These files contain a demonstration copy of Prism (rev. 3.5), the comprehensive high-end program set for image processing and analysis on the Macintosh. The files on the disks are self-extracting archives, which can be dragged to your hard disk and double-clicked to unpack their contents.

The archive PrismDemo contains the PrismView program itself and its preferences file, named '© 1989-1994 Analytical Vision'. The preferences file must be placed at the root level of your System folder for the program to run. The PrismView program itself requires system 7.x, a 256 color display, and at least 8 meg of total ram. It will run in native code on the PowerPC, or on any Mac with 68030 or 68040 (FPU required). As a demo version of the program, this is fully functional except that it will not save or print images. It will load PICT files and will acquire video images if you have a RasterOps frame grabber installed. Support for other framegrabbers is disabled in the demo. The program will perform comprehensive processing and analysis routines, and will save measurement data. The demo program will run for 30 minutes at a time, and may be re-run as desired.

The archive PrismExamples contains several images (PICT files) that may be useful to explore some of the program's capabilities. It also contains several scripts that can be used with these images, and the program PrismScript which is used to run the scripts. PrismScript is run as a second program, along with PrismView, and communicates with it. This is just possible in a Mac with 8 Meg memory if you first reduce the memory partition of PrismView to 4500K. There is another TeachText file in the archive that describes each image and the script contents.

The archive PrismUtils contains examples of three of the kinds of extensions that can be added to Prism. Kernels are neighborhood processing operators that combine pixels arithmetically. PCMDs are externally compiled image processing procedures that perform more complicated operations, such as advanced processing or special displays. Transforms are calculations for special measurement parameters to extend the already rather comprehensive set in the standard program. A Teachtext file in the archive describes the individual utilities and how to make use of them.

The archive PrismCalc contains the data analysis program, along with an example data file and a Teachtext file that briefly describes some representative operations.

The archive PrismManual is the complete operating manual for Prism, in Word 5 format.

Several components of the standard commercial Prism package are not included in this demo package. These include many more utilities of the types discussed above, the extensive on-line help files, and a very fast virtual memory package that uses disk storage.

Prism is written by Analytical Vision, Inc., Raleigh, NC. Its capabilities have been demonstrated in the text and reference books "Computer Assisted Microscopy" (J. C. Russ, 1990, Plenum Press, New York) and "The Image Processing Handbook" (J. C. Russ, 1992, CRC Press, Boca Raton). It is distributed by Signal Analytics, 440 Maple Avenue East, Suite 201, Vienna VA 22180, phone: 703-281-3277, fax: 703-281-2509, and by Improvision (Image Processing and Vision Co. Ltd.), Barclays Venture Centre, Univ. of Warwick Science Park, Sir William Lyons Road, Coventry CV4 7EZ, England, phone (44) 203-692229, fax: (44) 203-690091.