The Bud Workshop (BW) program The program was written in "steam" C (using MS
Visual C++, v6.0, in 'C only' mode) for the Win32 platform—in other
words, for 'Windows'—and should run in any version of Windows
from '98 onwards. (Sorry, I have nothing for the Mac, or for
Linux. One day, perhaps...) Its image-processing makes heavy
use of a dynamic link library, _ISource21.dll,
from Smaller Animals Software.
(I happily recommend this company to anyone writing image-processing
software for Windows. They offer quality at very reasonable prices.)
This DLL is included in the download, and must be on your system for
the program to work. Help There are *.wav files available. They contain comment and tips
- spoken in the author's Scottish brogue, I regret - to be heard
(at the user's option) while the program is running. They were
developed to help overcome the difficulty of having help-screens overlapping
and hiding the working screens to which they applied, but are somewhat
rudimentary, and the program can do without them. Those who would
like to try them can download them. They should reside in the same directory
as the executable.
Click to Download -
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Bud ArchivesBud Archives are an essential adjunct of the program.It is simply a folder, which can be anywhere in the system (and/or on mapped network drives), and can have any name, provided that name contains the text, "Bud Archive", somewhere. For example, "Main Bud Archive", or "Bud Archive Backup 2", or "Jacks Bud Archive recent" would all be found. The Workshop searches specified drives for Archives and "valid" (properly named) bud files when it is started up, and updates the working Archive with new files that may have arrived since the last session, so the Archives are refreshed at every program launch, but new searches can be initiated in-session at any time. The working Archive records all results obtained, when they are obtained, and these are fetched from it as and when needed by the various Workshop operations. (The Workshop can show and process images that are "invalidly" named, but the results are not recorded in the Archive. This can be useful for testing, and for "dummy runs".) |
InstallationYou will need some way to unzip (extract) the
downloaded files. "Winzip"
is good. All the extracted files can, and probably should,
be placed in the same working directory, which can have any name you
like, along with the executable. I usually give it the same
name as the executable - without the extension, of course. |
What's in a Name?
(Romeo & Juliet, Wm Shakespeare) The program works with images*.bmp or *.jpg)
of real buds. In order that the bud images
can be recognised by the Workshop, and remembered by it,
they need to be "properly named". |
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On Start-upWhen the program starts, the Archivist appears at once, expecting to do a search for bud files, and you should at this point select a drive, or drives, to search, then click on Find Items. The trees will eventually show the items found in the search.You may click on tree items, and you will receive the information the Archive carries on them. If you click on an image item, you will see a list of paths to that image (usually just one). If you click on a path in the list, the preview will show the image on that path, and the Archivist will offer the option of opening that instance for work. |
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If you are
opening the bud image ("an instance")
for work for the first time ever,
then use the "Load
Inst" button. You will be asked to
select a "suite" from a drop-down list. |
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Two Result Windows |
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Once
selected, the image opens in two windows, one on the
left for interactive working, the other on the right for
showing results. If some work has been done on that image in previous
sessions, you will see the results of that work when the image opens.
Otherwise, you can begin that work on the left image, and results will
appear on the right image as they come. The basic idea
is to measure the bud at several
heights between two "poles",
which the user must place where he or she thinks they should be. |
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There
are several result-files
per bud per epoch. Suites |
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Place the PolesAt this point, if an unworked bud image is up, the Poles should be placed first (in any order). -Left click on either "Hi Pole", or "Lo Pole" to get a rotating cursor, -Use the mouse to steer this cursor to where you think the pole should go and -Left click to leave the pole there. (You may re-do it as often as you feel you must to get it right.) -Do this for both poles. The Pole buttons flash, "Not Set", if the poles have
not been placed, and bear yellow ticks (check marks) if they have. |
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There are then two
ways to take or adjust measurements. Method (2)
Profile Tracking - if it works. Sometimes
it doesn't, or works poorly, depending on the quality of the image.
The Workshop traces the profiles,
either semi- or fully-automatically (depending on which mouse button
is held down). One selects a profile by button, places the tracking-cursor
at the bottom of it so as to catch it between the little arrows. One
then may press and hold down
either the left or the right mouse button. |