To understand wind tunnel flow-field turbulence, it is necessary to understand how high speed (kHz) transient events develop in time. The framing rates necessary to record such imagery are too high for conventional video camera systems to be used. While high-speed, film-based cameras (e.g. Cordin drum film recorders) have sufficient spatial resolution and framing rates, analyzing the data acquired with these cameras is time consuming, possibly taking days to process and digitize the film images. These limitations in existing digital imaging technologies, and pulsed flow-field illumination systems have prevented digital movies of phenomena in turbulent and unstable flow-field regions to be made with sufficient spatial and temporal resolution. To address this need, I am presenting two techniques which can record data onto an intermediate optical buffer with the desired temporal and spatial resolution. These optical buffers incorporate real-time erasable recording film which consist of a phosphor or bacteriorhodopsin (BR) that would be used to temporarily store the images which were recorded at kHz rates. These images are then reconstructed and digitized at standard video rates, and stored on an optical disk. The primary advantage of this technique is in the ability to record images at extremely fast rates (60 kHz or faster) and then digitize the images at standard video recording rates.
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