rivers@bnlux1.bnl.gov (mark rivers) (05/08/91)
Digital Palette Driver for IDL and PV-WAVE
DEVICE DESCRIPTION
The Polaroid Digital Palette (DP) Model CI-5000 is a high resolution color film
recorder which is designed to produce high quality slides, prints and overhead
transparencies. It has programmable resolutions up to 4096x3600 pixels and
connects to a host computer via the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) bus.
The DP supports four camera backs:
1) 35 mm
2) Autofilm
3) Pack film
4) 4x5 film
All exposure parameters are also programmed digitally, which leads to very
reproducible exposure control.
Mechanically the device consists of a high-resolution monochrome CRT with a
motorized color filter wheel. The red, green and blue images are exposed
sequentially using the appropriate color filter. The Digital Palette has
internal film tables which support about 20 different films. Exposure parameters
(time and CRT brightness) for each color are optimized in these tables for
the speed and color balance of each film.
OVERVIEW OF THE PV-WAVE AND IDL DRIVER
The PV-WAVE and IDL driver for the Digital Palette supports all of the
standard graphics and imaging routines. It allows access to most of the advanced
features of the Digital Palette including programmable resolutions, fine-tuning
of image position and size, and continuous background fill.
The DP driver works as follows:
1) A bitmap image of your plot is constructed in the computer memory.
2) When the DEVICE,/EXPOSE command is issued the internal bitmap is
put through the current lookup table and converted to red, green, and blue
images which are sent to the device one at a time.
The Digital Palette driver is currently only available for VAX/VMS. It uses the
VMS Generic SCSI Class Driver (GKDRIVER) to communicate with the Digital
Palette. To port it to UNIX one would only need to re-write the lowest level
routines which do the actual SCSI I/O. However, this is probably not a trivial
task.
Anyone who would like a copy of the driver should send me e-mail at the address
below.
--
Mark Rivers (516) 282-7708 or 5626
Building 815 rivers@bnlx26.nsls.bnl.gov (Internet)
Brookhaven National Laboratory rivers@bnl (Bitnet)
Upton, NY 11973 BNLX26::RIVERS (Physnet)