A PC-based 2 K×2 K direct imaging system

An image capture system using a 2" vidicon camera, interface, video board and control software to allow an AT class personal computer to directly digitize an image with 2048×2048×8 bit pixels is described. The nature of the camera allows the entire area of the picture to be taken at once, even with a photo flash. After the exposure is complete, one half a second is required to transfer the image from the camera to the image board in the personal computer. There it can be viewed and enhanced immediately. The design objective is assembling a low cost 2 K×2 K resolution direct image capture system. To meet the objective inexpensive components were chosen. The components are tied together with software and control logic. Operation is simplified for the user with a dynamic pan step size and using a typical operating mode for subsampling to allow viewing the overall image. Hardware and software for obtaining the performance required for working with the 4 megabyte images created when taking a single picture are described