[OpenSPIM] Besides firewire, is there any reason to use a MacBook to SPIM?

[Ulrik Günther]

Hi Kevin,


> On Mar 14, 2017, at 5:21 PM, Kevin Jones <kevjon at umich.edu> wrote:
> > Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I figured the macBook recommendation was a bit dated. We will use a desktop system with a high-end graphics card and fast SSDs for post processing, I am considering something like: Core i7-6700 ; 32GB RAM, (2-4) 500 GB SSDs; Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080. 
> 
> However, we also want to make a transportable version so that the scope can be shared with other groups. Having said that, do you have any recommended specs for a laptop? 
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The specs for the workstation look good. NVMe SSDs offer lower latencies and higher transfer rates, as they connect directly to the PCIe bus instead of SATA, I’d take these — especially as they are not as expensive anymore as they used to be. If you can get 64 GB of RAM, do it. You are not going to regret having more memory available when processing your data, especially if you acquire multiview data.


Regarding the notebook for a transportable solution, it depends on how powerful you want it to be. For the Suitcase OpenSPIM we use for demo purposes, we still use the “original” MacBook sometimes, it is sufficient for simple tasks, such as demoing the microscope at outreach events.
 
But if you want to put a USB3.0 sCMOS camera in the mobile version, I’d aim for a mobile workstation-type notebook, like these: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m7710-workstation/pd


Instead, if you only want to use a lower data-rate camera, like the Thorlabs DCC3000 series USB3 cams, a regular consumer notebook with about 8GB of RAM, and an SSD is sufficient.


What cameras do you plan to use on the systems?


Hope this helped!


cheers,


ulrik

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