VIPER: a general-purpose digital image-processing system applied to video microscopy

This paper describes VIPER, the video image-processing system Erlangen. It consists of a general purpose microcomputer, commercially available image-processing hardware modules connected directly to the computer, video input/output-modules such as a TV camera, video recorders and monitors, and a software package. The modular structure and the capabilities of this system are explained. The software is user-friendly, menu-driven and performs image acquisition, transfers, greyscale processing, arithmetics, logical operations, filtering display, colour assignment, graphics, and a couple of management functions. More than 100 image-processing functions are implemented. They are available either by typing a key or by a simple call to the function-subroutine library in application programs. Examples are supplied in the area of biomedical research, e.g. in in-vivo microscopy.