Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats Companion/GFF_CD.ISO/software/mac/nihimage/changes.txt

Text File | 1994-06-01 | 11.3 KB | 254 lines

1.53 (14 January 1994)

1) A command (Project) was added to the macro language for doing
projections. The Project dialog box is displayed only one time (the first
time Project is called) within a macro.

2) A string function (WindowTitle) that returns the title of the active
window was added to the macro language.

3) A bug was fixed that caused Image to display an invalid error message
when attempting to open 16-bit TIFF files with contiguous strips.

4) A bug was fixed that could sometimes cause Image to crash when printing,
particularly when using a macro.

5) A bug was fixed that caused Image to fail to open some TIFF files
created by "little-endian" systems such as the IBM PC.

6) A bug was fixed that caused the Reslice command to fail when the slice
spacing was less than one.

7) The NewTextWindow macro command now accepts optional arguments for
specifying the text window size and the Dispose macro command now works with
text windows. These changes make it easy to write macros that do inline
convolutions,  for example,

  macro 'Sharpen [F]';
  begin
     NewTextWindow('3x3 sharpen',120,120);
     writeln('-1 -1 -1');
     writeln('-1  9 -1');
     writeln('-1 -1 -1');
     Convolve('');
     Dispose;
  end;

8) A bug was fixed that caused the Plot Profile command to work incorrectly
when using a line selection transferred to another image using the Restore
Selection command.

9) A bug was fixed that sometimes caused Image to hang when using the wand
tool with black backgrounds.

10) The Preferences command can now be used to specify the four character
creator code Image uses for exported text files. This code determines which
application is launched when you double-click on an exported text file
(e.g., measurements, profile plot data, XY coordinates). Use 'Imag' for
Image, 'XCEL' for Excel and 'QKPT' for KaleidaGraph.

11) A new command named "Image Math" was added to the Enhance menu for
performing arithmetic and logical operations between two images. The
corresponding macro command has the form "ImageMath('op', pic1, pic2, scale,
offset, ' Result')". The 'op' string should be set to 'add', 'sub', 'mul',
'div', 'and', 'or', 'xor', 'min', 'max' or 'copy'. Pic1 and pic2 are pic
numbers or pid numbers. For each pixel in the selection, the specified
operation is performed, the result is multiplied by 'scale' and then
'offset' is added.   'Result' is the name used for the window created to
store the results. For example, to average two images you could use the
command: ImageMath('add', 1, 2, 0.5, 0, 'Average').

12) When using acquisition plug-ins, Image now uses the window name
specified by the plug-in instead of always using 'Untitled'.

13) A bug was fixed that caused the Results window to sometimes not be
correctly updated when using overlapping windows.

14) The MoveWindow macro command now works with text windows.

15) The SetThresold and AutoThresold macro command no longer cause the LUT
tool to be selected.

16) Image now displays the PrintDialog box when images are selected and
printed using the Finder's Print command.

17) The macro interpreter is now more likely to correctly handle nested IF,
FOR, WHILE and REPEAT statements without the need to use BEGIN-END brackets.
The interpreter also now requires semicolons between statements.

18) A bug was fixed that caused plug-ins with '(', '/' or ';' in their
names to not be listed correctly in the appropriate plug-in submenu.

19) A new command (PasteLive) was added to the macro language that does a
"Live" paste into a selection in a window other than the Camera window. This
new command is useful for making montages of different focal planes of
fluorescent specimens. Use the "Paste Averaged" macro command in "Video" to
do frame averaging of the selection.

20) Image now does a 3-point running average of the XY coordinates to more
accurately estimate perimeters of freehand selections and lengths of
freehand line selections. Measured freehand perimeters and lengths are now
about 10% lower than before. Perimeters reported by Analyze Particles and
the wand tool are now slightly lower (2-3%) than those reported by previous
versions of Image since they are calculated using this new smoothing
routine.

21) A bug was fixed that caused text in text windows to be displayed larger
than expected.

22) The Average Frames command now allows you to specify the min and max
values that control how integrated images are linearly scaled from 16-bits
to 8-bits. The actual 16-bit min and max are always displayed in the Values
menu. There is also a new option that creates a calibration function for
displaying approximations of the integrated 16-bit values.

23) A Boolean function (PidExists) was added to the macro language for
testing the validity of PidNumbers.

24) The "Invert LUT", "Set Number of Colors" and "Set  Extra Colors"
commands in the Options menu were combined into a single command called "Lut
Options...".

25) The Analyze Particles command now displays a dialog box with particle
analysis options that were previously in the Options dialog box. You can
bypass this dialog box by holding down the option key or by using the
AnalyzeParticles macro command.

26) A bug was fixed that could cause profile plots of rectangular
selections in density calibrated images to be incorrect.

27) A command was added to the macro language for making profile plot data
available to macro routines. It has the form
"GetPlotData(count,ppv,min,max)", where count is the number of values, ppv
is the number of pixels averaged for each value, and min and max are the
minimum and maximum values. The plot data values are returned in a built-in
real array named PlotData, which uses indexes in the range 0-4095. The macro
"Plot Profile" in "Plotting Macros" illustrates how to use GetPlotData and
PlotData.

28) The Gel Plotting macros now work with vertical lanes, no longer require
all other windows be closed, do a better job of scaling the lane plots, and
report results in calibrated units such as integrated OD.

29) The SaveAs macro command will now save the contents of text windows.

30) The Save, SaveAs, Close and Dispose macro commands no longer require an
image be open to work with text windows.

31) The Close macro command now works with the Plot, Histogram, Results,
and Video Control windows.

32) The "Import FITS" macro in "Input/Output Macros" now imports both 8 and
16-bit FITS images. It also correctly handles FITS files with headers longer
than 36 lines. There is also a new macro for displaying FITS headers.

33) A new string search function was added to the macro language. It has
the form "index:=pos(substr,str)". It searches for 'substr' within 'str' and
returns an integer that is the index of the first character of substr within
str, or zero if 'substr' is not found.

34) Area and line selection can now be created  more precisely on magnified
images.

V1.54 (1 Feb 1994)

1) A bug was fixed that could cause the Import macro command to fail when
using the "Import All" mode if Import had been previously called in the
macro.

2) The Set Scale command now allows the user to enter an arbitrary unit of
measurement.

3) A plug-in ("Plug-in Digitizer"), written by Cyrus Daboo of Cambridge
University, now allows NIH Image to grab images using the frame grabber
built into the AV Macs or from any other Quicktime compatible digitiser with
a 'vdig' component. It is available as a binhexed. self-extracting archive
by anonymous FTP from zippy.nimh.nih.gov, in the /pub/nih-image/plug-ins
directory. The archive also includes a report on the AV digitizer that
points out some its flaws, such as automatic gain control that can't be
disabled. It also includes Apple's "AV Digitizer Options" extension that
allows the user to switch the AV digitizer into grayscale mode, which
greatly improves the quality of images captured using grayscale cameras.

4) A bug (new in V1.53) was fixed that caused perimeter and freehand length
measurements to be incorrect for spatially calibrated images.


V1.55b61

1) The PasteLive macro command now works with Paste Control.

2) The Find command will now move the cursor to a specified line in a text
window if you enter a search string in the form '#n', where n in a line
number. As an example, to go to line 100, enter '#100'.

3) Load Macros error messages now display the line in the macro file that
caused the error.

4) Routines were added to the macro language for getting the length of a
string and for deleting a substring of specified length. The length function
("i:=Length(str)") returns the length of str. The delete procedure
("Delete(str,index,count)") removes count characters from str, beginning at
index.

5) A bug (introduced in v1.54) was fixed that could sometimes cause images
that had been uncalibrated in the Set Scale dialog box and saved to revert
to being calibrated (to pixels) when reopened.

6) A bug was fixed that caused the macro interpreter to fail to skip over
string assignments used in IF or IF THEN ELSE statements.

7) The LUT tool now moves one level wide density slices if you click
directly on them in the LUT window.

8) A bug was fixed that sometimes caused Plot Profile and Reslice to not
work correctly for line selections extending past the image boundary.

9) A new macro command was added that returns the current spatial scale. It
has the form "GetScale(scale,unit)" where scale (real) is the number of
pixels per unit and unit (a string variable) is the measurement unit. For
uncalibrated images, scale is set to 1 and unit to 'pixel'.

10) A macro command ("AutoOutline(x,y)") was added that is equivalent to
clicking with the wand tool at location (x,y). The outline was successfully
created if GetRoi returns a width greater than zero.

11) The Dither command no longer ignores pixels along the edge of the image.

12) The SaveAs and Export macro commands now accept full path names. For
example, to save the current image in the folder "Images" on the disk named
"hd400" use SaveAs('hd400:images:myimage').

13) A bug was fixed that caused all the slices except the first to be
inverted when importing multi-slice 16-bit images.

14) The Open command now recognizes and opens imported TIFF files of type
'TEXT'. Hold down the option key to display the first 32K of the file as
ascii text.

15) The Cancel button in the Rotate Left and Rotate Right dialog box now
works.

16) A bug was fixed that caused the "24-bit to 8-bit Color" command to fail
with images wider than 2047 pixels.

17) NIH Image now works on grayscale Powerbooks. In fact, it runs with the
monitor set to anything from "Black & White" to "Millions" For best
performance, however, 256 colors (or grays) should be used whenever
possible.

18) The Save Screen command was removed from the File Menu. Use System 7's
built-in screen dump FKEY (command-shift-3) instead.

19) A bug was fixed that sometimes caused calibrated density values to be
incorrect for images opened and processed using a macro.

20) A bug was fixed that sometimes caused "Plug-in Digitizer", and possibly
other acquisition plug-ins, to generate blank images when memory was low.

21) A bug was fixed that sometimes caused enlarged and misplaced text to be
displayed in the Image Math dialog box.

22) The "Values" window was renamed "Status".