We've developed Windows software that might be useful to the occasional visitor. If you have questions about how to use the programs, please contact us.
| Software | Description |
|---|---|
| ImageSeg | Sometimes an image is too large to print on a single sheet of paper. I use ImageSeg to automatically segment the image into smaller pieces that will fit. For example, I had a large image containing a pattern for a stained glass project. The 75 dots/inch pattern was about 7 feet long and 1.5 feet wide. ImageSeg divided the original file into 16 smaller files that could each be printed on a page. I trimmed the margins from the pages, then taped them together to obtain the hard copy of the complete pattern. There is no installation program, so just place ImageSeg.exe in a convenient location and double click on the icon to start it. |
| FilterMix | Images sent back to earth by the Mars rovers are available from the NASA website. These are monochrome images, each taken through a particular optical filter that passes a known bandwidth of light. The monochrome images need to be properly combined to create a color image. When they are combined correctly, the colors on Mars are approximately reproduced. The FilterMix program takes three monochrome files as input, and assigns the values from corresponding pixels to the red, green, and blue channels of a new color image. Also included in the download are three calibration images (from filters L4, L5, and L6) appropriate for the red, green, and blue channels. You can use these images to become familiar with the program. Click here to see a correct rendering of the color image. There is no installation program, so just place FilterMix.exe in a convenient location on your computer and double click to run it. |
| ConvertPic | Let's say you've taken some great digital pictures and you want to share them with others via email, but the available bandwidth can't easily handle the large picture sizes. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of all the pictures in a folder at once. ConvertPic.exe does just that. There is no installation program, so you just place ConvertPic.exe in a convenient location on your computer, like maybe your desktop. Then double click on the icon to start it. It's fairly obvious how to use the program. Use the Browse button to browse to the folder containing the pictures you want to convert. Then, choose how you want the size to change by specifying the absolute height of the pictures in pixels, or the percentage change in size that you want (100% means no change, 50% means half size, and 200% means double size, etc). Then press the Convert button. The converted pictures are put into a "Resized" subfolder, so the original pictures are not replaced. That is, if the Source folder is C:\blahblah\, the converted pictures will be in the C:\blahblah\Resized\ folder. Of course, you can change this Results folder name to some other name after selecting the Source folder. Note that if you make the Results folder the same as the Source folder, the original pictures will be replaced by the resized pictures. When the pictures are reduced in size, the Interpolation Method chosen does not affect picture quality much, but the time it takes to do the conversion can differ. However, when the pictures are enlarged, the interpolation algorithm you choose does affect quality. The default Bilinear 2 method works well in most cases, but feel free to experiment by comparing the effects on picture quality. After the conversion, look at the resized pictures using your default picture viewer or a program like Irfanview. If you are not happy with the result, repeat the process with different settings. If you use the same Results folder name as before, the recently resized files will be replaced with the new ones. |
| Stereo Audio Tool | The Stereo Audio Tool was developed to facilitate creation of audio files consisting of multiple components of varying complexity. The original idea was to make stimuli for psychoacoustical experiments. However, you may have your own reasons for wanting such files, so the program is made available here. See the accompanying help file for further instructions. |
| Parabola | There was a time when we needed to fit a parabola to three arbitrary points in a two-dimensional space. It took a bit of effort to work out the algorithm, and we thought we might save someone else the trouble by making it available here. The accompanying zip file contains the source code (C++) and executable of a program designed to graphically test the algorithm. Simply identify three points by clicking with the mouse, then press the Draw Parabola button. Then identify a new point and repeat, etc. Careful, this could be a toy. |