Scanning and Measuring Projector

Abstract

The Scanning and Measuring Projector (SMP) is a semiautomatic device for making rapid and accurate measurements on bubble chamber or other photographs. The SMP, its human operator, and a general purpose digital computer work together in an integrated system. The operator scans the film and specifies the approximate path of the points to be measured, and the points are accurately digitized by a novel apparatus that sweeps the specified portion of the image across a fixed lattice of reference marks. This paper describes the SMP digitizing mechanism and process, and the configuration of the over‐all system. Also discussed are the pattern‐recognition and time‐sharing aspects of the associated computer program, and its error‐correcting capabilities.