AN INEXPENSIVE HYBRID VIDEO IMAGING-SYSTEM

The core components of a low-cost hybrid imaging system are an 80386-b ased computer, a video digitizer board (frame grabber), and a consumer video camera/recorder. With the addition of a rotating mirror (or cho pper), optical filters, and software from the Internet, this system be comes a powerful and versatile diagnostic tool. Although the system is bound by the NTSC or PAL video standards, an understanding of these l imitations allows the development of techniques that fully utilize its characteristic spatiotemporal resolutions. The operation of the syste m is demonstrated via data acquisition from an ac neon Geissler tube. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.