Search the CONFOCAL archive at
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Greetings,
Windows will have a 64 bit build out sometime in the near future, MacOS
Panther should be out soon as well, and Linux is available. 64bit chips
from AMD, soon to come out as well will be backwards compatable with 32
bit application code running natively. Multiprocessor 64-bit
workstations for processing very large datasets have been available from
Sun and SGI for several years already.
The choice of Windows for instrument driving probably has more to do
with buisiness and marketing decisions than with engineering in my
opinion. The 1990's belonged to Windows--during this time usable
turnkey confocal equipment also became more widely available. Back
then, the platform choices were less appealing. Windows had a user
interface that potential customers could relate to, powerful rapid
application development tools and technolgies, and the hardware could be
aquired from the lowest bidder. Apple was going down the tubes for a
while in the 90's as well. Unix was for computer scientists and
engineers and so had a no-nonsense interface and comparatively crude
windowing system. Harddrives couldn't hold big data, fluorescent
proteins were just coming on the scene, spectral-resolution didn't exist
and time-lapse live-cell imaging was not as common as today. In this
context the choice of Windows makes some sense to me.
Since then, there has been a large investment in the Windows code
base for confocal instrumentation--code reuseablility and modular
programming are important to forging ahead in the " bells and whistles"
department. In other words, the ability of software engineers to build
on the existing code base frees up time to write $10k plugins for the
software. The companies with the most extra features available in the
software have a marketing edge in this area. For this reason, I doubt
that existing manufacturers of confocal equipment will stop and rewrite
for cross-platform API's or for a non-windows program. The existing
code base is strongly tied to Microsoft technology (such as the VBA
macro functionality), and I doubt any of the software would be easily
ported. Also, the engineers are used to working with Windows code and
cross-platform programmers are not as readily available. Finally, pc
hardware can be purchased from the low bidder, and there is some more
flexibility where the hardware components are concerned.
From a technology standpoint, Windows is good for playing games.
It's not a scalable choice for heavy-duty image processing and/or
serving, and campus system admins are getting tired of the frequent
security problems. A forward looking solution might take the user
interface/image processing functionality off of the actual machine
controlling the instrument and make it a cross-platform client
application--advanced streaming video codecs and a reasonble network
bandwidth would be required to develop such a solution but I think it
would be possible for the forseeable future. The control
computer/server should be a unix/linux based box and should be
configured for robust high availability. Advisors could remotely
participate in imaging sessions, students and faculty at smaller
institutions could send in samples for imaging during off-peak hours,
etc.. Using a cross platform API like wxWindows or Qt, the clients
could be coded native to Windows, MacOS and Linux at the same time in
c++--the image processing algorithms are likely to be architechture
independant. Scripting could be accomplished with Python instead of
VB. This whole scenario would take a "from the ground up" engineering
effort, but I think it would be a more flexible and forward looking
approach to the problem than just switching from one platform to another.
Steve Paddock wrote:
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> A couple of questions for a Friday afternoon (in Wisconsin at least)..
>
> 1. How many list members would like to see a Mac platform for
> their confocal microscope?
>
> 2. How difficult would this be to implement on an existing
> microscope, Zeiss, BioRad, Leica etc....???
>
> Steve
>
>> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>>
>> Can't resist...
>>
>> When will we see this kind of software running on a 64 bit OS? (yes,
>> think Apple G5!)
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Nico
>>
>
> --
> Steve Paddock, Ph.D.,
> Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
> Dept. Molecular Biology,
> Univ. Wisconsin,
> 1525 Linden Drive,
> Madison, WI 53706.
> Tel: 608 262 7898 (lab.)
> 608 242 7391 (home)
> 608 770 1301 (cell)
> FAX: 608 262 9343
--
Karl Garsha
Light Microscopy Specialist
Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
405 North Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Office: B650J
Phone: 217.244.6292
Fax: 217.244.6219
Mobile: 217.390.1874
www.itg.uiuc.edu
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