The Aphelion Imaging Software Suite is a software suite that includes three base products - Aphelion Lab, Aphelion Dev, and Aphelion for addressing image processing and image analysis applications. The suite also includes a set of extension programs to implement specific vertical applications that benefit from imaging techniques.
The Aphelion software products can be used to prototype and deploy applications, or can be integrated, in whole or in part, into a user's system as processing and visualization libraries whose components are available as both DLLs or .Net components.
History and evolution The development of Aphelion started in 1995 as a joint project of a French company, S.A., and an American company, Amerinex Applied Imaging, Inc. (AAI) Aphelion's image processing and analysis functions were made from operators available from the KBVision software developed and sold by Amerinex's predecessor, Amerinex Artificial Intelligence Inc. In the 1990s, the XLim software library was developed at the Center of Mathematical Morphology of Mines ParisTech, and both companies carried out its development tasks.
The first version of Aphelion was completed and released in April 1996. Successive versions were released before the first official stable release in December 1996 at the Photonics East conference in Boston and the Solutions Vision show in Paris in January 1997, where at the latter it competed with Stemmer Imaging's imaging toolbox.
In 1998, version 2.3 of Aphelion for Windows 98 was released, and its user base was growing in both France and the United States. Version 3.0, totally rewritten to take advantage of Microsoft's then-recent ActiveX technology, was officially released in 2000. It also became available as a « Developer » version, for rapid prototyping of applications using its intuitive and the macro recording capability, and a « Core » version, including the full library as a set of ActiveX components to be used by software developers, integrators and original equipment manufacturers ().
As AAI turned its focus to security, in 2001, ADCIS took the lead on developing Aphelion. focused on millimeter wave scanners for concealed weapon detection at airports, and eventually merged with Millimetrics to become Millivision.
In 2004, specified version 4.0 of Aphelion. The set of image processing/analysis functions was rewritten one more time to be compatible with the .NET technology and the emergence of 64 bit architecture s. In addition, the was redesigned to address two usage types: a semi-automatic use where the user is guided through the different steps of functions, and a fully automatic use where the expert user can quickly invoke imaging functions. Its first release was presented at the exhibition in Birmingham, the same year. During the Vision Show in Paris in October 2008, the new Aphelion Lab product was launched for users that are not specialists in image processing. It is easier to use, and only includes fewer image processing functions. It was then included in the Aphelion Image Processing Suite, consisting of Aphelion Dev (replacing Aphelion Developer), Aphelion Lab, Aphelion (replacing Aphelion Core), and a set of extensions.
Nowadays, is still working on the suite, and updated versions with new extensions and functionalities continually become available from the websites of both companies. In 2015, support was added for very large images and scan microscope images (virtual slides compound into a very large JPEG 2000 image) for high throughput imaging, and new specific extensions were also added. In late 2015, announced Aphelion's port for tablets and smartphones, for vertical applications.
The name "Aphelion" comes from the astronomical term of the same name, meaning the point on a planet rotating around the Sun where it lies farthest from it, applying the term in a metaphorical sense. Unix was the operating system used on scientific workstations in the 1990s, such as on the workstations manufactured by market leader Sun Microsystems, which Windows suite Aphelion was quite removed from.
Description
Aphelion is a software suite to be used for image processing and image analysis. It supports 2D and 3D, monochrome, color, and multi-band images. It is developed by , a French software house located in Saint-Contest, Calvados, Normandy.
Aphelion is widely used in the scientific/industry community to solve basic and complex imaging applications. First, the imaging application is quickly developed from the Graphical User Interface, involving a set of functions that can be automatically recorded into a macro command. The macro languages available in Aphelion (i.e. BasicScript, Python, and C#) help to process batch of images, and prompt the user if needed for specific parameters that are applied to the imaging functions. All Aphelion image processing functions are written in C++, and the Aphelion user interface is written in C#. C++ functions can be called from the C# language thanks the use of dedicated wrappers.
The main principle of image processing is to automatically process pixels of a digital image, then extract one or more objects of interest (i.e. cells in the field of biology, inclusions in the field of material science) and compute one or more measurements on those objects to quantify the image and generate a verdict (good image, image with defects, cancerous cells). In other words, starting from an image, pixels are processed by a set of successive functions or operators until only measurements are computed and used as the input of a 3rd party system or a classification software that will classify objects of interest that have been extracted during the imaging process.
An acquisition system such as a digital camera, a video camera, an optical or electron microscope, a medical scanner, or a smartphone can be used to capture images. The set of values or pixels can be processed as a 1D image (1D signal), a 2D image (array of pixel values corresponding to a monochrome or color image), or a 3D image displayed using volume rendering (array of voxels in the 3D space) or displaying surfaces by using 3D rendering. A 2D color image is made of 3 value pixels (typically Red, Green, and Blue information or another color space), and a 3D image is made of monochrome, color (indexed color are often used), multispectral, or hyperspectral data. When dealing with videos, an additional band is added corresponding to temporal information.
The Aphelion Software Suite includes three base products, and a set of optional extensions for specific applications: Aphelion Lab: Entry-level package for non-experts in image processing. It helps to quickly segment an image in a semi-automatic or manual ways, and compute a set of measurements computed on objects of interest that have been extracted during the segmentation process. A set of wizards guides the user from image acquisition to report generation. Aphelion Dev: Full imaging environment including over 450 functions to develop and deploy an application that involves image processing and analysis. It also includes a set of macro-command languages to automate any application to be invoked from the user interface. It also helps to run the imaging algorithm on more than one image that are stored on disk, available on the network, or captured by an acquisition device. Aphelion libraries for image processing and visualization are provided in Aphelion Dev as DLLs and .Net components. Aphelion : A set of libraries to develop a stand-alone application with a custom interface based on the Aphelion libraries. This software development kit including display, processing and analysis functions that can be used by software developers and s. It is provided as DLLs and .Net components. The stand-alone application is typically developed in C# on one computer, and then deployed on multiple s and systems.
A set of optional extensions can be added to the « Aphelion Dev » product, depending on the application. An evaluation version of Aphelion can be run on a for 30 days. A permanent version of Aphelion is available based on a perpetual license. Upgrades are available through a maintenance agreement based on a yearly fee. Technical support is provided by the engineers who are developing the product.
The goal of image processing is usually to extract object(s) of interest in an image, and then to classify them based on some characteristics such as shape, density, position, etc. Using Aphelion, this goal is achieved by performing the following tasks: Load an image from disk or acquire an image using an acquisition device. Enhance the image removing noise or modifying its contrast. Segment the image extracting objects of interest to be measured and analyzed. Typically, for simple applications, a threshold is performed to generate a binary image. Then, morphological operators are applied to clean the image and only keep objects of interest. Finally, a label value is given to each object based on its connectivity (4 or 8 connectivity when a square grid is used), and the background of the image is given value zero. The set of objects can be manually edited by the user to remove artifacts, and alter their edges. Objects can then be measured in terms of shape, color, densitometry, and then classified using the measurements. What has been developed above for one image can be applied to a batch of images thanks to the use of the macro-commands available in the Aphelion User Interface. It helps to generate more measurements and get a more robust algorithm working on multiple images. Statistical analysis can be performed on the measurements and classifiers can be trained if the number of objects is large enough and if descriptors or measurements are available to classify objects into classes or categories.
Applications The Aphelion Imaging Software Suite is used by students, researchers, engineers, and software developers in many application domains involving image processing and computer vision, such as: security (surveillance, object tracking) remote sensing quality control for the industry and inspection applications materials science life sciences (medicine and biology) earth science (geology) theory (image processing, machine learning and optimization)
Security Aphelion has been used in the field of video surveillance involving multiple cameras. An application has been developed to monitor a subway in a capital city (corridors, platforms, etc.). Another application has been developed to count the number of people entering/exiting a room. Aphelion can also be used to monitor traffic on roads, and analyze trajectories of moving objects. In the fields of robotics and computer vision, the software can be used to detect static and moving objects such as vehicles, and moving targets. Aphelion has been used in portable devices to read car license plates. also used the Aphelion to perform 3D reconstructions of 2D shapes and estimate the weight and the volume of the 3D object.
Remote sensing Aphelion is used to automatically detect roads, buildings, agricultural fields in satellite images. The software can also be used to analyze the surface of the Sun. Satellite images are usually multi band images, and contain information that the human eye cannot see. In addition, they are usually digitized on more than 8 bits. In remote sensing applications, hyperspectral images are commonly used (infrared and ultraviolet). They help to extract some specific contrast areas in known wavelengths.
Quality control and inspection