Frequently Asked Questions

System Requirements & Installation

Q. What are the system requirements to run GoldenThread?

A. GoldenThread will run on a PC running Windows 2000, XP and Vista. The performance of the system is directly related to the size of the images that will be processed, but there are no additional requirements from a typical system. To run efficiently, at a minimum, the system should have a 2 GHz processor, 1 Gb of RAM and sufficient hard drive space to hold the images.

Q. Do I need to have Microsoft Access and Excel installed on my computer to run the program?

A. GoldenThread is designed to save all data from each scanned image to a preformatted Excel template. The template includes all charts that are visible on the User Interface of the program. It also includes the aim and tolerance values used in that instance. To save data to the Excel template, Excel must be installed on the computer that is running GoldenThread. In the case where it is not installed, the program will save a text file. But this file is much less useful than the Excel version. All data is also added to an appended file. A similar template to the Excel template is used for this file, but it does not require Access to be installed in order to write to the database (since it’s in a common SQL format). The data can be extracted from this database in a number of ways, but the template and its functionality will only be accessible by using Access.

Q. Can I run your software on a Mac?

A. We have tested GoldenThread with a Macintosh computer that was running Windows and it worked, but we don’t guarantee that all features will work on an operating system other then Windows 2000 to Vista.

Q. What is the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine and why do I need it?

A. Our products are written in a language called LabVIEW by National Instruments. LabVIEW requires specific Dynamic Link Libraries (dlls) to be installed wherever one of its programs is running. We install these libraries with the GoldenThread program if they don’t exist on the target computer already.

Q. How many machines can I install GoldenThread on?

A. Each version of GoldenThread is licensed for a single computer install.

Targets

Q. What is the difference between the object and device-level targets?

A. Object-level targets are intended to be captured along with the object to be digitized. This target is used to capture information about the exact digitized object. The device-level target is used to capture information about the imaging device. When the device-level target is used, there are no other objects in the image.

Q. Why can’t I use the object-level target to check for my imaging device performance?

A. The device-level target includes two critical features that were removed from the object-level targets to save space: multiple SFR features to quantify resolution fall-off and uniformity patches to check that illumination is constant across the field of view of the camera.

Q. How should the targets be stored when not in use?

A. Generally, the targets should be placed back into their plastic sleeves to prevent scratches and kept away from high-intensity light to prevent long-term fading. Materials for both SFR features and the color patches were chosen to resist fading.

Q. Are object-level targets interchangeable within a lab?

A. Yes, both object-level and device-level targets are designed to be interchangeable.

Software

Q. Why am I getting a "Maximum angle exceeded" error when I process an image?

A. In order to calculate an unadulterated Spatial Frequency Response (SFR) from the "slanted-edge" feature of the target, the image pixels cannot interpolate. Interpolation occurs for any rotation that is not a multiple of 90°. So although the image can be placed at 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°, it cannot vary from any of these angles by more than a few degrees without causing the SFR calculation to produce inaccurate results.

Q. What image formats are acceptable to run?

A. JPEG, Tiff, BMP, and PNG are all supported by GoldenThread.

Q. How long does it take to process an image?

A. The processing time depends on the image size and the system performance. On a system that is reasonably sized, the process should take under 1 minute.

Q. What is the difference between manual and automatic analysis mode?

A. Manual mode requires the operator to draw a rectangular Region of Interest (ROI) around the target. Automatic mode uses rectangular coordinates that are specified in the profile. To change the coordinates in the profile, use the “Create/Edit Profile” button on the front panel.

Q. How many images can be selected in automatic mode?

A. The number of test images is limited only by the amount of memory that you have on your system. GoldenThread creates a list of images and runs through the queue one image at a time until all images are done.

Q. Why does the data get saved to Microsoft Access? Isn’t there an easier way to save the data?

A. We decided to use a database to accommodate the amount of data generated by a single image. For the 30 color patches alone, there are well over 250 measurements: 90 RGB values, 90 L*a*b* values, 30 Delta E2000 values, 36 noise values and 24 color neutrality values. To save directly to Excel or to a text file that is imported into Excel, the number of columns cannot exceed 256. We decided to populate a relational database in Access with a simple user interface to extract data as the best means of handling all the data.

The circle and rectangular regions on my test images are not centered on the color patches. What can I do to fix this permanently?

These locations are specified in the test profile as a percentage of the overall size of the target. Changing them is not trivial and we suggest e-mailing a test image to us so that we can create a new test profile.

Shipping and Purchasing

Q. How can I purchase GoldenThread?

A. Our online store accepts all major credit cards, including American Express. You can also make purchases by wire transfer, check or Purchase Order (PO) by contacting our sales office.

Q. Can I download a demo version of GoldenThread software?

A. We only offer a CD version of GoldenThread for purchase at this time.

Q. Can your products be purchased and shipped internationally?

A. Yes, we have many overseas customers who have successfully installed GoldenThread.