Nope

Last week I finished writing a new slope calculation script based on idea of using 2 linear operators and dividing the result. IS this faster than looping through each sub-aperture in Matlab? Nope.

The problem is that the matrix to calculate the unnormalized slopes is 2N*M, where N is the number of sub-apertures and M is the total number of pixels in the image. Since the WFS has around 1600 sub-apertures, and the image is more than 1000x1000, this matrix is gigantic. Even though its sparse, it takes up more than 1.5 MB of space. The matrix to calculate the total intensity of each sub-aperture is around the same order of magnitude, so combined the script has to load over 2MB of data each time a WFS image is captured. This takes more than a second in Matlab, so that option is off the table for now. Simply loading them into the workspace beforehand and passing them to the script is much faster, but still around the same speed as using loops.

Ultimately, when I get the DM working faster (still waiting for word on that from the manufacturer), I'll have to write the slope algorithm as a mex file and run it in C. What's another wasted week?