Computer screen assisted digital photography

The computer screen photo-assisted techniques (CSPT) have been developed during the last 10 years through an extensive collaboration between University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and Linköping University in Sweden. CSPT has thus evolved into a concept we now call computer screen assisted digital photography, yielding detailed information about the interaction between color indicators and (volatile) analytes. In the present paper, we give a brief summary of the CSPT concept and its connection to digital photography. We concentrate, however, on the most recent results, which were obtained by using most of the degrees of freedom offered by a computer screen as a light source and a digital (web) camera as a detector. Thus, we describe in detail recent experiments on cotton yarns impregnated with color indicators for volatile organic molecules. The interaction between the color indicators and molecules, like trimethylamine, was investigated by CSPT in high dynamic imaging together with a background noise limiting algorithm. It is shown that the simultaneous use of the last two additions to the CSPT concept considerably enhances the chemical sensing ability of CSPT. It is concluded that the collaboration between Rome and Linköping has generated a useful platform for further developments of chemical analysis with a ubiquitous instrumentation, a (computer) screen and a web camera. This technique is aimed at facilitating the assembly of opto-chemical sensors with evident benefits in the reduction of cost of sensor systems and in an increased integrability with the existent telecommunication infrastructures.