Hi,

My guess is that this is to do with the availability of contiguous  
address space rather than RAM. A 32-bit Windows computer makes 2 GB of  
address space available to applications, this can be increased to 3 GB  
with a switch in the boot.ini file. It doesn't matter how much RAM you  
have (or don't have) in your computer, these are hard per-process  
limits that date from when 2 GB of storage was an unimaginably large  
amount that nobody would ever fill.

Unfortunately, the story gets even worse. The 2 (or 3) GB of address  
space is not empty - Windows may load libraries at various points in  
that address space, fragmenting it into smaller contiguous blocks. If  
you perform operations that allocate and free memory, this may cause  
further fragmentation. The upshot of this is that your process might  
have 1.9 GB of free address space, but no blocks big enough to work  
with your 600 MB dataset.

There are some strategies that you might try to get around this - I  
would definitely check with Zeiss first though as they may not be  
compatible with Zen!

* Increase the address space available to applications by using the / 
3GB switch and by making sure the page file is big enough. There are  
some instructions on our website that describe how to do this - they  
apply to Volocity but should apply equally to Zen:

http://www.improvision.com/support/tech_notes/detail.php?id=356

* Restart the application just before starting the acquisition and  
save immediately afterwards. This helps to ensure that address space  
fragmentation is minimised.

Please note - I *really* would talk to Zeiss before changing the /3GB  
switch. Increasing the address space for applications decreases the  
space available for drivers. I would make sure that there will be no  
driver issues on your system as a result of making this change and  
that they have tested against this configuration.

In the end, the best solution for working with large datasets is a 64- 
bit application running on a 64-bit operating system such as Windows  
XP x64 or Vista x64. With 64-bit systems the address space available  
to applications is generally limited only by available disk space and  
this problem will go away. The challenge with 64-bit is that the OS,  
application and all the drivers have to be 64-bit for everything to  
work!

There's some more information on 64-bit here (the second link is  
commercial interest!):

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/64-bit.aspx
http://www.improvision.com/support/simon_vipoir/tips/detail.php?id=57

Cheers,

Steve

On 28 May 2009, at 12:12, Guy Cox wrote:

> By my rough calculation your stack will be ~600MB, so you would seem  
> to have enough RAM to hold the image and a same-size buffer with  
> plenty to spare.   So it looks like a software issue - maybe the  
> program has allocated 1GB, which will not hold your stack twice  
> over, so when it moves it from work-space to buffer there isn't  
> enough room.  The 710 is a fairly new system so I guess there will  
> be fairly frequent software upgrades, and your best bet would be to  
> make sure Zeiss are aware of the issue.  Meanwhile, try other stack  
> sizes till you find out the limit.
>
>                                       Guy
>
>
>
> Optical Imaging Techniques in Cell Biology
> by Guy Cox    CRC Press / Taylor & Francis
>    http://www.guycox.com/optical.htm
> ______________________________________________
> Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
> Electron Microscope Unit, Madsen Building F09,
> University of Sydney, NSW 2006
> ______________________________________________
> Phone +61 2 9351 3176     Fax +61 2 9351 7682
> Mobile 0413 281 861
> ______________________________________________
>     http://www.guycox.net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask] 
> ] On Behalf Of Matiar Jafari
> Sent: Thursday, 28 May 2009 8:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Zeiss Zen 2008 w/ LSM 710 crashing issue
>
> Dear Confocal List Serv Users,
>
> I was wondering if you guys could help me with an issue I've ran  
> into now TWICE.  When I shoot a 6 micron z stack with pixel settings  
> of
> .029x.029x.086(.09) with averaging of 8 lines at a speed of 8
> 2048x2048 16 bit file after the image is done I can see a 3D render  
> fine etc and i see my image after 59 pain staking minutes of waiting  
> i go to click save and when i click save the entire program crashes  
> and i get the error windows you see attached in this email and  
> uploaded in the link below.  Any advice and help would be GREATLY  
> appreciated.
>
> one of the errors is: "Not enough storage is available to process  
> this command."
>
> http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8689/50043540.jpg
>
> Thank You
> --
> Matiar Jafari
>
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> 15/05/2009 6:16 AM
>
>
> Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> Checked by AVG.
> Version: 7.5.560 / Virus Database: 270.12.26/2116 - Release Date:  
> 15/05/2009 6:16 AM
>

Steve Baxter
R&D CoE Leader
Improvision, a PerkinElmer Company
[log in to unmask]
+44-2476-698115

Image Processing and Vision Company Limited (trading as Improvision)  
is a company registered in England and Wales with company number  
2505778.  VAT number GB536188722.