Project Files
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Medical Cosmetic Laser Image Processor |
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Palomar Medical Technologies was developing a handheld cosmetic laser surgical device and wanted to provide a real time enhanced image of the patient’s internal vein structure. The system had to fit into an existing handpiece with minimal modifications, and needed to be smaller than 2.5” x 2.5”. The system had to take minimal power, as there was no airflow and no space for adding a fan. The enhancement imaging software required significant processing capability. |
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System
Overview
Bolton Engineering Inc constructed the Medical Image
Processor around two Analog Devices Dual Blackfin
Processors. One Blackfin captures an image from a
VGA-size color CMOS imager using one of its PPIs
(Programmable Parallel Interfaces), the other Blackfin
outputs the processed image with a User Interface
overlay to an inexpensive PDA-sized (320 x 320) color
TFT LCD over one of its PPIs. The two Blackfins are
linked together via their second PPI’s. The
image-processing algorithm -- designed and coded by
Palomar -- is pipelined to divide the processing into
several stages and processed by the four Blackfin cores.
Each processor has 8megabytes of external Flash memory
and 16megabytes of external SDRAM. Four A/D channels,
four programmable LED current sources, several keyboard
input lines, and a dozen general-purpose I/O lines
interface to external system elements.
The system requires seven on-board voltages to power
the Camera, Logic, DSP Cores, Memory, TFT Display and
TFT backlight; the TFT display requires three of these
supplies to be sequenced. Blackfin timers, coordinated
with the Blackfin PPI LCD DMA data, implement the LCD
timing control lines, significantly reducing the need
for external logic. By synchronizing the image display
to the image capture, the total latency from capture to
display is kept to only two frames.
Project Scope
Bolton Engineering wrote the specification, designed the
schematics, obtained vendor quotes, designed the
10-layer circuit board, wrote diagnostic and driver
software in ‘C’, debugged the system, and delivered six
working prototypes.
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Consumer and Computer
