Rod Holum wrote: > We have [an x-ray] device we built > http://couleetechlink.com/new2/pano-box
Is this a repackaging of an off-the-shelf x-ray unit? > And we were looking for ways to bypass the need for a PC and go with a > Raspberry PI or Arduino but the connectors and image process is normally > done on a windows software. Is the setup dependent on proprietary drivers or image formats controlled by the x-ray manufacturer? Is that why you are locked to Windows? > It would be nice if we could have the device connect back to our > home base and upload the images securely. What is the ideal setup that you envision? Having the x-ray unit act as an appliance, that captures the image and uploads it, then the end-user views and manages the images via a web interface from any office PC? (That would imply a subscription service.) Are customers going to be tolerant of an x-ray machine that can't be used if the network connection is down? Will the embedded device spool images? How will it give feedback to the user of its state? LCD screen? Maybe a small touch screen? (http://www.adafruit.com/products/335) Have you looked at reverse engineering what the x-ray outputs? What interface does it use to connect to the PC? Serial? USB? If you could figure out how to capture the image data, even if still in a proprietary format, you could run it through a generic compression algorithm on your embedded controller, and upload it, then feed the data into a VM running the manufacturer's software in Windows. (As with most Windows software, you'll likely need to get creative when you try and automate it.) On the other hand, if the Windows software interacts with the x-ray machine, then you've got more protocol you'll need to reverse engineer and emulate on your embedded controller. > ..a Raspberry PI or Arduino... This is likely a high-cost, low volume application, where it wouldn't make sense to expend extra effort to try and squeeze what you want to do into an Arduino. You'd want something at least as capable as a Raspberry Pi, if not simply using a Mini-ITX PC architecture board. I don't think going from a $35 board to a $150 board (w/RAM, CPU, power supply) is going to matter in this application, yet it will speed your development time. -Tom _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list Hardwarehacking@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking