Q+A CENTER

To ensure not only a presence but prominence in the ever-evolving software market, imaging vendors strive to anticipate industry trends and then position their products accordingly.

In preparation for this article, we queried a large sampling of companies (culled from our Annual Buyers' Guide). On the following pages, we present the responses and review diverse renowned software offerings that run the gamut from R&D and machine vision, through bioscience, image compression, medical imaging, simulation and on to infotainment.

AccuSoft Corp. (Northborough, Mass.) reports steady demand for ImageGear, the firm's software development kit (SDK). ImageGear enables programmers to accelerate imaging solutions using fully managed code under Microsoft's .NET Framework and Windows Vista operating system environments. It integrates with Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (included with .NET Framework 3.0) to support User Interface Elements and HD Photo (formerly Windows Media Photo).

This summer, AccuSoft began shipping an enhanced version of the SDK that features Microsoft's Direct3D 10 and the ability to handle comprehensive image and digital camera RAW files. ImageGear ingests all major formats including BMP, DICOM, EPS, GIF, JPEG, JP2/JPX/MJ2, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIFF and advanced XML annotation for detecting and correcting images; plus barcode recognition, character identification and TWAIN scanning, as well as colorspace, pixel transformation, frequency domain processing and automatic image correction. Two of AccuSoft's other specialized toolkits, ImageGear Professional and ImageGear MD, now take advantage of Windows Vista, JPIP (JPEG 2000) compression, medical waveforms (e.g. electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms) and CAD (computer-aided design) and PDF (portable document format) files.

Andor Technology's (Belfast, Northern Ireland & South Windsor, Conn.) live-cell imaging software, iQ, imparts performance, flexibility and control for their back-illuminated iXon electron multiplying CCD‑camera. The multidimensional software affords tools to analyze, process, visualize and manage multi-channel, time-series, Z-series and multi-field experimental data. Additionally, owing to its ImageDisk technology, iQ Software contends quickly and transparently with gigabit-sized data sets.