Through a scanner incoherently: Newbie Scanner project and questions

[heroic]

Analog is *far* superior to TTL. With 3 TTL lasers (red, green, and blue), you have a maximum of 7 colors. (Well, 8 if you count "black" as a color.) But with analog, you get 16.7 million colors, which is more than the human eye can perceive anyway.

Actually, you get an infinite number; the resolution of your DAC (and, to a lesser extent, your software's ability to linearize the inherently nonlinear behaviour of most lasers) is the limiting factor.

Also: w00t, 1000 posts.

[buffo]

Actually, you get an infinite number; the resolution of your DAC (and, to a lesser extent, your software's ability to linearize the inherently nonlinear behaviour of most lasers) is the limiting factor.

Right. But since most DAC's only have 8-bit resolution on the color channels, that's 24-bit color, or 16.7 million, no? (Assuming only 3 colors, and ignoring the non-linear modulation behavior of the lasers, which will reduce the total number of colors.)

Even with 16-bit resolution on the color channels, you'd still have a hard limit. (Much higher though!) But yeah, it's all mental masturbation really, since the human eye can't discern more than about 4 million unique colors anyway.

Also: w00t, 1000 posts.

Congrats! And with a broken wrist no less!

Adam