Frequency pulse divider for optical mapping
Published: 7 October 2014
Optical mapping experiments use a dual camera setup (Redshirt and Dalsa camera) to capture changes in electrical and movement activity of rabbit hearts. During these experiments it is vital that the two cameras run synchronously, but are capturing images at two different temporal rates. This system uses an ucontroller with embedded software to change the number of input pulses counted before an output pulse is initiated.
Optical mapping experiments use a dual camera setup (Redshirt and Dalsa camera) to capture changes in electrical and movement activity of rabbit hearts. During these experiments it is vital that the two cameras run synchronously, but are capturing images at two different temporal rates.
To capture the electrical activity, it is necessary to run the camera at a high temporal rate (i.e. 5000Hz). To compensate for this the camera typically has to capture images at a lower spatial resolution. However, in capturing movement activity it is important that the camera is capturing images with a high spatial resolution. Therefore to compensate for this factor the camera typically has to run at a significantly lower temporal rate (i.e. 125Hz).
This system uses an ucontroller with embedded software in order to change the number of input pulses (different divider ratios can be set via the keypad) counted before an output pulse is initiated. For example setting the divider ratio to 8 would divide 5000Hz (high rate camera) to 125Hz (low rate camera).
Using the frequency pulse divider device will allow input pulses from the high rate camera to be counted so that for every n input pulses the device will produce a single pulse out as close as possible in timing to the nth input pulse.
First published: 7 October 2014