Using a ColorMouse (and ProfilerPro) 729 times

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If there is anyone else out there who has ignored David Tobie's advice and
is using a Colormouse to measure the 729 patches of the ProfilerPro target,
I have found a few ways of reducing the tedium, reducing the finger-strain,
increasing the accuracy, and allowing detailed comparison of results. If you
are not one of these few impoverished individuals, and can afford racy,
automatic models that do it all for you, you need read no further.

1    The first problem I found with the Colormouse was that it doesn't tell
you when it is reading a patch - you have to guess, or time it while looking
down the hole and then sit there counting seconds for an hour or two. This
does not make for easy use, and if anyone from Colorsavvy is reading this, a
little led on the top that lights up while reading would probably only cost
pennies and might be of some use.

However, since we don't have an led on it, I suddenly had a bright idea one
night. Why not switch on the audio system of my computer (PC) and see if the
Colormouse 'events' produced a noise like other Windows events. Lo and
behold they do. When starting to read, the Colormouse produces a typical
mouse-like squeak, and when finishing the read, a lower-pitch squawk.

After an  hour or so of squeak-squawk, my wife came upstairs and said "what
on earth are you doing". After explaining my brainwave, she went away
shaking her head and muttering. Some people just don't appreciate genius.

But this really does help. As soon as the Colormouse squawks, you can move
it to the next patch, and you know you have to get it in position before it
squeaks. May sound daft, but it works a treat.

2    The next improvement was to use my spreadsheet Excel to receive the
data. Although the Colormouse instructions tell you to setup CSConnect to
input the data straight into a txt file, I find it is much better to tell
CSConnect to have Excel open on screen and input direct to it.  You can then
stop and start when you wish and see where you are at a glance. When you
want to send the data to ProfilerPro, you just tell Excel to save it as a
txt file.

3    Pressing the button on top of the Colormouse 729 times could well cause
RSI (repetitive strain injury) in my experience. There is a way round this.
In CSConnect you can choose Multiple Measurements. This allows you to tell
the Colormouse to take x readings at y second intervals. Don't be tempted to
set it to read 729 patches straight off, as this will not allow for the
occasional scratch, sneeze, cup of tea, or something stronger. I now set it
to read 253 patches straight off (1/3rd of the patches plus 10).  Why the
plus 10? Because as the Colormouse is used from 'cold', it 'warms up' and
the readings change. After about 7 or 8 readings they tend to level off, so
I start with 10 readings on the white edge of the target and then move on
the 11th to the first patch. It's easy to see which were the first ten
readings and simply delete those rows in Excel afterwards.

4    What time interval should you set it to read? Well, if you are high on
caffeine (or worse), you could try one or two seconds, but that doesn't give
you much time to move the mouse into position (especially at the end of a
row) and you may find you are reading strips between the patches if you are
not very careful (I enlarge the target to A3 size). There is also the
problem that when reading fast, the Colormouse readings tend to be less
consistent than when reading slowly. So although mindful of the extra time
it takes, I have now settled on a 4 second interval which seems to be the
best compromise.

5    If you are a real glutton for punishment, having finished a set of 729
readings, you can start again in the next free column of Excel and repeat
the readings a second and third time, and then average the three sets of
data in another set of columns which you finally export to the txt file.
This does get rather tedious, but is clearly a good idea, because repeated
readings on different parts of the same patch can give different readings
(and in the darker patches even repeated readings on the same patch vary
quite considerably).


So, it can be done with some degree of accuracy, but it takes care and time.
While sitting here listening to the squeaks and squawks of my Colormouse,
I've been designing a mechanism that would carry my Colormouse up and down
the rows to take the readings, but I fear the Spectrocam and EyeOne have
beaten me to it! Oh to be rich (or to be able to charge customers!).

Bob Frost.




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