Message-ID: <258@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Sep-84 21:36:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.258
Posted: Fri Sep 14 21:36:39 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 01:40:05 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 30

<>
I recently had the opportunity to try the Macintosh version of the MicronEye
solid-state camera. The unit consists of a small cylinder which houses the
sensor (actually a 64 k ram), a lens which screws onto the cylinder, and a
box containing a frame grabber. All of this is exceedingly small - the camera
is < 2" dia and 4" long. A cable plugs into the modem port of the Mac and a
disk with some "image analysis" software completes the deal.

This unit is strictly 2 grey levels. The thresholds are set by playing with
the lens f-stop, lighting, and/or the frame grabber integration time. Special
continuous sample-and-display routines ease the task of focusing and exposure.
Once an image is acquired you can do a few simple things to it: invert it, -
and + images, filling routines that set bits according to the state of their
nearest neighbors, edge smoothing, and outlining. The final product can be
saved as a MacPaint document for further fudging.

The unit works as advertised. In a normal room with standard office illumination
I found I needed 3 second exposure times to record very contrasty subjects.
(The exposure time can be varied from 0.001 - 9.999 seconds). The recorded area
is very small - I would guess it to be about 128 x 256 pixels. No technical
details were supplied - I gather that programming tools are provided for the
Apple ][, RS, and IBM variants of this product.

All in all it is a neat toy, although I don't think I'd cough up the $400 to
buy one myself. It will be interesting to see how the digitizers that interface
to standard TV cameras work with the Mac. Now that 512k Macs are available,
perhaps someone will give us 4 grey levels/pixel (for starters).

			Steve Crandall
			ihnp4!mhuxt!evans

Message-ID: <33100007@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Oct-84 06:48:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.33100007
Posted: Tue Oct 16 06:48:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Oct-84 19:33:20 EDT
References: <12887@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Lines: 15
Nf-ID: #R:sri-arpa:-1288700:uiucdcs:33100007:000:643
Nf-From: uiucdcs!renner    Oct 16 05:48:00 1984

 >    Of particular interest is that fact that SUMEX has developed
 >    a cross compiler/library set that runs on a unix mainframe,
 >    and downloads code to the MAC.  This is destributed FREE OF
 >    CHARGE!!!  (but it masses over a megabyte - dont ask for it
 >    to be posted to net.sources or mailed to you!).  Several
 >    people have contributed public domain MAC programs...

I'm certain that I'm not the only one interested in this.  I'd love to 
send a tape to the software owners so that they could distribute it
to me.  Could somebody post the US Mail address of the concerned
people at SUMEX?

Scott Renner
{pur-ee,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!renner