Introducing Smart

Introducing SMART

SMART is a powerful video-based motor activity analysis system. Using the state-of-the-art digital imaging, SMART converts your PC-computer in a unique tool able to an extremely precise analysis of motor behaviour in experimental animals. SMART makes full profit of the Windows environment, offering a flexible and easy to learn interface.

SMART allows behavioural scientists to be free of the direct observation and manual data collection in a range of experimental situations only limited by the video input.

SMART offers not only spatial position information but also automatic detection of a range of specific behaviours. Able to work either with a single animal in a single arena or with several animals in separate arenas, SMART provides great flexibility and accuracy in the evaluation of motor behaviours.

Smart in short…

The video signal, coming from a video camera located above the experimental set-up, is fed into a computer running the SMART software.
The image is digitised and displayed on the computer monitor, providing direct feedback of what is happening.
The real-time image is also used for interactive design of zones or calibration of the experimental set-up.
SMART stores video images in memory and extracts from it a range of image features, writes the data to a track file on disk, ready for analysis and presents data in the monitor jointly with the real time video image.
Optionally, a video cassette recorder can be also used to store the video signal.
SMART can process indistinctly live video from the camera or pre-recorded video from tape.

System requirements:

PC-compatible computer at 120 MHz (166 or better recommended), with Pentium processor (MMX recommended), PCI bus support, 16 Mb RAM minimum and DirectDraw (DDI) compatible graphic card with overlay capability. Windows 95/98 or NT operating system.
Frame grabber board (Data Translation model DT 3153)
NTSC or PAL colour TV camera (VCR optional)

SMARToffers…

High spatial resolution (512 x 512 pixels), allowing for an extremely sensitive analysis of fine movements. Field of application depends only on the kind of optics being used.
High processing speed (30/25 images/sec, according to the TV standard –NTSC or PAL– being used).
Real time TV images or videotape records indistinct process, making possible to re-analyse experiments using different parameters.
Digitised TV images presented in real time in the computer screen, making unnecessary an additional TV monitor and giving immediate feedback about the analysis process.
Use of full colour images make possible to obtain an extremely high degree of lighting resolution, allowing SMART to be highly sensitive even in conditions of low contrast between subjects and its background.
A complete set of easy to use drawing tools help in zone definition.
Up to 32 different zones can be defined, including target or background masking zones. Zone area can be as small as wanted, obtaining full profit of the spatial resolution. Different zones can be freely combined for analysis purposes.
The use of the most updated image analysis technology, making possible the noise reduction and the elimination of disturbing artefacts, such as faeces or urine.
User adjustable thresholds allowing for the classification of displacement and activity into resting, in situ movements, and ambulatory categories.
A powerful track analyser making easy the attainment of statistics from position data, either referred to the full track and/or to any user-selected portion of it.
The independence between track data and zone definition, that makes possible to analyse a track with as many different zone definitions as wanted.
Developed for operation under Windows95, SMART makes profit of all the data interchange offered by this operating system.
An intuitive environment that makes it quick to learn and easy to use.

Askfor a full catalogue and/or a demo disk!

Ordering information: Both versions can be obtained as complete configurations (including software and all the necessary hardware) or as just software
SMART	Full software version, including the complete set of features available.
SMART- BS	Basic software version. As the full version, but with the tracking capability limited to a single subject in a single arena.

^{info@panlab-sl.com}

SMART is a productdeveloped by

Panlab s.l.
^{c/ Loreto 50
Phone: 34-934190709 Fax: 34-934197145
08029 Barcelona
Spain
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