Synchronizing blood vessel response CCD imagery to swept frequency dynamic pressure signals

Harmonic analysis of the pressure and wall responses of a blood vessel exposed to a dynamic pressure input signal required the development of a software application which could properly synchronize the data gathered by two separate microcomputers. In order to accomplish this task, the Pressure-Image Editor was developed. The first computer is used to generate a swept frequency sinusoidal dynamic pressure input signal while at the same time monitoring the resulting response pressures. The second computer is used to record the physical (visual) response of the artery to the pressure signal via a high speed CCD camera and video digitizer. Using the Pressure-Image Editor, 256 animated images along with 65,536 pressure points can be combined and synchronized based on the camera frame rate, input trigger frequency, and any internal timing delays. The Pressure-Image Editor is a object-oriented application written in C++ and includes a window based graphical user interface.