GammaVision
®
v7 (A66-BW) 783620H / 1013
channel corresponds to a narrow range of pulse heights or voltages. As pulses arrive over time, the MCA will collect in memory a distribution of the count of pulses with respect to pulse height
(a series of memory locations, corresponding to ADC channels, will contain the count of pulses of similar, although not necessarily identical, height). This distribution, arranged in order of ascending energies, is commonly referred to as a spectrum. To be useful, the acquired spectrum must be available for storage and/or analysis, and is displayed on a graph whose horizontal axis represents the height of the pulse and whose vertical axis represents the number of pulses at that height, also referred to as a histogram.
GammaVision, combined with multichannel buffer (MCB) hardware (Detector interface) and a
Windows PC, emulates an MCA with remarkable power and flexibility when. The MCB performs the actual pulse-height analysis, while the computer and operating system make available the display facility and data-archiving hardware and drivers. The GammaVision software is the vital link that marries these components to provide meaningful access to the MCB via the user interface provided by the computer hardware.
The GammaVision MCA emulation continuously shows the currently acquiring spectra, the current operating conditions, and the available menus. All important operations that need to be performed on a spectrum, such as peak location, insertion of regions of interest (ROIs), display scaling, and sizing are implemented with both the keyboard (accelerators) and the mouse (menus and toolbars). Spectrum peak searching, report generation, printing, archiving, calibration, and other analysis tools are available from the drop-down menus. Some menu commands have more than one accelerator so that both new and experienced users will find the system easy to use.
GammaVision maintains buffers in the computer memory to which spectra one can be moved for display and analysis, either from Detector memory or from disk, freeing the Detector for another spectrum acquisition. As much as possible, these buffers duplicate in memory the functions of the Detector hardware on which a particular spectrum was collected. Data can also be analyzed directly in the Detector hardware memory, as well as stored directly from the Detector to disk.
GammaVision allows you to open up to eight Detector windows and eight buffer windows at a time.
GammaVision also uses the network features of Windows so you can use and control supported
ORTEC MCB hardware anywhere on a network. See the next section for more information on support for legacy ORTEC instruments in Windows 7.
1.3. PC Requirements and Operating System Cautions
GammaVision is designed for use on PCs that run 64- and 32-bit Microsoft Windows 7 or
Windows XP Professional SP3. In 32-bit Windows operating systems, the GammaVision
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