.. _computer-home:

###############################
Computer Specifications
###############################

Modern scientific cameras are capable of capturing images at very high frame rates.
For example, the Orca-Lightning from Hamamatsu, when imaging a region of interest of
4608x128, can image at 2203 frames per second, totalling 1.3 terapixel per second. It
is important to have a computer that can handle this data rate. For many applications, we recommend Colfax International's SXP9000 workstation, which
includes several convenient features, including:

-   A large number of high-speed peripheral slots. While originally designed to host
    GPU cards, these slots can be used for other high-speed peripherals, such as frame
    grabbers.
-   A high-speed NVMe SSD, which can achieve upwards of 20 GB/s under ideal
    conditions.
-   10GbE LAN - 10G Ethernet or faster, if supported by your institution, is highly
    recommended for transferring data to and from the computer. This computer provides
    this high-speed connection without necessitating an additional network card, freeing
    up precious space in the computer.
-   USB-C ports that can be used for image display, keyboard, and mouse. Again, by
    eliminating the need for a graphics card, available space is available to other
    peripheral devices.
-   Redundant power supplies - in the event of a power supply failure, the computer will
    continue to operate. Moreover, they will be able to drive some of the more power-hungry
    components, such as frame grabbers.
-   Aggressive cooling - the computer is designed to handle the heat generated by the
    high-speed components.

---------------

Standard Build
______________

A general build for a imaging computer is as follows:

-   Windows 10 Pro. This is the most common operating system for scientific imaging
    applications.
-   2x Intel Xeon Silver CPUs Total of 16 Cores/32 Threads @ 3.2GHz. Higher speeds,
    and a greater number of cores is advantageous but expensive.
-   128 GB of 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM. This is more than sufficient for most applications.
-   800 GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Used to host and run the operating system.
-   20 TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD. Used as a 'cold storage' for long-term data storage.
-   NVIDIA T1000 Video Card. This is a low-end video card that can be used to drive
    displays and perform some basic image processing. The priority for this computer
    is driving the microscope and acquiring data, so a high-end video card is not necessary.
-   Intel X710-T2L 10GbE Card. If the motherboard does not provide 10GbE, this card can
    be used to provide high-speed network connectivity.
-   7.68 TB NVMe SSD. Used as the primary data drive.

.. note::

    Recently, Hamamatsu released a Linux driver for their cameras. Linux
    provides several advantages to Windows-based operating systems, including read
    and write operations with lower overhead. This is especially important for next-generation
    file formats, such as N5, OME-Zarr, and Zarr, all of which break large
    images up into smaller 'chunks' that can be read and written independently. To
    learn more, we recommend reading
    `Moore et al. 2021 <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34845388/>`_, and
    `Moore et al. 2023 <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37428210/>`_.