This Dolch P.A.C. was owned by Dr. Barry Richmond, Chief of the Neural Coding and Computation Section in the Laboratory of Neuropsychology at NIMH. His laboratory studies the how information is encoded by single neurons, and as a result of this work, the laboratory developed an algorithm able to decode real-time neuronal firing in order to deliver real-time commands to a prosthetic device. [14.0004.001]
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The National Cancer Institute Real Time Picture Processor
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Photograph of the Quantimet-TV and control-console for the RTPP using the BMON2 software. This was taken after we had moved the RTPP to the Park Building in Rockville, MD. (Reproduced from a figure with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives, 1980
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The Real Time Picture Processor (RTPP) was one of the first special-purpose hardware computers developed for grayscale image processing and was designed to aid in biological image analysis. It was developed at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Many properties of biological materials can be visualized directly using microscopy, electrophoresis, or other visualization mechanisms. The image subjects may have been improved before digital image capture using various detection-enhancement methods (such as stains, dyes, autoradiography, phase-contrast, interference microscopy, etc.) to visualize the data of interest. Digital image processing (see wikipedia.orgImage Added and dictionary.comImage Added entries) is a method for the separation, detection, and quantification of the objects of interest in biological materials. Quantified data helps scientists perform more rigorous analyses of their biological experiments and improve the conclusions of their analyses.
There are two major goals of this history: to document the events and conditions that led to the creation of one of the first grayscale image processors, and to describe the highly effective complementary collaboration that alloAsilomar Third Engineering Foundation Conference on Automated Cytologywed this project to flourish. Occasionally, references will be made to other later advances indirectly related to the RTPP work that would not have happened without the RTPP.
