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EOCOM, a part of the Gerber Scientific Instrument Company , is the pacesetter with direct imaging systems for printed circuit boards. The LDI™—1500 is its most recent laser‐orientated system, expected to reduce significantly the time taken for PCBs to reach the marketplace. This system eliminates the requirement for film and contact processes by imaging the pattern directly onto the photoresist. Completely accurate images are generated.

To review the concept of digital imaging for PCB manufacturing, with a specific focus on ink‐jet printing technologies.

This paper has been written to provide a review of digital imaging in the PCB industry. The application of ink‐jet printing in PCB manufacturing and the basic technology behind ink‐jet printing is described.

Ink‐jet printing in PCB manufacturing is a new technology, whose benefits and liabilities are still being determined. Although the concept of digital imaging fits a need in the industry for better control over registration, there are still many issues to be addressed for the technology to become widely adopted.

The value of the paper lies in educating the industry in the concepts of ink‐jet printing and the potential benefits it can deliver towards yield improvement and reduced costs in an ever‐more demanding and price sensitive market.

The purpose of this paper is to present the sensing mechanism, design issues, performance evaluation and applications for planar capacitive sensors. In the context of characterisation and imaging of a dielectric material under test (MUT), a systematic study of sensor modelling, features and design issues is needed. In addition, the influencing factors on sensitivity distribution, and the effect of conductivity on sensor performance need to be further studied for planar capacitive sensors.

While analytical methods can provide accurate solutions to sensors of simple geometries, numerical modelling is preferred to obtain sensor response to different design parameters and properties of MUT, and to derive the sensitivity distributions of various electrode designs. Several important parameters have been used to evaluate the response of the sensors in different sensing modes. The designs of different planar capacitive sensor arrays are presented and experimentally evaluated.

The response features and design guidelines for planar capacitive sensors in different sensing modes have been summarised, showing that the sensor in the transmission mode or the single‐electrode mode is suitable for material characterisation and imaging, while the sensor in the shunt mode is suitable for proximity/displacement measurement. The sensitivity distribution of the sensor depends largely on the geometry of the electrodes. Conductivity causes positive changes for the sensor in the transmission and single‐electrode mode, but negative changes for the sensor in the shunt mode. Experimental results confirm that sensing depths of the sensor arrays and the influence of buried conductor on capacitance measurements are in agreement with simulations.

Experimental verification is needed when a sensor is designed.

This paper provides a comprehensive study for planar capacitive sensors in terms of sensor design, evaluation and applications.

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) and electrical resistance tomography (ERT) are promising techniques for multiphase flow measurement due to their high speed, low cost, non-invasive and visualization features. There are two major difficulties in image reconstruction for ECT and ERT: the “soft-field”effect, and the ill-posedness of the inverse problem, which includes two problems: under-determined problem and the solution is not stable, i.e. is very sensitive to measurement errors and noise. This paper aims to summarize and evaluate various reconstruction algorithms which have been studied and developed in the word for many years and to provide reference for further research and application.

In the past 10 years, various image reconstruction algorithms have been developed to deal with these problems, including in the field of industrial multi-phase flow measurement and biological medical diagnosis.

This paper reviews existing image reconstruction algorithms and the new algorithms proposed by the authors for electrical capacitance tomography and electrical resistance tomography in multi-phase flow measurement and biological medical diagnosis.

The authors systematically summarize and evaluate various reconstruction algorithms which have been studied and developed in the word for many years and to provide valuable reference for practical applications.

A detailed multi‐site study has been undertaken to determine the variation in the positional accuracy of circuit features in the manufacture of large panel High‐Density Interconnect (HDI) printed circuit boards. The imaging stages were particularly referenced when it was shown that photo‐tool variation between 7 sites on 19 different photo‐plotters from 3 manufactures differed by substantially more than the typical HDI design rule. After photo‐plotter optimisation the residual errors between them were commonly of 2 types. It was concluded that the errors introduced in the standard photo‐tooling process were such that it was not possible to produce guaranteed yields on large HDI panels. It has been shown that the use of LDI can reduce costs and speed up the photo‐tooling production process. 3 different LDI machines were evaluated to study the concept of large panel high volume production. One was chosen for a long‐term study which concluded that HDI panels up to 30×24″ could be produced with the accuracy required for HDI designs. The output was approximately 9,000 scans per week but the productivity of circuit boards per panel was substantially improved with the larger panel size. It is feasible to double the throughput with the development of improved handling systems.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an automated microscopic imaging database system using a set of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) management functions to provide a secure storage for hispathology images.

The automated microscopy imaging system is composed mainly of four parts, which include: first, tissue biopsy image acquisition system, second, image processing system, third, RFID system, and fourth, SQL database system. The system has two modes of operation to store and manage hispathology images. First, the hispathology slide undergoes fluorescence staining before acquiring images directly from an external CCD camera connected to the system. Second, the hispathogical slides that have undergone fluorescence staining undergo another microscopic imaging system, and the contents are extracted into a digitized image archive and imported to the system. Also, the system not only acquires images but also performs functions such as displacement correction, image superimposition, and calculation of the total number of fluorescence points. The two methods mentioned above produce the hispathology image files and are tagged using an RFID string index to establish and manage the database system.

The results demonstrated that in the impurities were effectively eliminated in the red fluorescence staining after binarization processing. However, the blue ones remained the same and to solve this problem an adjustable threshold allows users to select the appropriate threshold. Using an additional eigenvalue code to the RFID string provides better encryption mechanism for the patient files and any attempt to tamper the file can easily be detected through the comparison of the eigenvalues.

This paper proposes a novel method to implement a more comprehensive, safe, fast, and automated management system for hispathological images using RFID management and image processing techniques. Additional security is provided by including eigenvalues as encryption mechanisms in the Tag string of the RFID.

This paper discusses the Topsat satellite, currently being built by a partnership between DERA Space, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and InfoTerra Ltd (Formerly NRSC). Topsat will have the capability to provide imagery at 25m panchromatic and 5m colour resolution, direct to the user at a mobile ground station, from a 125kg microsatellite in low Earth orbit. Its low‐cost philosophy includes wide use of commercial off‐the‐shelf components and the goal of a one‐year mission life.

In the advertising of self‐projective products, marketers have focused on image advertising. However, today advertisers are integrating direct response with image based advertising, in essence, to “get more bang for the buck”. Hence, the purpose of the study was to investigate direct response advertising in upscale fashion magazines in the European Union as well as the USA. Eight hundred and seventy advertisements of perfumes, women’s apparel and cosmetics were evaluated via the editions of Vogue. Direct response advertisements were most prevalent among advertisements of women’s apparel and primarily in US editions of Vogue. Furthermore, advertisements for perfumes and women’s apparel were image based while advertisements for cosmetics were balanced. Implications of the findings are given regarding advertising fashion products in the European Community.