On Thu, 6 Jun 1996, Tom Phillips wrote:
 
> One of our users is collecting z-sections of living cells using our MRC-600
> confocal.  After it collects each individual z-section, it writes the
> information to the hard disk.  This writing takes significant time.  Is
> there an alternative way to save this info until the series is done?
> Thanks.
 
I've run into the same problem. The only way I can figure out how to do
this faster is to buy lots of RAM for your machine, then use the DOS
routines or some other Windows mechanism to turn the ram into a RAM disk.
This gets specified as a "D" drive. Within comos, you'll just specify the
D drive as the drive on which to save the images. You'll be able to save
the images a lot faster than writing to disk, but of course you'll be limited
to available RAM for staorage space.
 
Another alternative might be to simply collect the images and use the
video output, transferring the data to either vidoe tape or some sort of
video disc storage using a frame grabber etc. You'll loose image fidelity
using this approach, but it's a technique that might be applicable in
some situations - ie if your signal/noise ratio is very high, and you're
only concerned with an object's morphology, not the pixel brightness
values. This will also require that you figure out how to get the images
back of the video medium for later analysis. I've managed to use this
trick for a couple of projects, however.
 
Regards,
Eric.