No software is needed with the optional TFT or other TV or composite video monitor.
These instructions are for the standard neutron camera, with the RoboRealm software.
If you have the EMCCD neutron camera, you need these instructions instead.
If you have the Laue neutron camera, you need these instructions instead.

Install the latest version of the EzCAP Driver

To record and analyse the image on a PC, a video frame grabber is needed, such as the USB-2 EzCAP device supplied from version-3 of the camera or available as an optional extra for version-2. Before plugging it in, first install the latest version of the EzCAP108 driver from the EzCAP website, or from the RoboRealm CD, reboot your computer, and then plug in the EzCAP frame grabber. Do NOT install the older driver or any software from the EzCAP CD.

You can check that the driver is installed by right-clicking "My Computer/Properties" and selecting "Hardware/Device Manager". When the EzCAP device is plugged in, it should be listed under "Sound, video and game controllers" as "USB 2861 Device" and "USB EMP Audio Device". If you haven't already done so, connect the camera using the supplied 10m video cable plugged into the yellow composite video socket of the EzCAP frame grabber, then follow the camera operating instructions under Help.

You should now be able to display the camera video using Windows media display software, such as VLC, AMCap, VirtualDub or RoboRealm.

Using the RoboRealm Video Capture Software

The advantage of RoboRealm is that it allows you to capture, transform and record photos or videos of the camera output using a single application. RoboRealm is free to download for a 30 day test.

When you first launch RoboRealm, with the USB frame-grabber plugged in, click the "Camera" button at the bottom of the display window. Then click the "Options" window at the top and select the "USB 2861 Device" as the camera. Click on "Video Capture" and for the Video Standard select "PAL". Then for the "Video format" button choose the maximum video size (720x576).
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Filters and Image Treatment in RoboRealm

RoboRealm filters (left side of the interface) are applied sequentially.

For the neutron camera try:
  • Filters/Salt_Pepper: removes hot pixel noise visible with long exposures.
  • Transformations/Rotate-Mirror: correct the camera's mirror image.
  • Transformations/Radial: correct pincushion & barrel distortion.
  • Try Histogram/Normalize: or especially Histogram/Equalize: after filtering.
  • Adjust/Intensity: and Adjust/Contrast: also adjusts these properties.
  • Histogram/Levels: provides an interactive interface for adjusting these levels.
  • Colors/Pseudo_Color: colours the image according to intensity.
  • Edges/Canny: finds and emphasises edges in the image.
  • Webserver: allows remote monitoring of the image over the WWW.
  • Loading/Saving: applies to AVI videos and GIF, JPEG, TIFF etc images.
You can store a series of transformations so that they are automatically applied to every image. You can take a snapshot image at any time, save it in various formats and later re-open it in RoboRealm or ImageJ to correct it off-line. The simplest format is Portable Gray Map (*.pgm) which contains just an ID line P5/P6, the image dimensions (720x576), then the maximum gray level (255) followed by an array of binary 0-255 levels.

Using alternative free software such as VideoLan VLC

VLC is a popular free alternative to the Windows media player, and also displays input from capture devices such as the EzCAP frame grabber. With the camera connected, select the "Media/Open Capture Device" menu of VLC. With the default "Direct Show", select "USB 2861 Device" as the "Video Device" and click "Play" to display the camera.

If the display appears small or otherwise incorrect, before clicking "Play" click "Configure" the 2861 device, select PAL as the video format, and set the video size to 720x576. The rightmost control on the display will allow you to adjust video effects such as contrast, brightness, rotation of the image etc. VLC's "Video/Snapshot" (or "Shift-S"), will save a snapshot of the display, while the "Tools/Preferences/Video" menu will allow you to set the format for this image file, as well as the directory where it will be saved (after re-opening the capture device).

Once you have configured VLC, you can open video input with "Ctrl-C" then hit "Return" to initialise the default stream and "Shift-S" to save a snapshot. Then use ImageJ or other free image treatment applications to remove noise (Despeckle), measure intensities etc.
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Introduction to ImageJ and Advanced Image Analysis

ImageJ is recommended for more complex image analysis than is possible with RoboRealm. Acquisition with ImageJ allows integration over longer periods to produce 16- or 32-bit images, as well as the automatic stitching together of two or more cameras to form mosaic images extending the field of view. ImageJ acquisition is required if you have either the 2-CCD Laue Camera or the EMCCD camera.

As well as the functions listed as menu items, a great number of custom macros and plug-ins are available. In particular, you can download our AMCap video camera capture plugin for Windows, which installs the small camera icon shown above.

Using ImageJ functions to treat camera images

Drag an image to ImageJ or use the File /Open menu. The Image menu allows you to adjust the image brightness, contrast etc, while the Process and Plugins menus allow more powerful operations. For example, here we see the use of the Process/Noise/Despeckle function to remove hot pixels from a long exposure.

The large number of ImageJ menus may at first seem challenging, but the basic functions are similar to other image treatment applications, and are fully documented. The big difference is that ImageJ can be scripted to do everything, runs on any computer, and is free.
Click on the illustrations to enlarge them.
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