle tracking (with sub-pixel resolution) via centroid, cross-correlation, or curve-fitting algorithms
Video and image storage
Video sequences can be saved and reloaded in a custom format
that is time-stamped and losslessly compressed. Multiple selected
areas of frames (rather than entire frames) can be saved to economize
on storage space.
Sequences can be saved and reloaded in a stacked-TIFF format
suitable for analysis or post-processing by Matlab and other programs.
Single frames or single areas of interest can be saved and read in a variety of image file formats.
Image formats
8- or 16-bit images, monochrome.
Extensibility
Plug-ins can easily be added to specialize the program for to
operate specific hardware or to perform specialized acquisition or
analysis functions. Plug-ins run independently from the Glimpse
main program but can send and receive video data to/from the main
program. Plug-ins can make use of all subroutines contained in
Glimpse, so development can be quite rapid.
The source code of LabView is available under the GNU public license, so you can modify the program for your own purposes.
Cost
The executable version of Glimpse is free. The source code is also free, but you will need a copy of LabVIEW (a commercial software package) to run it or to modify it. Both source and executable versions can be downloaded here.
Video
acquisition and analysis software for microscopy